“Fantastic” find in a grave: the oldest note “from the other world” was discovered

Inscriptions scratched into an ancient knife, discovered by an archaeologist in a grave on the Danish island of Funen, date back 2,000 years and are recognized as the oldest runes in Denmark.

Archaeologists have discovered an engraving on a knife dating back almost 2,000 years that is believed to be the oldest runes ever found in Denmark, The Guardian writes.

The runic inscription – the alphabet of Denmark’s oldest written language – was engraved on an 8-centimeter iron knife found in a grave under an urn near the city of Odense on the island of Funen. Five hieroglyphs, each about 0.5 cm high, followed by three grooves, mean “hirila”, which means “small sword” in Old Norse.

Together with an inscribed bone comb found nearby in 1865, these marks on the knife are the oldest runes ever found in Denmark. Jacob Bonde, the city museum curator and archaeologist who made the discovery, said he initially thought it was an ordinary knife because there were no runes visible, but after it was cleaned by restorers it became clear that a word had been scratched into it.

“It’s like receiving a note from the other world, from the past. “This is an extraordinary find for us and says something about the development of the earliest Scandinavian language,” he said. “And for me personally, it’s fantastic that I made this discovery.”

The inscription is believed to refer to the knife and not to the owner, about whom nothing is known other than that he was likely someone of high status in society.

Jacob Bonde said that such people were strongly influenced by the Romans: “This is the period when we in Denmark had many connections with the Romans, and those who held high positions in society tried to look like Romans, so to speak, by importing things and presenting themselves on display in Roman style. Everything Roman was very much in fashion.”

The knife, which will be on display at the Odense Museum in Mentergarden from February 2, will be shown along with other artifacts found at the excavation site, The Guardian notes.

The knife is thought to predate the jellies in Jutland by 800 years, including one erected by King Harald Bluetooth around 965 in memory of his parents. The inscription on the stone, often called the “Danish birth certificate,” describes Harald’s achievements and contains the oldest image of Christ in Scandinavia.

Lisbeth Ymer, a runologist at the National Museum of Denmark, said the find could help teach more about the country’s history.

“It is incredibly rare for us to find runes as old as those depicted on this knife, and this gives us a unique opportunity to gain more knowledge about Denmark’s earliest writing – and therefore about the language that was actually spoken in the Iron Age. century,” she said. – During this period of history, reading and writing were not particularly widespread, meaning that the ability to read and write was associated with both special status and power. At the dawn of runic history, those who could write constituted a small intellectual elite.”