The age of the artifact is 2000 years
Inscriptions scratched on an ancient knife, discovered by an archaeologist in a grave on the Danish island of Funen, date back 2000 years and are recognized as the oldest runes in Denmark.
< img src="https://static.mk.ru/upload/entities/2024/01/23/10/articles/detailPicture/f9/97/e6/cf/c7211ddb01e324ad8d76f09cc16ccbfc.jpg" class="article__picture-image" alt ="The age of the artifact is 2000 years" /> Photo: Museum Odense
Archaeologists have discovered an engraving on a knife dating back almost 2,000 years that is believed to be the oldest runes ever or found in Denmark, writes The Guardian.
Runic inscription – alphabet of the oldest written language of Denmark – was engraved on an 8 cm 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.< /p>
“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 except that he was probably someone then with a 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 exhibiting showing off oneself in Roman style. Everything Roman was very much in fashion”.
Photo: Museum Odense
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, notes The Guardian.
The knife is believed 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 reveal more about the history of the country.
“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 the earliest writing of Denmark – and therefore about the language that was actually spoken in the Iron Age, 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 knew how to write constituted a small intellectual elite”.