this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2024
17 points (100.0% liked)

Archaeology

2204 readers
2 users here now

Welcome to c/Archaeology @ Mander.xyz!

Shovelbums welcome. 🗿

Notice Board

This is a work in progress, please don't mind the mess.

About

Archaeology or archeology[a] is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscapes.

Archaeology has various goals, which range from understanding culture history to reconstructing past lifeways to documenting and explaining changes in human societies through time.

The discipline involves surveying, excavation, and eventually analysis of data collected, to learn more about the past. In broad scope, archaeology relies on cross-disciplinary research. Read more...

Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Be kind and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. No pseudoscience/pseudoarchaeology.

Links

Archaeology 101:

Get Involved:

University and Field Work:

Jobs and Career:

Professional Organisations:

FOSS Tools:

Datasets:

Fun:

Other Resources:

Similar Communities

Sister Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Plants & Gardening

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Memes

Find us on Reddit

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
17
Engraving on 2,000-year-old knife thought to be oldest runes in Denmark (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
1 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Inscription on knife discovered by archaeologist in grave on island of Funen spells hirila, which means ‘little sword’

An engraving on an almost 2,000-year-old knife believed to be the oldest runes ever found in Denmark has been discovered by archaeologists.

The runic inscription – the alphabet of Denmark’s earliest written language – was etched into an 8cm iron knife found in a grave below an urn near the city of Odense on the island of Funen. The five characters, each about 0.5cm tall, followed by three grooves, spell out hirila, which means “little sword” in Old Norse.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The runic inscription – the alphabet of Denmark’s earliest written language – was etched into an 8cm iron knife found in a grave below an urn near the city of Odense on the island of Funen.

Jakob Bonde, the city’s museum curator and archeologist who made the discovery, said he at first thought it was an ordinary knife, as the runes were not visible, but after it was cleaned by conservators it became clear that it contained a word.

The knife, which will go on display at Museum Odense in Møntergaarden from 2 February, will be shown alongside other artefacts found at the site.

It is believed to be 800 years older than the Jelling stones in Jutland, which include one erected by King Harald Bluetooth in about 965 in memory of his parents.

The stone’s inscription, often referred to as “Denmark’s birth certificate”, describes Harald’s achievements and contains Scandinavia’s oldest image of Christ.

“In the early days of runic history, those able to write constituted a small intellectual elite, and the first traces of such people is to be found on Funen.”

The original article contains 478 words, the summary contains 183 words. Saved 62%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!