Archaeologists from the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo announced Tuesday that they have found a rune stele which according to them is the oldest in the world, since the inscriptions, from ago 2000 yearsgo back to the earliest times of the enigmatic history of runic writing.
The flat, square block of brown sandstone is carved with inscriptions that may be among the earliest samples of writing preserved in Scandinaviasaid the Museum of Cultural History. He said they were “among the oldest runic inscriptions ever found” and was the “Oldest dateable rune stele in the world”.
“This find will give us a lot of insight into the use of runes in the early Iron Age. It may be one of the first attempts to carve runes on stone in Norway and Scandinavia,” Kristel Zilmer, a professor at the University of Oslo, which the museum reports to, told the news agency. PA.
Runestones are stones engraved with inscriptions made up of runic letters, the oldest known alphabet in Scandinavia.
Older runes have been found on other objects, but not stone. The oldest runic artifact is a bone comb found in Denmark, perhaps carved with a knife or needle, Zilmer said.
The rune stele was found towards the end of 2021 during the excavation of a tomb near Tyrifjord, west of Oslo, in a region characterized by several monumental archaeological finds. Items found in the grave —burnt bones and charcoal— allow dating the inscription between 1 and 250 of our era. “We needed time to analyze and date the rune stele,” which is why the announcement was made only on Tuesday, he clarified.
The 31 by 32 centimeters (12.2 by 12.6 in) stone has several inscriptions, not all of which have been interpreted. Eight runes on the front form the word “idiberug”, which can be the name of a person, man or woman, or of a family.
Much remains to be investigated in the stone, called Svongerud after the place of discovery.
“The first in Norway and Sweden were thought to have appeared in the 300s or 400s, but it turns out that some runestones may be older than previously thought,” runologist Kristel Zilmer told Norwegian news agency NTB.
“It is a unique discovery,” he added.
The stone will be on display at Oslo’s Museum of Cultural History from January 21 to February 26.
It will be on display from January 21 for a month at the Museum of Cultural History, which houses Norway’s largest collection of historical artifacts, from the Stone Age to the modern era.
(With information from AP and AFP)
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Source-www.infobae.com