Piecing together fragments of the world's earliest known rune stone, which may be more than 2,000 years old, shows they fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. They may have been separated intentionally before being buried with different individuals, shedding light on the varied pragmatic and ritual aspects of early Germanic rune stones. Runes were the letters used to write Germanic languages before the adoption of the Latin alphabet, the oldest of which were in use until about 700 AD. However, how these runes originated and were used is unclear. "The development of runic writing and the practice of inscribing runes on stone are difficult to trace," says Dr. Kristel Zilmer, professor in runology at the University of Oslo, and member
