January
23
/ 2024
The discovery of a runic inscription on an almost 2,000-year-old knife sheds light on Denmark's early written language and cultural history – it’s the oldest runic inscription found so far in the country. The knife was found beneath the remains of an urn grave at a small burial site east of Odense. The details about the runic inscription on the 8 cm (3 inch) iron knife contains five characters, each 0.5cm (0.2 inch) tall with three grooves. The runes are thought to spell out " hirila," meaning "little sword" in Primitive Norse. They’re 800 years older than even the famed Jelling Stones runes of Jutland! [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"115269","attributes":{"alt":"The runes are traced out on the graphic shown here from Montergarden Museum, Odense. (Montergarden
