Latest news with #KristelZilmer
Boston Globe
18 hours ago
- General
- Boston Globe
Runestone that may be North America's oldest turns up in a Canadian forest
The runestone was found on private property in 2015, after the trees' collapse exposed it again to the elements of Ontario. The carvings quickly raised the specter of Vikings — there is only one confirmed Viking settlement in North America, in Newfoundland — but investigation soon knocked that idea down. Nor was the stone a forgery, researchers said, like the Kensington Runestone of Minnesota, which scholars found to be a 19th-century hoax. The Ontario runestone is 'a remarkable find,' said Kristel Zilmer, a runologist at the University of Oslo who was not involved in the project. The stone, she said, 'shows how such knowledge sometimes traveled with people, occasionally leaving behind finds like this one in rather unexpected places.' Advertisement Ryan Primrose, the archaeologist called to the site, near the town of Wawa, was among the surprised. 'I had never expected to encounter a runestone during my career,' he said. He soon reached Henrik Williams, a runologist and professor at Uppsala University in Sweden, who spent hours under a tarp studying the runes in a cold October rain. 'It was a drizzly day — even for a Swede,' Williams said. Advertisement The runes puzzled him at first, so he searched online for some of the words that he couldn't make sense of. He finally landed on a book he had seen before but never much considered: a runic guide published in 1611 by Johannes Bureus, who thought Swedes should use runes. ('I agree with him,' Williams said, 'but that ship has sailed.') He then pieced together the script, finding that it lined up with a Swedish and Protestant version of the Lord's Prayer. As for the boat? 'We're still working on it,' Primrose said. The carving was likely to have taken several weeks, and a Swede was probably responsible, Williams said. 'I don't think anybody else would have taken it upon themselves and reproduced it with such exactness,' he said. But although this gave the researchers a time frame — after 1611 — they have found no artifacts to provide a clearer date or purpose for the carving. The trees that fell were about 80 years old, Williams said, so the carving was most likely made at least a century ago. 'How much further back you go, I have no idea,' he said. The discovery puts the runestone among a handful found in Canada and the United States; the oldest to be dated with confidence is from the 1880s. Most 'do not pretend to be old at all,' Williams said, and a few are mysteries — their runes obscure and the purposes unknown. The one in Ontario 'could very well be the oldest one yet,' he said. 'I think it probably is.' In Canada, the researchers scoured regional archives, finding that at least a handful of Swedes were among those employed by the Hudson's Bay Company on Lake Superior in the 1800s, said Johanna Rowe, the local historian. Advertisement Primrose said the stone may have been carved as a personal act of devotion, or to be a point of congregation. 'It still remains a mystery,' he said. 'Most people don't realize what's in their own backyard unless they look,' Rowe said. 'Every community should do a little digging.' Shannon Lewis-Simpson, an archaeologist at Memorial University in Newfoundland who was not involved in the research, said the team was 'probably right' that a 19th-century Swede had made the carving. 'There's a lot of long winter nights up there,' she said. 'Why not carve up a runestone with the Lord's Prayer? But why cover it up with dirt afterward? Humans are strange, and that's why archaeology is fascinating.' The researchers did not immediately share news of the discovery, in part because they had to work out terms with the property's owner. Primrose hopes the site will eventually be open to visitors, but the team has not disclosed the owner's identity or the stone's exact location. Even Wawa's mayor, Melanie Pilon, found out about the stone only a few years ago. 'It was definitely on a need-to-know basis,' she said. When she visited, she said, she felt 'an aura about the site,' calling it 'magnificent.' Primrose said that the researchers now hoped the public could offer more information. 'We invite anyone to please reach out if they have it, especially historical records,' he said. Lewis-Simpson commended the researchers for their caution, noting that many people might jump to conclusions about a newly found runestone. 'If anyone turns up anything that's slightly runic everyone thinks it must be 'lost Vikings,'' she said. Advertisement This article originally appeared in
New York Times
a day ago
- General
- New York Times
A Runestone That May Be North America's Oldest Turns Up in a Canada Forest
Two trees fell in the forest. Whether or not anyone heard, the fall eventually revealed runes below. A stone carved with 255 runes had lain beneath the trees, long hidden by soil, moss and roots in a densely forested corner of Canadian wilderness. On the same stone, someone had carved an image of a boat with passengers. Who carved it? When? Why? First a historian was summoned, then an archaeologist, and then an expert in runes. Finally, this month, they told the public about the discovery. The runestone was found on private property in 2015, after the trees' collapse exposed it again to the elements of northern Ontario. The carvings quickly raised the specter of Vikings — there is only one confirmed Viking settlement in North America, in Newfoundland — but investigation soon knocked that idea down. Nor was the stone a forgery, researchers said, like the Kensington Runestone of Minnesota, which scholars found to be a 19th-century hoax. The Ontario runestone is 'a remarkable find,' said Kristel Zilmer, a runologist at the University of Oslo who was not involved in the project. The stone, she said, 'shows how such knowledge sometimes traveled with people, occasionally leaving behind finds like this one in rather unexpected places.' Ryan Primrose, the archaeologist called to the site, near the town of Wawa, was among the surprised. 'I had never expected to encounter a runestone during my career,' he said. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
24-02-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
World's oldest runestone may have been signed by a woman, researchers say
A woman may have signed her name on the world's oldest dated runestone, researchers in Norway have found, as they piece together the 2,000-year-old puzzle. The inscription begins with the word 'I' in runic script, followed by the name of the writer and a verb that indicates writing, before ending with the word 'rune,' researchers wrote earlier this month in the journal Antiquity after studying a fragment of the stone found at a grave site in Hole, a small municipality in southern Norway to the east of the capital, Oslo. 'Basically the text would be saying, I, the rune inscriber's name, wrote the runic inscription,' one of the study's co-authors, Kristel Zilmer, told NBC News in telephone interview Monday. 'It's a type of inscription also that has parallels in some other romantic inscriptions, basically somebody telling us that they made this inscription,' added Zilmer, a professor of runology at the University of Oslo's Museum of Cultural History. The researchers said they believed the Germanic alphabetic script was inspired by the Roman alphabet, of which runes formed the foundational blocks in the first A.D. centuries. It was widely used in Scandinavia up until the late Middle Ages. Runic inscriptions have been found on objects such as a bone knife and iron knife from Denmark and a comb, which archeologists have dated to around 150 A.D. Those found on other runestones date to around 700 A.D. Often they bore messages, including spells to bring back the dead and charm words. But very little is known about their development as it varied over time and deciphering them can be challenging without archaeological context. The latest research suggests the fragments, the first of which was discovered in 2021, were part of a single slab. The discovery also brings scientists one step closer to understanding the language's evolution and the use of such stones, the researchers said. Two years later, researchers found more fragments and the script on them appeared to continue across the fragments, indicating they were all part of a single stone. 'They managed to find two extra pieces, and they fit perfectly within the middle part of one of the inscriptions, and gave us almost a complete inscription,' Zilmer said. Due to the damage and the weathering of the stone, she added that determining the exact text, including the name of the inscriber, is a 'bit tricky,' but what especially caught the attention of the researchers is a feature in the name that indicates it ended with a '-u.' In ancient runic script, she said that would indicate a possible woman's name which, if confirmed, 'would be the earliest known record of a female rune-inscriber.' Because the fragments found in Hole were buried along with cremated human remains, scientists had the crucial archeological context that allowed them to use radiocarbon dating to confirm the fragments dated between 50 B.C. and 275 A.D. 'We may have here a series of events unfolding involving different people,' Zilmer said. 'It may be a stone that combines different purposes.' While much of the research is still ongoing, 'we are still missing significant portions, so there are evident gaps,' she said. 'It's a puzzle with holes, but nonetheless it will be very interesting to see how far we can get, how many of these small fragments, some of these also inscribed, that might be able to connect to each other,' she added. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
24-02-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
World's oldest runestone may have been signed by a woman, researchers say
A woman may have signed her name on the world's oldest dated runestone, researchers in Norway have found, as they piece together the 2,000-year-old puzzle. The inscription begins with the word 'I' in runic script, followed by the name of the writer and a verb that indicates writing, before ending with the word 'rune,' researchers wrote earlier this month in the journal Antiquity after studying a fragment of the stone found at a grave site in Hole, a small municipality in southern Norway to the east of the capital, Oslo. 'Basically the text would be saying, I, the rune inscriber's name, wrote the runic inscription,' one of the study's co-authors, Kristel Zilmer, told NBC News in telephone interview Monday. 'It's a type of inscription also that has parallels in some other romantic inscriptions, basically somebody telling us that they made this inscription,' added Zilmer, a professor of runology at the University of Oslo's Museum of Cultural History. The researchers said they believed the Germanic alphabetic script was inspired by the Roman alphabet, of which runes formed the foundational blocks in the first A.D. centuries. It was widely used in Scandinavia up until the late Middle Ages. Runic inscriptions have been found on objects such as a bone knife and iron knife from Denmark and a comb, which archeologists have dated to around 150 A.D. Those found on other runestones date to around 700 A.D. Often they bore messages, including spells to bring back the dead and charm words. But very little is known about their development as it varied over time and deciphering them can be challenging without archaeological context. The latest research suggests the fragments, the first of which was discovered in 2021, were part of a single slab. The discovery also brings scientists one step closer to understanding the language's evolution and the use of such stones, the researchers said. Two years later, researchers found more fragments and the script on them appeared to continue across the fragments, indicating they were all part of a single stone. 'They managed to find two extra pieces, and they fit perfectly within the middle part of one of the inscriptions, and gave us almost a complete inscription,' Zilmer said. Due to the damage and the weathering of the stone, she added that determining the exact text, including the name of the inscriber, is a 'bit tricky,' but what especially caught the attention of the researchers is a feature in the name that indicates it ended with a '-u.' In ancient runic script, she said that would indicate a possible woman's name which, if confirmed, 'would be the earliest known record of a female rune-inscriber.' Because the fragments found in Hole were buried along with cremated human remains, scientists had the crucial archeological context that allowed them to use radiocarbon dating to confirm the fragments dated between 50 B.C. and 275 A.D. 'We may have here a series of events unfolding involving different people,' Zilmer said. 'It may be a stone that combines different purposes.' While much of the research is still ongoing, 'we are still missing significant portions, so there are evident gaps,' she said. 'It's a puzzle with holes, but nonetheless it will be very interesting to see how far we can get, how many of these small fragments, some of these also inscribed, that might be able to connect to each other,' she added. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
22-02-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
World's oldest rune stone has more pieces that contain mysterious messages, researchers say
Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. The world's oldest dated rune stone, a landmark discovery revealed in 2023, is just one piece of a larger, nearly 2,000-year-old slab, new research has found. Now, scientists in Norway are working to reassemble the ancient puzzle, a process that's starting to shed light on who carved the mysterious runic writing and what the words mean. Runes were the building blocks of the first Germanic writing within the first few centuries AD and remained in use in Scandinavia until the late Middle Ages, according to the University of Oslo's Museum of Cultural History. It's believed Germanic people drew inspiration from the Roman alphabet to create the characters, according to the museum, but the exact origins of runes and how they were used has remained murky. Numerous stones carved with runes found across Scandinavia bear fascinating messages, such as one about a powerful Viking queen or a warning for frigid climate change based on past events. But many of these stones are from the age of the Vikings, about AD 800 to 1050, and few examples of early runes exist. Archaeologists who originally unearthed the oldest known rune stone in 2021 while investigating an ancient grave site in eastern Norway found the large piece covered with traces of runes. But as the fieldwork continued, the researchers uncovered additional sandstone fragments, some bearing similar runic inscriptions, in other nearby graves. The broken pieces appeared to fit together, with some of the runic script from one stone continuing onto another, and the scientists realized the fragments were all once part of a single stone. The research team published the new findings in the February 3 issue of the journal Antiquity. It appears the stone was intentionally fragmented, based on the way it was broken, and individual pieces were placed in different burials that occurred later. Over time, rune stones have been used as memorials or to mark events. The use of this particular rune stone ritually changed over time, the latest findings suggested. The stone pieces — including the original 2021 discovery — ended up buried alongside cremated human remains, which has allowed researchers to confirm that the rune stone fragments are the oldest ever to be documented. Radiocarbon dating suggested the fragments date back to between 50 BC and AD 275. 'Due to the rarity of rune-stones found in clearly datable archaeological contexts, we have had little concrete evidence regarding the early use of runic writing on stone and the age of the earliest rune-stones,' said study coauthor Dr. Kristel Zilmer, professor of runology at the University of Oslo's Museum of Cultural History, in an email. 'The inscribed fragments … provide such a rare exception, and additionally, they feature a remarkable mixture of multiple inscriptions and other markings — unlike anything previously seen on rune-inscribed stones.' But the fragments pose new mysteries as well, including riddles contained in the enigmatic runic markings, which are proving difficult to translate, as well as surprising clues as to the identities of the carvers themselves. And the findings may help researchers to better understand how rune stones were repurposed over time. Archaeologists have found runic inscriptions on various objects, including a bone comb and an iron knife, in addition to rune stones, which had various uses. In any case, translating the runes is difficult because the Germanic languages they represented varied over time. 'Rune-stones likely had both ceremonial and practical intentions,' Zilmer said. 'The grave field and the original (single) raised stone suggest a commemorative and dedicatory intent, while subsequent use in a separate burial illuminates later pragmatic and symbolic expressions.' The research team initially began investigating the Svingerud grave field — a source of multiple past archaeological finds — in Norway's Hole municipality (25 miles, or 40 kilometers, northwest of Oslo) as part of 'rescue excavations' that took place ahead of the construction of a new highway and railroad, said lead study author Dr. Steinar Solheim, associate professor of archaeology at the University of Oslo's Museum of Cultural History. The inscriptions on the stones recovered from the Hole site are particularly intriguing because they appear to reflect multiple acts of inscribing, 'showing a fascinating mix of intentional, comprehensible writing, attempts at writing and script-like or ornamental motifs,' Zilmer said. The unknown markings may represent early variants of runes, but it's difficult for the researchers to tell when the different inscriptions were made. One sequence on the Svingerud stone, now known as the Hole 2 stone, in particular stands out: the single word, or name, of Idiberug. The researchers can't trace an exact meaning, so they believe it was the name of a person, perhaps a woman. The clearest inscription is on the Hole 3 stone, and appears to be the rune inscriber's signature. 'The text begins with the word 'I', followed by the name of the inscriber, then a verb indicating the activity ('wrote') and finally the word 'rune', which refers to the inscription as a whole,' Zilmer said. 'The name of the rune-carver is challenging to detect due to faint, ambiguously shaped runes and weathered surface areas,' Zilmer added. 'We have proposed a few possible readings. The most intriguing feature is the ending with -u, which suggests that this could have been a woman's name. If so, this would be the earliest known record of a female rune-inscriber.' In runic script, the ending -u is feminine. The authors are hesitant to link the potential female inscriber on the Hole 3 stone with the likely female name of Idiberug on the Hole 2 stone at this point in their research. The team's work to uncover more about numerous additional small fragments uncovered in 2023 remains ongoing, and the researchers are still trying to determine the best way to put them together. 'The challenge lies in the fact that this is not a complete puzzle — we are missing significant portions, and there are evident gaps,' Zilmer said. 'However, we believe it should be possible to determine how many of the smaller fragments could be connected to the larger fragments or to each other.' Dr. Lisbeth Imer, curator and senior researcher at the National Museum of Denmark, believes the stones will cause researchers to question their understanding of rune stones, which typically served as monuments to commemorate names of people and prevent them from fading with time. Imer was not involved in the new study but specializes in the study of runes. 'But the Svingerud stone challenges this perception, because it was carved with runes, then destroyed, then carved with a new inscription, etc.,' Imer said in an email. 'So perhaps, we should not view it as a rune stone but as something completely different. There are still mysteries to be solved here.' Three grave mounds were known at the Svingerud site from previous research, but the archaeologists found cremations within a fourth mound and two flat graves during the new excavations. The team began by excavating cremation pits, or simple graves with little or no visible markers above ground, that were common from the late Bronze Age (1750 to 500 BC) to the Roman Iron Age (AD 1 to 400). The crew uncovered the cremated bones of an adult, charcoal and other grave goods, as well as a reddish-brown stone slab bearing runic writing, all tucked beneath a younger grave mound. The team also uncovered pottery, brooches, belts, needles and bone comb fragments, and beginning in 2022, they continued to spot sandstone fragments bearing traces of inscriptions. One, named Hole 3, had identifiable runes and lines running across it. The runes provided the start and end of inscriptions on two larger fragments found nearby. The largest fragment the team discovered, called Hole 1, was found vertically placed in a grave and doesn't show any signs of runic inscription, leading researchers to believe it was once the base of an upright standing stone. While studying Hole 2 and Hole 3 in March 2023, 'it quickly became evident that they fit together,' suggesting the stone was initially intended to mark one grave before it was broken apart to commemorate later burials, Zilmer said. It's also possible the separate graves are connected in some way that remains unknown, according to the research. Imer believes the stone pieces are an extremely interesting find because they were located in a grave field with the opportunity to conduct radiocarbon dating. In a January 2011 study, Imer suggested the earliest rune stones could be from the Late Roman Period, between AD 160 and 375, 'because of stylistic evidence regarding the shape of the runes and the linguistics, and that the earliest rune stones were probably erected in Norway,' she said. 'I am very happy to see that the Norwegian scholars are now able to confirm that chronology,' Imer said. 'The carbon-14 dating that they have succeeded with regarding the Svingerud stone lies between 50 BC and 275 AD, which covers a rather broad range of time, but it fits quite neatly with the earliest inscriptions that we know from other types of material and objects: brooches, weapon and other personal equipment.'
