Runes Found on Seventh-Century Cow Bone Could Change Slavic History
A Czech graduate student has discovered unusual markings on a bone that may upend accepted beliefs of Slavic history. The find is also stirring up nationalistic sentiment about how early European tribes interacted some 1,400 years ago.
Archaeologist Alena Slámová noticed the scratches on a seventh-century A.D. cow bone recovered during a dig in Lany, near the Czech town of Breclav. When researchers studied the item further, they realized the markings were actually Germanic runic letters—a startling find, as historians previously thought Slavic peoples did not develop an alphabet until the ninth century. The team’s findings are newly published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
“It was absolutely surprising for us,” lead author Jiří Macháček, head of archaeology at Masaryk University in Brno, tells Coilin O’Connor of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). No one knows who carved the letters on the bone fragment. But Macháček and his co-authors suspect that it was either a Slav who learned the German runic alphabet or an individual of Germanic origin living in Slavic territory.
An international team of Czech, Austrian, Swiss and Australian scientists dated the cow rib fragment to 600 A.D. using genetic and radiocarbon testing, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/runes-found-seventh-century-cow-bone-could-change-slavic-history-180977762/
The lines in the black area depict what is on the stone.
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