Runes are the characters of the alphabet used by the Vikings and other Germanic peoples from about the second to the 15th centuries A.D. Some runes vaguely resemble letters in our own alphabet; others ...

A rune stone discovered in Norway is being called the world’s oldest, bearing inscriptions that date back to the earliest known days of runic writing. Sometime 1,800 to 2,000 years ago, someone who ...

The symbols can be traced back to Futhark, the oldest known runic alphabet. Archaeologists remain baffled by a surprising, seemingly ahistorical find located deep in the Canadian wilderness. But after ...

PRAGUE (AFP) — An inscribed cow bone dating back to the seventh century proves that Germanic runes were the oldest script ever used by the ancient Slavs, Czech scientists said Thursday. Up to now, it ...

A 900 year-old runic code used by ancient Vikings has been cracked for the first time, revealing a simple message:‘Kiss me!’. K Jonas Nordby, a runeologist from the University of Oslo, was able to ...

Like many important discoveries, it happened by accident. Alena Slamova, a Czech graduate student in archaeology, was routinely washing some animal bones that had been recovered from a dig in an early ...

Two rare artifacts inscribed with ancient letters, or runes, could be the key to a mysterious era of Viking history when they suddenly abandoned their old alphabet and transitioned to a new one.

The people most commonly associated with runes are the Norsemen, and, within that, Vikings. Countless artefacts, from gravestones to vases, have been found with rune carvings on them. People used ...