Archaeologists uncover medieval sword engraved with mysterious runes thought to be thousands of years old
Researchers are now trying to work out what the writing says
Archaeologists have uncovered a medieval sword engraved with mysterious runes.
The sword is thought to be thousands of years old and was an incredible find by a team of researchers.
It was unearthed from inside a man’s grave at an early medieval burial site that dates all the way back to the fifth and sixth centuries CE.
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The sword itself has a silver and gold plated handle and is engraved with patterns.
But that’s not all, the blade contains an ancient ‘runic script’.
Speaking to Smithsonian Magazine, Duncan Sayer, who is the site’s lead archaeologist, said: “Swords like this are very special. It looks like the man it was buried with is hugging it. … The hilt and guard end up at head and shoulder height, visually intermeshed with his face and his personal appearance.”
Sayer has speculated whether the sword might have been a gift from a royal.
He also added that it could have been passed down from generation to generation as a signifier of social status, commenting on how it might have given the owner ‘authority’.
Talking about the burial site to the Guardian, anthropologist Alice Roberts said: “It’s an extraordinary Anglo-Saxon cemetery, with really beautifully furnished graves, a lot of weapon burials where you find things like iron spear-points and seaxes, which are Anglo-Saxon knives—and then there’s this astonishing sword.
“I’ve never seen one that’s so beautifully preserved.”
Since the discovery, a team is now working to decipher the markings on the blade of the sword and work out its significance.
The researchers are also interested in the meaning behind the ring that was found attached to the sword’s handle.
Sayer is yet to examine all of the runes on the sword.
Speaking to Newsweek about the mysterious writings, he said: “They don’t often say anything that we can understand but they would have been meaningful to the people who used and saw the sword and understood its story.”
The research team involved in the discovery hasn’t revealed the exact location of the cemetery but they have said that it is near Canterbury, north of Folkestone in England.
Once the findings from the graves have been excavated and analyzed, they will be conserved before being sent to their new home at the Folkestone Museum in Kent.
And there’s plenty more where the sword and ring came from - the cemetery in question also has some interesting Scandinavian and Frankish objects which experts say shows the shifting political climate at the time.