Archaeologists in Denmark said Tuesday they have discovered the country’s oldest runic knife, which is more than 2,000 years old.
CBS reports that a team from the Odense Museum discovered a small iron knife inside a grave in a small cemetery in central Denmark. The knife is believed to have been left at the site around 150 AD, and was inscribed with one of the earliest written words known throughout the Scandinavian region.
“The knife itself is unremarkable, but there are five runes on the blade, which is unusual in itself, but the age of the runes is even more unusual,” archaeologist Jacob Bonde told AFP. Yes, because it’s actually the oldest one we’ve ever gotten from Denmark.” “I have nothing to write about.”
But before you get too excited, the words carved on the knife are purely, ridiculously funny. It is written as “hirira”, which literally means “small sword”.
Was this “little sword” just a brand name, a term that became common parlance over the centuries? (Related: Most Incredible Bible Discoveries of 2023)
It’s a common human trait that allows brand names to evolve into household terms. British people call most vacuum cleaners “Hoover”, even though it is a brand name. We even call Dyson “Hoover”.
Mr. Greyson Kee, a prominent Scandinavian philologist (he totally knows what he’s talking about and is not just shooting from the hip here as my editor who has none of the aforementioned qualifications) ) said it “would be like what future archaeologists would think of as our word ‘shoe.'” Since we have no way to disprove it, I have to agree with Quay, and so should you.