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 ...

Side view of the blade of an 1,800-year-old iron knife with Danish runes that seem to spell out the word "hirila.". Archaeologists in Denmark have discovered runic letters inscribed on a knife blade ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. The symbols can be traced back to Futhark, the oldest known runic alphabet. Archaeologists remain baffled by a surprising, ...

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 ...

Historians have long thought that Slavic peoples did not develop an alphabet until the ninth century—but the new findings suggest otherwise. Masaryk University A Czech graduate student has discovered ...

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 ...

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 ...