Archaeologists from Museum Odense in Denmark have discovered what is thought to be the joint oldest Runic inscription, in an Iron Age burial ground at Vimose, to the east of Odense on Funen Island. The knife was found beneath an urn burial, and has been dated to about 150 AD. It inscribed Runic letters about 0.5 cm high, which spell out the word 'hirila', meaning a small sword. The knife is thought to be about the same age as a bone comb with a Runic inscription which was found at the same site in 1865, and which until now has been the oldest known object with a Runic inscription.
Literacy is thought to have been extremely rare in Denmark at the time when the knife was made, and an object with a written inscription would probably have been a significant status symbol. The precise origin of Runic script is unclear with speculation that it might have derived from Phoenician or Etruscan scripts among others. The oldest confidently dated objects with such inscriptions come from Funen Island and date to about 150 AD, although a few objects with less clear dating could potentially be older, and the Roman writer Tacitus described a Runic script in about 98 AD.
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