Scientists find runes on ancient comb

Thanks to Hex Magazine for this item:
"Archaeologists have found the oldest engravings of letters ever to be discovered in central Germany, officials from the area announced on Thursday.
The ancient letters, called runes, were scratched onto a 12.5 centimetre-long comb by Germanic settlers in the second century, scientists working on the site in Saxony-Anhalt believe." The complete article may be read at The Local.

The Kensington Runestone

This has recently come up as a topic of discussion on The Troth's forum list, and so I decided to post some links for those unfamiliar with this artifact and the controversy surrounding it. The Wikipedia article takes a more or less neutral stance while noting that most authorities believe the stone to be a hoax. The Runestone Story site seems to take the view that the stone is genuine.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article: "The Kensington Runestone is a 200-pound slab of greywacke covered in runes on its face and side which, if genuine, would suggest that Scandinavian explorers reached the middle of North America in the 14th century. It was found in 1898 in the largely rural township of Solem, Douglas County, Minnesota, and named after the nearest settlement, Kensington. Almost all Runologists and experts in Scandinavian linguistics consider the runestone to be a hoax. ... The runestone has been analyzed and dismissed repeatedly without local effect. ... The community of Kensington is solidly behind the runestone, which has transcended its original cultural purposes and has "taken on a life of its own".

"Translation: Eight Götalanders and 22 Northmen on (this?) acquisition journey from Vinland far to the west. We had a camp by two (shelters?) one day's journey north from this stone. We were fishing one day. After we came home, found 10 men red from blood and dead. Ave Maria save from evil. There are 10 men by the inland sea to look after our ships fourteen days journey from this peninsula (or island). Year 1362
When the original text is transcribed to the Latin script, the message becomes quite easy to read for any modern Scandinavian. This fact is one of the main arguments against the authenticity of the stone. The language of the inscription bears much closer resemblance to 19th century than 14th century Swedish.
The AVM is historically consistent since any Scandinavian explorers would have been Catholic at that time."

Wm. P. Holman's site on the Kensington Runestone may be found here. Bear in mind that while the site claims several pieces of evidence to support the authenticity of the stone, such as stonecut moorings for boats such as were used by Vikings, it does not cite any sources for this information. The stone is currently housed in its own museum in Alexandria, Minnesota, whose site may be found here.

Ancient Scandinavia: Runes

Codex Runicus, c.1300. Wikimedia Commons.

"Runes consist of a main staff from which one or more less staves point diagonally up or down. Prior to the Viking Age, there was a twenty-four-character rune series known as Old Germanic or Primitive Norse furthark (after the phonetic values of its first six letters: f, u, th, a, r, k), that was used by all Germanic peoples. At the beginning of the Viking Age, a new sixteen-character rune series was developed. Philologists feel that this new series was a conscious reform intended to make the rune script conform more closely to spoken language. However, with the sixteen-character series, each rune had to symbolize more than one sound."  The full text of this overview of the runes by Ojibwa may be found at Daily Kos.