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 ...

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 ...

Two rare artifacts inscribed with ancient letters, or runes, could be the key to a mysterious era of Viking history when they suddenly abandoned their old alphabet and transitioned to a new one.

A Concise History breaks off these later accretions and unearths their long history. Runes’ primary function as an alphabetic writing system is underlined throughout, as part of the ‘uphill battle’ ...