２０００年前のナイフにルーン文字　デンマーク最古の文字

【コペンハーゲンＡＦＰ＝時事】デンマークでこのほど、約２０００年前のルーン文字が書かれた小型ナイフが見つかり、同国最古の文字であることが確認された。オーデンセ博物館が２３日、発表した。（写真は、約２０００年前に作られたルーン文字が書かれた小型のナイフ。デンマークのオーデンセ博物館提供）
　ルーン文字は確認されている限り、スカンジナビアで最も古くから使われていたアルファベット（表音文字）。１～２世紀から使われ、１０世紀のキリスト教化に伴い、ラテン文字に取って代わられた。
　考古学者のヤコブ・ボンデ氏はＡＦＰに「ナイフ自体は珍しい物ではないが、刃にはルーン文字が五つ書かれている。文字自体も珍しい発見だが、書かれた年代はデンマーク最古だった」と話した。
　ナイフは鉄製で紀元１５０年頃の物。デンマーク中部オーデンセの東にある小規模な墓地から見つかった。
　ナイフに刻まれた５文字は「ｈｉｒｉｌａ」という単語で、当時使われていたノルド祖語で「小型ナイフ」を意味する。
　ボンデ氏によると、スカンジナビアで文字が使われ始めた頃は「主に物の名前で、短い言葉のみ」が書かれていたという。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2024/01/24-15:58）

Archaeologists in Denmark have found a small knife inscribed with runic letters dating back almost 2,000 years, the oldest trace of writing found in the country, the Museum Odense said on Tuesday.
Runic letters, called runes, are the oldest alphabet known in Scandinavia.
They were in use from the first or second century AD in northern Europe until being replaced by the Latin alphabet amid christianisation in the 10th century.
The knife itself is not remarkable but on the blade there are five runes -- which is extraordinary in itself -- but the age of the runes is even more extraordinary because they actually are the oldest we have from Denmark, archaeologist Jakob Bonde told AFP.
We don't have any writing before this, he said.
Dating back to around 150 years AD, the iron knife was found in a grave in a small cemetery east of Odense, in central Denmark.
The five runic letters spell out the word hirila, which in the Proto-Norse language spoken at the time means small sword.
The inscription is a note from the past, Bonde said.
It gives us the opportunity to look more into how the oldest known language in Scandinavia developed ... (and) how people interacted with each other.
Bonde said the person who owned it wanted to show he was, or wanted to be, some kind of warrior.
The first traces of human settlements in what is now Denmark date back to the Stone Age, around 4,000 BC, but there are no traces of any writing before the Roman Iron Age (0 to 400 AD).
A small comb made of bone discovered in 1865 and inscribed with runes dates back to around the same period as the knife, Bonde said.
When writing first appeared in Scandinavia, it was only small inscriptions, mainly on objects.
We don't have books for example, or bigger inscriptions.
Denmark's most famous runestones, erected in the 10th century in the town of Jelling, have longer inscriptions.
Strongly identified with the creation of Denmark as a nation state, they were raised by Harald Bluetooth, in honour of his parents King Gorm and Queen Thyra.