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The British Museum [has asked] for help deciphering a medieval sword A sword on display at the British Library has an 800-year-old mystery engraved on its blade.
Dating back to between 1250 and 1330 AD, the sword was discovered in the east of England, in the River Witham near Lincoln, in the 19th century. The sword is a particularly fine double-edged steel weapon of English design. It was most likely forged in Germany and belonged to a wealthy man or a knight. The hilt is cross-shaped, which is normal for swords from this period of the Middle Ages, and is heavy enough to have cloven a man's head in twain if swung with sufficient strength.
But the sword, on loan to the library from the British Museum, does have a couple of highly unusual features. Down the centre of the blade, it has two grooves known as fullers, where most blades only have one. On one side, it also bears an inscription:
It's not the presence of the inscription that has researchers nonplussed, but its content: Experts don't know what the inscription means.
"An intriguing feature of this sword is an as yet indecipherable inscription, found along one of its edges and inlaid in gold wire," wrote curator Julian Harrison on the library's blog. "It has been speculated that this is a religious invocation, since the language is unknown."
The River Witham sword is not unique in this. According to archaeologist Marc van Hasselt of Utrecht University and Hastatus Heritage Consultancy in the Netherlands, inscribed swords were "all the rage" in Europe at the turn of the 13th century, and religious invocations would have made sense. He has studied around a dozen such swords. Most notable was a sword found in Alphen aan den Rijn in the Netherlands, likewise bearing an indecipherable inscription, this time on both sides of the blade:
"There is some debate on the language used in the inscriptions. But looking at the other European finds, it seems most likely that this language is Latin. This makes sense in the context of 13th-century Europe, as Latin was the international language of choice (like English is today)," van Hasselt wrote.
"To elaborate, let's compare the River Witham sword to the sword from Alphen: Both start with some sort of invocation. On the River Witham sword, it is NDXOX, possibly standing for Nostrum Dominus (our Lord) or Nomine Domini (name of the Lord) followed by XOX. On the sword from Alphen, the starting letters read BENEDOXO. Quite likely, this reads as Benedicat (A blessing), followed by OXO. Perhaps these letter combinations -- XOX and OXO -- refer to the Holy Trinity. On the sword from Alphen, one letter combination is then repeated three times: MTINIUSCS, which I interpret as Martinius Sanctus -- Saint Martin. Perhaps a saint is being invoked on the River Witham sword as well?"
Most guesses put forth on the blog post also agree with the idea that it could be Latin, with some readers suggesting the letters, or some of the letters, could be acronyms.
If you want to give it a shot, head on over to the British Library's blog post and post your hypothesis in the comments.
If you want to see the sword itself, it's on display as part of the exhibition Magna Carta: Law, Liberty, Legacy at the British Library in London until September 1.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RedBear on Tuesday August 11 2015, @08:59AM
One amusing working theory that immediately springs to mind is that if inscribed blades were "all the rage" at the time then perhaps it doesn't mean much of anything. Kind of like that awesome Chinese character tattoo you paid good money for that was supposed to say, "Harmony," but actually translates to, "I am a picnic table."
Then again, people took their religion very seriously back then so that's probably too simple an explanation. If they really used a bunch of abbreviations and acronyms on these things it will be a real bear to figure out what it was originally meant to say. That's like trying to decipher a Twitter post written entirely in some local neighborhood slang. The only people who could ever be certain of an entirely correct interpretation would be the intended recipients who live in the same neighborhood during the same time period.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @10:12AM
God wasn't on our side. [oglaf.com] [NSFW]
Time to have a word with God. [oglaf.com] [NSFW]
(Score: 4, Informative) by VLM on Tuesday August 11 2015, @11:15AM
Also see
http://hanzismatter.blogspot.com/2006/08/gibberish-asian-font-mystery-solved.html [blogspot.com]
It might be purely artistic.
Another thing to complicate matters is there was world trade in that era, just not much, and mostly only for the rich, which kind of fits the noblemans sword theme, which implies that regardless if its artistic or nonsense or possibly even real, it might have only held meaning in ... Morocco or something, and endless trade and gift deals later it somehow ends up in a river in England decades later.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @02:14PM
This reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlfberht [wikipedia.org]
Notice the surrounding plusses. But I'd expect the British Museum to be familiar with this. :)
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday August 11 2015, @03:53PM
Pretty good assumption. Perhaps the noble wanted a sword that was engraved with a foreign "exotic" language like the GP mentioned. Sword maker has no clue how to make said language. Perhaps he remembers seeing characters that looked foreign but can't exactly remember them, something about chinese or mongolian. So he wings it and whips up his own letterset that looks foreign. Perhaps he even swindled the noble and said it has some deep and profound meaning. Noble now thinks he has this exotic sword in his possession. Some traveller comes along, nobles boasts of exotic sword and traveller says it's bogus. Angry noble tosses fake into river in rage, possibly murders traveller in said rage. We find sword and assume all sorts of exotic scenarios. History channel says it's aliens. All the while some blacksmith is laughing in his grave.
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Thursday August 20 2015, @04:03PM
Because no one else… here's the tattoo or t-shirt:
我是一名野餐桌
or for really big print:
我是一名 [I am a]
野餐桌 [picnic table]
Had to mess a bit with the translator to get back the same as I put in but as far as I (who don't know Chinese) can tell this means “I am a picnic table” in traditional Chinese :)
I wish I had a t-shirt like that 25 years ago when I lived in a Chinese place :D
Or maybe 我是一名T卹 is better for a t-shirt since (I think) it means “I am a t-shirt” :) That's a Roman/Latin alphabet T in there but it could be mistaken for 丅 as in 丅 [wiktionary.org] which can be read as inferior i.e. “I am an inferior shirt”. Translingual pun?
*disappears off into memories*
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))