Curiosities of Archaeology

[Griffin NoName]

Well then the next step is to make it with distressed materials, plant it, and set up an expedition to find it....... 



tho "finding it" on April 1 may not be so easy and beware when it tips into the not funny any more....

[Swatopluk]

Many expeditions failed to find the legendary cipher tree. Most members didn't even get a place in a crypt.

Seriously, the new design would consist of a multilayered grid of planks with holes in them. The planks are moved back and forth by crown wheels with cogs either on the front or back side. So, a ball would fall not straight down but be shifted inside the grid before it falls out at the bottom. Clumsy but anyone able to build a mill could built this too. Could be done with little or no metal and would not require much precision.

[Griffin NoName]

Now you just have to become a Time Lord

[Aggie]

You did this one, Swato?  BRAVO!

Best April Fool's joke that I didn't figure out until told on April 2nd EVER.


Do try to get this published in some form for next year...  it's excellent.

[Swatopluk]

This year's April joke will have to be postponed, unfortunately. My apology.
The theme expanded even while I was working on the German version and I will have to do some more background research.
Also I need my computer back from repair.
The pdf of the German draft is slightly too large to attach (1042 KB > 1024 KB), so I cannot put it here as a teaser either.

Edit: the .doc file is smaller and I'll put that here instead

[Griffin NoName]

I've run this through a translator.

[Swatopluk]

That translation is actually not that bad. But it swallowed a few verbs and dropped a few negations (can instead of can't, 'not' left out). It should be possible to understand what it is about.
Of course it misses all the updates like the Nazis, the Kidlington stone, the Vardö witch trials, the rune drum, the hammer of St.Hubert, and also some images.

[Griffin NoName]

I used MS$$ online converter. 

Maybe you could edit the "translated" version for us?

[Swatopluk]

Better wait for the update

[Griffin NoName]

Happy to retranslate if needed..... method: open document in German in MS$$ Word, choose "Translate" option.

[Swatopluk]

As a teaser for the upcoming attractions I present you with
The Kidlington Runestone
Found in 1984 south of Kidlington near the confluence of the Cherwell and Thames River.
It commemorates a Viking raid in the 9th century and may be the archaeological proof that the medieval Hristarmál (aka Òltheresmal or Song of Christomar) is based on a real event.
The stone shows two inscriptions with accompanying image. One is in corrupted Latin and dedicates the stone to Skinka/e, a Frankish follower of the Jarl of Uxavadh (the leader of the raid). The other is Norse written in Younger Futhark of the Danish-Norwegian style and is a typical boast/bashing. Skinka/e boasts about his own bravery and insults his opponent in a way NSFW.
It's interesting to note that the Latin text alludes to the Odes of Horace (III.30, I have raised a monument more permanent than bronze) while it contains at the same time numerous irregularities like the AE ligature, KS for X, wrong declination and actual botched words (aertaernalum seems to be a mixture of the correct 'eternalem' with the 'aere perennius' of the Ode).
The spelling OVVLPEREI is an improper rendition of Ólþere (þ => P, clearly a mistake by the chiseller). Pronounced in Norse the name  takes on the meaning of Owl-carrier. Whether there is a connection to the legendary ancestor of the Saxonian Eulenburg family, Christomar Ulentrager, remains speculation.
The Norse text follows the regular alliterative style of Norse poetry, although the final insult partially breaks the metre and looks like a line-filling afterthought.

The image above the Latin text shows a wading bull with the runic letters ERIL (jarl or runemaster), a heraldic stand-in for the Jarl of Uxavadh.

The image above the Norse text shows a man in Frankish armor in single combat with another in Norse or Saxon outfit shaking a lance. Since Hristari, the corrupted form of Christomar means shaker/wielder/rattler this image clearly depicts the single combat between Skinka/e the Frank and Christomar Ólthere.

[Sibling DavidH]

Wow!

[Griffin NoName]

So what's the clue to this being nonsense?

[Swatopluk]

So what's the clue to this being nonsense?

Just to begin with look at the names (more closely)
But better do not try to make sense of the rune text (yet). Although I tried to get the Icelandic (as stand-in for Old Norse) right, there may be some mistakes there to start with. And since I used the short rune alphabet (16 letters as opposed to the older 24) of the Viking age without the possible punctuation, it becomes close to unreadable.
That is of course right what I want since that way the scholarly explanation can be far off-mark.

Unless Sibling DavidH can help with his knowledge of Old English I will be unable to present you with more than a synopsis of the Song of Òlthere. But yesterday evening I wrote the full version of what the story became when it fell to the tellers of fairy-tales.
Behold the Tale of Owl-Terry and the Red Bull (I'll put that in the Arts section soon).
I am still undecided, whether to actually write the Vita Sancti Oltherii in Latin or to stick to a 'translation' or synopsis.

[Sibling DavidH]

I believe a Middle High German version exists, by Johann von Düngerhausen:

Uns ist in alten maeren wunders vil geseit
Von helden lobebaeren und grozer arebeit...

Or was that something else?

This note in Cotton MS Judas 23.iv suggests that the whole thing happened right here in the village:

Her wæs Hereford gehergod, æfter þæm swyðe raþe wæs Ólþere ofslagan æt Moretun bi þaere Lug.