The past is often still with us, and in unexpected places. In this case, a Danish farmer noticed some marks cut into old stones piled on his farm, and invited an archaeologist to look at them. They turned out to be part of a runestone that’s been missing over 250 years.
Runestones, most dating from the Viking era in Scandinavia, were erected as monuments to the dead or to mark important events. They can provide important clues to history and culture, but many of them have simply disappeared either by subsiding into the earth, or being recycled for other purposes.
in this case, the farmer had bought some land adjoining his farm, and tore down the old house on it. He had a large pile of stones hauled to his own house, where he eventually noticed the markings. Archaeologists from the nearby Museum of Thy were able to match the inscriptions to a 1767 drawing of the stone, some other parts of which were already at the museum.
Looking further, they found two more pieces of the stone, called the Ybdy stone, that the farmer had used as part of a terrace behind the house. Together with the known parts, they believe they have now found nearly the entire stone. The image below, from the National Museum of Denmark, highlights in white the just-found parts.
