The world’s oldest text about the god Odin found

 The world’s oldest text about the god Odin found

The gold medallion with the inscription “He is Odin’s man”. The pendant was meant to be worn on a chain around the neck. Its diameter is approximately 60 millimeters. The medallion is on display in the Danish National Museum’s gold room. Photo: Arnold Mikkelsen/National Museum

Researchers have succeeded in showing that Odin was a rewritten god as early as the beginning of the fourth century. The discovery changes the historiography, as previous evidence for Old Norse mythology is 150 years younger.

It is the Danish National Museum’s runologist Lisbeth Imer who, together with the linguist Krister Vasshaus at the University of Bergen, made the discovery. They have studied the very difficult to interpret runic inscription on a bracteate – a gold medallion – and managed to understand its meaning.

The challenge was partly to be able to read the almost worn-out runic script, partly to interpret the combined words in a more than 1,500-year-old language.

“Totally amazing”

“The runic writing has been the most difficult to interpret during my 20 years as a runologist at the National Museum, but the discovery is also absolutely fantastic. It is the first time in world history that Oden’s name is mentioned,” says Lisbeth Imer in a press release.

The now second oldest inscription with the name Oden is found on a buckle from the German Nordenorf and is dated to the latter part of the 5th century. The Danish pendant is from the early 5th century.

Great gold treasure

The gold pendant with Odin’s name and several other pieces of gold jewelry were found as late as 2020 in Vindelev, just outside Jelling in Jutland. The gold treasures together weighed more than a kilo and the find was considered sensational.

Now the researchers have presented their surprising finding from this treasure: the god of war and death Odin, the highest god in Old Norse religion, was rewritten earlier than previously thought.

“This type of inscription is extremely rare. At best, one is discovered every 50 years. This turns out to be world history, says Krister Vasshus in the press release from the National Museum.

What does the inscription say? Odin is mentioned in the sentence “He is Oden’s man” and refers to the medallion’s portrait of an unknown king or great man. The man may have had the name Jaga or Jagaz.

The new elite of the time

The Danish find is also exciting from a Swedish point of view, says Åsa Marnell, head of the History Museum in Stockholm.

– The finds are from the migration period, a politically turbulent time when many northerners took part in wars on the continent. We also see how religion changes and that new leaders usurp power. Why Odin becomes so important we do not know, but it is quite obvious that the new elite surrounds themselves with gold pendants and other objects that in one way or another are connected to the cult of Odin. The new thing is that older such objects have now been found in Denmark. We will follow the researchers’ work with excitement, she says.

Several similar gold pendants like the Danish one are also in the Historiska museum’s collections. One of them has a runic inscription and is dated to the period 400–550. But, the oldest proven object with Odin in writing is thus found in Denmark.

Facts

Runes

In the Nordic countries, they wrote with runes from about the year 200 until the end of the Middle Ages, but during the Middle Ages Latin letters were also used.

Messages were carved on pieces of wood or wooden sticks. One could also carve crests, weapons and other personal items.

The oldest runes in Scandinavia come from the 2nd and 4th centuries. In the History Museum’s collections, for example, there is a costume buckle from the 4th century.

The practice of erecting memorial stones with runic writing appears in the 4th century. The early runestones have in many cases been placed next to graves. During the latter part of the Viking Age (ca. 950–1100), the actual Runestone Age, a large number of memorial stones were erected in the Nordic region.

Sources: NE and the Historical Museum

Source: The world’s oldest text about the god Odin found (postsen.com)