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The author, Miles Mathis, was sent a link to a British Museum sword with a mysterious inscription that had not been deciphered. Initially hesitant due to time constraints, Mathis spent fifteen minutes on it and found a solution. He determined the inscription consisted of eighteen letters (after dismissing decorative crosses at the beginning and end) that were actually runes, not standard letters. He identified them as Marcomannic runes, close to modern letters, suggesting they were used for an ancient aesthetic and to save space. Mathis noted that the inscription indicated a warrior unfamiliar with standard rune usage, particularly with the letter N.
By translating the runes, Mathis identified the central sequence “WDN” as representing the god WODEN, by dropping unnecessary vowels. The ending sequence “GORCHI” or “GORKI” was translated, with the G-rune representing G, to mean “hills” in Polish. The beginning sequence “GOG” was interpreted as a proto-Polish word for “GOD,” possibly related to Gog and Magog. The D in the inscription was interpreted as standing for “to” in Polish, with the vowel dropped. This led to the initial translation: “N to the god CH Woden CH to the hills.” The repeated “CH” was assumed to be a superlative, resulting in “N to the great god Woden-the-great to the hills.”
Mathis proposed two interpretations for the crosses bookending the inscription. One, that the warrior was Christian and the message was “Send the god Woden to the hills,” meaning defeat him. The other possibility, supported by depictions of solar crosses within circles and crescent moons on the sword’s reverse, was that the crosses were pagan symbols. In this case, the inscription would mean “Hail to the great god Woden-the-great of the hills,” signifying a warrior seeking Woden’s blessing. Finally, the initial N was interpreted as an H, leading to the proposed final meaning: “Dedicated to the great god Woden-the-great of the hills.” Mathis mentioned that the British Museum is no longer soliciting public help with this puzzle, as the game ended in 2015.
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