Two rare artifacts inscribed with ancient letters, or runes, could be the key to a mysterious era of Viking history when they suddenly abandoned their old alphabet and transitioned to a new one.

People living in Scandinavia may have written encrypted messages in runes – the alphabet later used by the Vikings – several centuries earlier than previously thought. In runic writing systems, each ...

We all know which star sign we were born under. With its 12 signs of the zodiac, conventional astrology has long dominated our reading of the heavens above. But what if other cultures had different ...