According to the Ontario Centre for Archeological Research and Education (OCARE), a runic inscription has been located in the Canadian wilderness. It's located approximately 465 miles northwest of Ottawa, and spans over a 4-by-5 foot section of slab. The slab contains 271 runes, 14 x markings, and a detailed illustration of a boat. Runes are the letters in a set of related alphabets, known as runic rows.The runes describe a version of the Lord's Prayer. .Archeologists were finally able to crack the symbols meaning and origins, but not necessarily why they were written to begin with. The symbols themselves originate from the oldest runic alphabet. Researchers believe it was inscribed in 19th century using the Futhark alphabet. This is the oldest known form of the runic alphabet, used by Germanic peoples. .This alphabet was first developed by the Germanic people during the second and eighth centuries CE. It eventually evolved and was adopted by the Scandinavians, Anglo-Saxons, and Frisiacs, but died out by the High Middle Ages (between 1000 to 1300 CE). In 1865, Norwegian scholar Sophus Burge deciphered the language..In the 19th century, the Hudson's Bay Company stationed Swedish workers at trading posts across Canada. In the early 1600s, the Swedish polymath, Johannes Bureus, translated the symbols into a system that corresponded with the Swedish language. The result, was a 1611 publication of a Swedish language Lord's Prayer, written in Futhark runes..Researchers have theorized that the ruins originated from 19th century Swedish workers, based on the system translation of the Swedish Lord's Prayer. Although this is all unconfirmed, OCARE claims it could be dated later or even earlier. Conservationists are currently working with local landowners to establish the discovery as a public heritage site. .Researchers say several questions still remain: Why was the slab carved there? And why that text?
