0
/	1
//	2
///	3
////	4
\	5
/\	6
//\	7
///\	8
////\	9
\\	10
/\\	11
//\\	12
///\\	13
////\\	14
\\\	15
/\\\	16
//\\\	17
///\\\	18
////\\\	19
\\\\	20
/\\\\	21
//\\\\	22
///\\\\	23
////\\\\	24
\\\\\	25
/\\\\\	26
//\\\\\	27
///\\\\\	28
////\\\\\	29

During the beginning of the Urnfield culture

Urnfield culture

The Urnfield culture was a late Bronze Age culture of central Europe. The name comes from the custom of cremating the dead and placing their ashes in urns which were then buried in fields...

, around 1200 BC, a series of votive sickle

Sickle

A sickle is a hand-held agricultural tool with a variously curved blade typically used for harvesting grain crops or cutting succulent forage chiefly for feeding livestock . Sickles have also been used as weapons, either in their original form or in various derivations.The diversity of sickles that...

s of bronze

Bronze

Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...

 with marks that have been interpreted as a numeral system

Numeral system

A numeral system is a writing system for expressing numbers, that is a mathematical notation for representing numbers of a given set, using graphemes or symbols in a consistent manner....

, appeared in Central Europe

Central Europe

Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...

.

Discovery

In 1946 a deposit with more than 250 sickles corresponding to the period 1500–1250 BC was discovered in Frankleben (in the region of Merseburg

Merseburg

Merseburg is a town in the south of the German state of Saxony-Anhalt on the river Saale, approx. 14 km south of Halle . It is the capital of the Saalekreis district. It had a diocese founded by Archbishop Adalbert of Magdeburg....

–Querfurt

Querfurt

Querfurt a town in Saalekreis district in the south of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, situated in a fertile area on the Querne, west from Merseburg, on a branch line from Oberroblingen. Pop. 12,935 .-History:...

). This discovery was part of a series of deposits from the Urnfield culture found close to the Saale

Saale

The Saale, also known as the Saxon Saale and Thuringian Saale , is a river in Germany and a left-bank tributary of the Elbe. It is not to be confused with the smaller Franconian Saale, a right-bank tributary of the Main, or the Saale in Lower Saxony, a tributary of the Leine.-Course:The Saale...

, where some 600 sickles and other objects have been retrieved. The sickles are thought to have been created and buried in deposits with ritual ends, due to the lack of signs of use.

On the sickles, a series of marks in two positions called attention: simple strokes, under the button that sticks out, near where a handle ought to be, and more complex signs, in the corner of the blade or on the base. The basic strokes have been interpreted as a numeral system.

Other objects that show these marks have been discovered, like the Ruthen stamp (from the end of the Bronze Age

Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...

), which shows the symbol ////\\\\\ and the Coswig vessel (between 1200–1000 BC), which also shows the symbol ////\\\\\, accompanied by other symbols. In the case of the Coswig vessel, it gives the impression that it was made by a trained hand which wrote a complex series of signs on the fresh clay surface.

The numeral system

The discovered numeral system is in base

Radix

In mathematical numeral systems, the base or radix for the simplest case is the number of unique digits, including zero, that a positional numeral system uses to represent numbers. For example, for the decimal system the radix is ten, because it uses the ten digits from 0 through 9.In any numeral...

 five, i.e. quinary

Quinary

Quinary is a numeral system with five as the base. A possible origination of a quinary system is that there are five fingers on either hand. The base five is stated from 0-4...

. The units digit are written with a stroke from the top-right to the bottom-left «/» and the fives place with a stroke from the top-left to the bottom-right «\». The numbers from 1 = / to 29 = ////\\\\\ have been found.

Interpretation

These embossed marks, unique in objects from the Bronze Age, were introduced in cast-iron molds and were not created on finished objects. The marks on the clay molds were done sometimes by hand, others with stamps, and corrected wrong symbols indicates an intention and a previous planning. The marking system for the clay on the cast is similar to Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...

n cuneiform

Cuneiform

Cuneiform can refer to:*Cuneiform script, an ancient writing system originating in Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium BC*Cuneiform , three bones in the human foot*Cuneiform Records, a music record label...

.

That numbers past 29 have not been found, when theoretically the system can be used to write unlimited numbers, has been interpreted to be because of the lunar cycle of 29.5 days. The cultures that use a lunar calendar

Lunar calendar

A lunar calendar is a calendar that is based on cycles of the lunar phase. A common purely lunar calendar is the Islamic calendar or Hijri calendar. A feature of the Islamic calendar is that a year is always 12 months, so the months are not linked with the seasons and drift each solar year by 11 to...

 habitually decide between 29 and 30 days for their calendar and correct the annual difference in various ways. If this interpretation is accepted, each ravine represents one day of the lunar cycle.

The shape of the sickle is similar to a crescent moon

Moon

The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...

, which explains the significance of this object in the worship of the Urnfield culture.

With this, the symbol found on the Ruthen stamp and the Coswig vase has been interpreted, 29 = ////\\\\\, as a symbol of the lunar cycle. In general, it is believed that the writing encodes the lunar cycle as the agricultural cycle linked with the moon and the Sun

Sun

The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...

.

Other symbols

Another series of symbols exists which appears around the sickles and still has not been interpreted. However it is clear that these symbols follow determined rules that are valid in all the influential territory.

Some of those symbols can be put in groups from one to four by what has been proposed as a type of base five numeral system.

40	41	42	43	44	45	46	47	48	49
50	51	52	53	54	55	56	57	● 58	59
60	61	62	63	64	65	66	67	●● 68	69
70	71	72	73	74	75	76	77	●●● 78	79
80	81	82	83	84	85	86	87	●●●● 88	89

There still exist some symbols that have not been put in any group:

16

22

25

26

33

36

42

43

69

The numbers 22, 25, 33, 36, 43 and 69 and 24, 52, 53, 54, 56, 62, 63, 64, 66, 73, 74, 84 and 86 appear on the base of the sickle. The numbers 16, 26 and 42 and 44, 52, 54, 55, 57, 58, 62, 64, 67, 68, 72, 74, 77, 78, 82, 84, 85, 87 and 88 appear on the angle of the sickle. The numbers 52, 54, 62, 64, 74 and 84 appear in both places.

Hypothesis of the runes

This writing has been related to the German runes, not only due to the geographic but also the agricultural and lunar character that the two possess. It has been affirmed that the runes often appear together with other non-runic symbols, even in combination on the same object. Also, ᛃ j, ᛜ ng and also ᚷ g do not have connections to the Etruscan alphabet from which the Runic alphabet

Runic alphabet

The runic alphabets are a set of related alphabets using letters known as runes to write various Germanic languages before the adoption of the Latin alphabet and for specialized purposes thereafter...

supposedly comes. On the other hand, the letters ᛃ j, ᛜ ng and ᚲ k are distinguished from the rest of the runes by their smaller size. The runes are also characterized by possessing names in addition to representing a sound.

Under the hypothesis that the names of some runes were taken from previous symbols, the names of those runes could give clues about the meaning of the symbols. In this way, if the symbol that has more combinations with others , the one that appears most frequently and the most characteristic are selected, you can make the following equivalence:

Symbol	Rune	Equivalence	Meaning
22	ᛃ	jera	year
69	ᛜ	ingwaz	god
36	ᚷ	gebô	present

This is just an interesting hypothesis that perhaps will never be confirmed.

External links

• Image of the Frankleben sickles.
• Image of the Coswig vase.