The Pernik sword is a

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

double-edged

iron Iron () is a chemical element with Symbol (chemistry), symbol Fe (from la, Wikt:ferrum, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 element, group 8 of the periodic table. It is, Abundanc ...

sword unearthed in the ruins of the medieval fortress of

Krakra Krakra of Pernik ( bg, Кракра Пернишки, ''Krakra Pernishki''), also known as Krakra Voevoda or simply Krakra, was an 11th-century feudal lord in the First Bulgarian Empire whose domain encompassed 36 fortresses in what is today sou ...

near

Pernik Pernik ( bg, Перник ) is a town in western Bulgaria (about south-west of Sofia) with a population of 70,285 . Pernik is the most populated town in western Bulgaria after Sofia. It is the main town of Pernik Province and lies on both bank ...

, western

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...

, on 1 January 1921. It bears an inscription in

silver Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...

inlay on the blade. The sword is preserved in the National Archaeological Museum of Bulgaria in

Sofia Sofia ( ; bg, София, Sofiya, ) is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria. It is situated in the Sofia Valley at the foot of the Vitosha mountain in the western parts of the country. The city is built west of the Iskar river, and h ...

. The sword is long and up to wide. The blade inscription is typical of the 12th-century "garbled" ''in nomine'' type, reading '. Comparable blade inscriptions range from the comparatively clear ' to the heavily distorted '', , ''. There is a scholarly tradition of attempts to interpret this type of inscription as abbreviations or contractions, e.g. reading ' as '''. Following such proposals, Mihailov (1985) proposed a tentative reading of the Pernik inscription along the lines of "'". By contrast, Dentschewa (2005) argued for a Lombardic interpretation of ', meaning 'I do not await eternity, I am eternity'.Dentschewa, ''Langobardische (?)…'', p. 1.

References

*Friedrich E. GRÜNZWEIG: ''Ein Schwert mit Inschrift aus Pernik (Bulgarien)'', Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik 61 (2006). *Dentschewa, Emilia:
Langobardische (?) Inschrift auf einem Schwert aus dem 8. Jahrhundert in bulgarischem Boden
. In: Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur, Band 128 (2006) Heft 1, S. 1-11. *Dentschewa, Emilia: "+IHININIhVILPIDHINIhVILPN+ oder die Botschaft eines Schwertes aus der Zeit des Königreichs der Langobarden (?)" In: Archaeologia Bulgarica IX (2005) Heft 2, S. 99-105.

External links

Archived version
Archaeological discoveries in Bulgaria Archaeological discoveries in Europe Lombard art Medieval European swords Medieval Bulgaria History of Pernik Province Pernik 1921 archaeological discoveries Individual weapons {{Bulgaria-hist-stub