The North Stone

The North Stone near the coast

The North Stone or La Pierre du Nord in Lysian, is a runic stone dating from the 9th century and located near Saint-Etienne, in Louvier. It was discovered in 1973.

Location

The stone is located in a field west of Saint-Etienne, in Louvier. It is located in the province of Lysbourg.

Features

The stone has inscriptions in Old Ateenian. It also consists of a serpent, ingraved with runic letters/symbols, which surrounds the text in the middle. The text in the middle, if read left-to-right, translates to the following: "We arrived by boat. Beautiful land, gracious people. So we left them to live in peace".

The meaning of the runes ingraved in the serpent remained unknown until 2001, when research carried out to decipher the runes ingraved in the serpent revealed another text which translates as follows: "Ship landed on fertile lands, weak and fearful peoples, wars and blood, god of war victorious, good harvest, diseases and deaths, ship left".

After this discovery, it was assumed that the Ateenian settlers landed there to set up camp and met the natives. The first contacts were strained and soon the Ateenians attacked the natives and plundered their resources. Epidemics then began to decimate the settlers forcing them to leave.

It is also suggested that the Ateenian artifacts found in the Tomb of the Elders may have been spoils of war from the natives after a battle.