Late last year, Norwegian archaeologists made a pair of astonishing finds within days of each other, unearthing two rare sets of runes in separate sections of Medieval Oslo Park.

Solveig Thorkildsen and Ingeborg Hornkjøl of the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) found the objects – a bone with an inscription in Norse and a runic staff with texts in Latin and Norse – during ongoing excavations on the site. The runic bone is the first of its kind found in the Norwegian capital for more than 30 years, according to a statement.

The team was finishing the day’s work when Thorkildsen spotted a large bone lying on the ground. “Look, there is a runic letter! She joked to her colleagues, according to Google Translate.

When the researcher picked up the bone and turned it over, she was shocked to discover that someone had actually scratched 14 runes from the object’s surface.

“My heart was racing,” Thorkildsen recalls in the statement, according to a translation by Anders Moen Kaste of Science Norway. “Finding runes was high on my wishlist for this dig.” As NIKU notes, the runes were probably carved on the ribs of a large horse or cow. To date, only 27 of these bones have been identified in Oslo.

A few days after Thorkildsen’s discovery, Hornkjøl made an equally exciting discovery. As she stood in a deep trench prone to filling with water, she noticed a piece of wood that had spilled into the ditch. Like the recently recovered bone, the staff bore runes from medieval times.

Together, the inscribed fragments constitute an unusual double discovery that will help researchers learn more about the medieval inhabitants of Oslo. Although the objects have not yet been studied in the laboratory, archaeologists have dated similar runes to between 1100 and 1350 CE

“Each new runic discovery is important and tells us more about what interested people in the Middle Ages and wanted to share with those around them,” says Kristel Zilmer, runology expert at the University of Oslo, in the release, by a translation by Daily inheritance. “These two runes are a reminder of the diverse knowledge and interests of the people of that time.”

Zilmer’s preliminary analysis suggests that the wooden slat has runes on three of its four sides. The inscriptions include the Latin phrase manus Dominates Where Domini, which could be part of the prayer “Into your hands, Lord, I commit my spirit.” You redeemed me, O Lord, O God of truth. (Medieval Christians often used runes to express simple prayers, says the scholar Science Norway.)

The Norse name Bryngjerd also appears on the staff, possibly indicating that a woman of that name used the runes to express her devotion to God.

Zilmer poses two theories on the significance of the runes on the bone discovered by Thorkildsen. The object bears the Nordic inscription basmarþærbæin– perhaps a name or nickname, or, alternatively, a phrase intended to describe the bone itself.

Runology specialist Karen Langsholt Holmqvist recounts Science Norway that runes are short pieces of text with very context-dependent meanings. In medieval Norway, only the elite could read and write, but a large part of the population would have been familiar with common runes referring to well-known phrases, names and texts.

December was an eventful month for the researchers of the Medieval Park. Days before the Thorkildsen and Hornkjøl finds, NIKU archaeologists unearthed a medieval sculpture of a person wearing a crown and holding a hawk. Like Science Norway reported at the time, the three-inch-long sculpture was made of animal bones and could have served as a handle for a knife or tool. The figurine is perhaps one of the oldest Scandinavian depictions of falconry, a hunting practice where birds of prey are trained to kill wild game.