Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 7.djvu/173

 BRACTEATES, AND RUNIC INSCRIPTIONS. 123 In the third letter, addressed also to Herr Narbutt, M. Wolanski discusses, among other things, the probability that Lithuania was known in ancient times under its proper name of Litavia, and supports his arguments by inscriptions on Homan coins. The fourth letter, addressed to the Royal Danish Society for Northern Antiquities, is chiefly devoted to the examina- tion and description of several gold bracteates, which the author shows to be of Slavonic origin, by reference to the system of idolatry prevailing among the Slavonic nations. The fifth letter, which is addressed to the Royal Bohemian Academy of Sciences at Prague, comprises — 1. A description of some bracteates, disclosing the names Niemysl, Unislav, Hostiwit, and Mojslav, identifying them with the early periods of Bohemian history (the eighth and ninth centuries'). 2. A description of the celebrated monument of the peace of Bohemia, anno 874, known as the Hiinensaulen, which consists now of seven pillars, or large stones, and is situate in the Odenwald, in the grand duchy of Hesse Darmstadt, close to Main BuUau, near Miltenberg, and also near the spot where the Mudau falls into the Maine. The largest of these pillars is 27 feet long, 3^ feet in diameter at the bottom, and 2 feet at the top. The other six are of the respective lengths of 25, 24, and 20 feet. Four of these columns are inscribed with characters that have not yet been deciphered. On the largest they are continuous, on the second they are twice interrupted, and on the other two there arc only some scattered letters, with a date in Arabic numerals, 5587, which, calculated by the Julian sera, would give 874 of the Christian a^ra. The author observes, " The Christian sculp- tor of the period ornamented each of the heathen runes of the first column with a cross. We must remove these cross- lines in order to be able to see the runes in their original form and to decipher them : unless, indeed, these cross- strokes were perchance the remains of some very ancient style of writing, where separate characters, joined together for the purpose of forming a word, were attached to a long line, as in the Sanscrit, &c. We find a somewhat similarly formed character in the Gnostic Talisman in J. A. Doederlin's Commentatio Historica, &c. p. 104, fig. liv." ^ SeeiEneas Sylvius, Hist. Boh., cap. 0,p. 25, 1524; Schafariii, Slawisehe Altertliumes, vol. ii., p. 286, 422. 1843.