Recently Discovered Scratched Stone in Denmark Could be One of The Earliest Maps in History

Reports of existing archaeological discoveries are pouring in lately from Scandinavia. A puzzling stone found in a ditch on Bornholm, a Danish island in the Baltic Sea, to the east of the rest of Denmark, could be one of the earliest maps in human history according to archaeologists and researchers at the National Museum of Denmark. The recent find, however, was not complete. It is made up of two pieces and one piece is still missing. As the magazine Skalk reports, the stone was discovered during archaeological excavation work at the Neolithic shrine Vasagård, where scientists have previously unearthed similar ancient stones inscribed with rectangular patterns filled with different rows of lines and shading.

The discovery was made on the island of Bornholm, Denmark (flickr)

Excavations of the paddock since the early nineties have discovered many broken flat stones inscribed with patterns of radiating straight lines, called “sun stones” or “solar stones”. Archaeologists have claimed that these artifacts were most likely used in the rituals of the followers of a Neolithic sun-worshipping religion that existed almost five millennia ago.