Alekanovo inscription

The Alekanovo inscription is a group of undeciphered characters found in the fall of 1897 in the Russian village of Alekanovo (Ryazan Oblast) by Russian archeologist Vasily Gorodtsov. The characters were inscribed on a small clay pot 15 cm high, located in a Slavic burial site. While the inscription was found to be authentic, there is no widely accepted reading of it.^[1] The inscription was dated by Gorodtsov to 10th–11th century AD. Similar characters on shards were found in Alekanovo in 1898.^[2][3][4]

Reproduction of the Alekanovo inscription

Gorodtsov proposed that the characters might be runes, but found only two characters similar to runes. According to Polish ethnographer Jan Leciejewski [pl], the inscription is mirror writing and should be read right-to-left. Another view is that the inscription represents a local character set, devised in the Vyatich tribal union.^[1]