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Cake day: July 2nd, 2023

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  • it said something like “this is very high”.

    Maeshowe, in the Orkney Islands off the northern tip of Scotland. It’s a properly ancient structure, and there are 30 runic inscriptions in it which are all just straight up graffiti, including “Tholfir Kolbeinsson carved these runes high up”. My favourite part is it’s not even that high up, like the guy was probably just on someone’s shoulders.

    Oddly enough we probably have the story of the graffiti artists. The Orkneyinga saga tells the tale of some 12th century Norsemen who took shelter there during a snowstorm and looted the place. By the time they did so, Maeshowe was already about 4,000 years old, and whatever they looted was probably left there by their own ancestors a few centuries beforehand.