<html><head></head><body><div class="yahoo-style-wrap" style="font-family:Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;"><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">Dear all,</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">I'm researching literacy in medieval Scandinavia, and have a few artefacts from the town Sigtuna (near Stockholm) that I'm not sure about. They are classified as styli, but other such finds have been identified by clearly optimistic archaeologists (they claimed it was a stylus, I said it was a broken bone point that could just as well be a needle or garment pin as a stylus), so I'm not certain. They don't follow the standard types of styli that I recognise from England, Germany, or other Scandinavian medieval towns. Potentially they are tools of some kind, but of what? </div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">Stylistically, many finds from Sigtuna are similar to east Baltic/Rus artefacts - an area I have very little knowledge of. Finds from other towns nearby such as Uppsala or Stockholm are more similar to those from the Hanseatic area.<br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">I've put up photos of the most strange ones here: </div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><a href="https://bonesandartefacts.travel.blog/2020/01/04/writing-artefacts-from-sigtuna/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://bonesandartefacts.travel.blog/2020/01/04/writing-artefacts-from-sigtuna/</a><br></div><div><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">I hope someone here can give me some ideas on what these artefacts are, whether they are styli or something else.</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">And if anyone of you have seen so called knifeblade styli (photo on webpage), please let me know.</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">Best wishes,</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">Lena</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div></div></body></html>