the origin of the Runes?
One theory has it that the ancient Germanics based their runic writing from the Etruscans. I'm not definitively weighing in on this, but I happened upon a photo of the Pyrgi Gold Tablets where the right two are in Etruscan characters bearing some resemblance to the runes : From 500 BCE, and it wouldn't be so hard to conceive of the characters evolving or changing into Elder Futhark as time went forward. Here's a transcription for more clarity of the letter forms: Sinistrodextral and boustrophedon are present in surviving runic examples, so the left-to-right in the Etruscan above allows for runes later being pretty fast & loose with whichever direction they were written. The Ansuz ( ), Isa (ᛁ), Sowilo ( ), and Laguz ( )-like characters in mirror/reverse seem pretty dead on. These tablets are also a dedication to the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar, and that could also be seen as a sacred throughline with uses of the runes on amulets, wood staves intended for magic, and runes