An 11-year-old boy in the village of Yakutia has discovered a 1,000-year-old message on a pendant that was carved into a mammoth bone with Turkic runic inscriptions.

Just four words were etched into the pendant, according to The Siberian Times, and these must have been of great importance to the owner of the jewelry. It is thought that the language used on the pendant is part of the Orkhon-Yenisei type script, which can occasionally be seen adorning rock art in the Sakha Republic, which is part of the Russian Federation.

Academic Ninel Malysheva has noted that while it is not uncommon to see runes of this kind used alongside rock art, it is quite unusual to discover them inscribed on mammoth bone pendants and other amulets like the one found by the fifth grade boy, and scientists from different fields will need to examine the runes to conduct an extensive study on them.

“Runes rarely occur on such things as talismans and amulets. If it is confirmed that this bone found in Namsky district is genuine, it will be a great scientific discovery for the republic. A comprehensive study is now required involving paleontologists, archaeologists and Turkologists.”

The Museum of Writing, which works in conjunction with the North-Eastern Federal University (NEFU), is currently working to determine the dating of this pendant while also trying to decode the runes. While there is some speculation that the pendant could have a message that reads “good wishes,” scientists are still not certain just what the exact message on it conveys.

Boy, 11, finds ‘1,000 year old message’ written in runes on pendant made of mammoth bone

Pavel Yakovlev makes ‘great scientific discovery’ near his village in Yakutia.https://t.co/c6MDOLAIFw pic.twitter.com/ydQruj2OTQ — The Siberian Times (@siberian_times) July 5, 2018

Scientists point to the discovery of the Petrov inscription that was found in Yaktutia, and which has similar writing in Turkic runes, although this particular set of runes were inscribed by using ocher.

During the last century, it was believed that these ancient writings might point to the secret location of a treasure that was hidden during medieval times, but it was eventually determined that the Turkic script read “Pearls of the tribe Az.”

This ancient Turkic script is also commonly referred to as Orkhon-Yenisei script or Göktürk script and was the alphabet that was favored between the 8th and 10th centuries by the Göktürks. The name stems from the Orkhon Valley which is located in Mongolia, where the very first of these mysterious inscriptions was found 1889. These particular runic inscriptions were eventually translated in 1893 by the Danish philologist Vilhelm Thomsen.

With the recent discovery of the new runic inscriptions carved into the mammoth bone pendant in Yakutia, scientists should have a much better idea of what these actually say once they have completed their in-depth study.