The marble lion outside Venice's Arsenal is covered in Viking runes.
Swedes carved them in the 11th century, when it stood in Piraeus, Athens' port; Francesco Morosini carried it off to Venice as loot in 1687.
More amazing facts
- 1040 · 1057 · 1606 The real Macbeth ruled Scotland for 17 years, secure enough to go on pilgrimage to Rome in 1050, where he scattered money to the poor 'like seed'. Shakespeare made him a villain five and a half centuries later.
- 1040 · 1450 Movable type was invented 400 years before Gutenberg — in clay.
- 1045 · 1051 Yaroslav the Wise is called the 'father-in-law of Europe': three of his daughters became queens.
- 1051 · 1060 A queen of France signed her name in Cyrillic.
- 1054 In July 1054, Chinese astronomers saw a new star; 12 days later came the schism in Constantinople.
- 1066 · 1910 The same Halley's Comet embroidered on the Bayeux Tapestry in 1066 returned in 1910 — when the Earth even passed through its tail.