|
The Kensington runestone is a roughly rectangular slab of greywacke, 30 by 16 by 6 in and weighing about 200 lb (90 kg) covered in runes found in Kensington, Minnesota in 1898. Supposedly, it proves that Viking explorers were able to penetrate nearly halfway across the North American continent. However, the authenticity of the stone is disputed.
Early history
Whether it is authentic or false, the stone has a history on its own. It was found (or forged) by the son of Swedish settler Olof Öhman, who was working on making farmland out of woodland ("stump-breaking"). According to his story, the stone was lying in the root system of a tree at least 10 years old. That the stone had lain under a tree was proved in 1899 by nine inspectors who saw that a root fit perfectly around the stone. However, this did not prove that the runes were authentic.
When discussing the stone, it is relevant to know that at the time it appeared, the journey of Leif Ericson to Vinland (North America) was widely discussed, and a large mythos about the Vikings was spreading in the Scandinavian countries as a result of a national romantic movement. It was found only five years after a Danish archaeologist had proved it was possible to travel to America by medieval ships.
It should also be mentioned that at that time there was some conflict between Sweden and Norway due to the new independence of Norway, and both countries "accused" each other's citizens as being the origin of the stone. So in Norwegian sources one can read that this is a Swedish hoax, and in Swedish texts one can read it is Norwegian deceit. The story inscribed on the stone (see translation below), refers to a joint expedition made up of Norwegians and Swedes, at a time when they were both ruled by a single king.
After its discovery, a copy of the inscription made its way to Olaus Breda, Scandinavian languages professor at the University of Minnesota. Breda made the first translation of the inscription and declared it a forgery, but also sent on copies to professors in Scandinavia. Oluf Rygh, a Norwegian archeology professor, who based his assessment on information in a letter from Breda, also denied its authenticity. Other linguists also concluded that the stone was of modern origin.
After being dismissed as a fake, the stone was used as a step to Ohman's granary. It lay there, face down, until it was rediscovered by a historian, Hjalmar Holand, in 1907. Holand's investigation of the stone, which he believed genuine and championed until his death, created enough interest that further studies were undertaken, most notably by Newton Winchell for the Minnesota Historical Society and George Flom for the Philological Society of the University of Illinois, both of whom published their findings in 1910.
Winchell, to a large extent, relied on the physical aspects of the find. Though the original poplar tree under which the stone was found had since been destroyed, several other poplars of the same size were cut down and examined. It was discovered by ring count that they were 40 years of age. As the county in which the stone had been found was not settled until 1858, it seemed unlikely that the stone could be a forgery. Perhaps more importantly, Winchell, a highly respected geologist, studied the weathering of the stone and concluded that the inscription was roughly 500 years old.
Flom, a professor of Scandinavian languages, likewise used his expertise in his examination of the runestone. He found that the divergence of the runes used in the Kensington inscription and those of the 14th century were highly pronounced. Similarly, the linguistic forms were also not in keeping with 14th century usage concluding that many of these forms were simply impossible for the time period.
This fundamental conflict between the linguistic and physical evidences regarding the Kensington Runestone have kept the highly charged debate over its authenticity alive to the current day.
Historic precedent
King Magnus Erikson of Sweden issued a letter of protection (passport) in 1354 to Paul Knutson, who was to undertake a voyage to Greenland. The Western Settlement of Greenland had been found abandoned some years earlier, and there were suggestions that the population had rejected the Church and had gone to what is now known as North America.
It is not known with certainty if this expedition ever sailed, but in 1887 the historian Gustav Storm took note of the journey, suggesting it returned in 1363 or 1364. This appears to be the first published work presenting the possibility of a voyage at the time given on the Kensington Runestone. The date has since been backed up by the publication of a 1577 letter from Gerard Mercator to John Dee which excerpt an earlier work by Jacobus Cnoyen (now lost) describing a voyage beyond Greenland, which returned with 8 men in the year 1364. Cnoyen also mentions that a priest accompanying the voyage set down the description of the trip in a book called the Inventio Fortunate, which is mentioned in a number of medieval and renaissance documents, though no copy remains.
The Inventio is also mentioned on a number of 16th century maps as a source of their knowledge of the Arctic region. It seems likely then that there was a voyage, possibly exploratory in nature, passing beyond Greenland at the date inscribed on the Kensington stone. It is unsure however if this voyage took the explorers even as far as Hudson Bay (though some maps do show the bay for at least a century before its first known exploration), let alone into the middle of the North American continent, and it is certainly possible that an intrepid historian could have deduced the correct date to put on the Runestone, particularly after Storm's history came out in 1887. Regardless, there is a historical context for such an expedition to have taken place at the inscribed time.
Rollercoaster Ride
Shortly after the 1910 studies on the Kensington Runestone were published, Holand took the stone itself to Europe. The Runestone was met with less than an enthusiastic acceptance, and while articles and arguments pro and con filled the newspapers in Minnesota, the stone met with dismissal at the hands of the Swedish linguists.
For the next 4 decades Holand continued to struggle in his attempt to gain acceptance for the Runestone, with numerous articles and several books on the subject. He achieved a brief success, when in 1949 when the stone was put on display by the Smithsonian Institution, and scholars such as William Thalbitzer and S. R. Hagen published papers in favor of its authenticity. However, at nearly the same time, reports by Scandinavian philologists such as Sven Jansson, Erik Moltke, Harry Anderson and K. M. Nielsen, as well as a popular book by Erik Wahlgren again put the Runestone into disfavor.
Additional arguments were presented by the historian Theodore Blegen, who along with Wahlgren firmly pointed the finger of forgery at the finder, Ohman, possibly with the help of others from the region. A further coffin nail seemed to have been applied by the publication in 1976 of transcipts of a tape made by Walter Gran made several years earlier. In these tapes Gran stated that his father, John, had confessed to him in 1927 that Ohman had created the inscription. However, a close examination of the transcription reveals that John Gran had no actual knowledge of the creation of the Runestone, apparently basing his confession on anecdotes he had heard about Ohman. Billed as a deathbed confession, John Gran actually lived for several years longer, but said nothing more about the stone. Still the evidence pointed decisively against the authenticity of the Kensington Runestone.
From this low point in its history, the Runestone was given new life by Robert Hall, Professer Emeritus of Linguistics at Cornell University, who in a 1982 book (and a subsequent follow up in 1994) questioned the methodology of critics of the Kensington Stone. He explained that the odd philological problems in the Runestone could be the result of dialectic variances from the standard Old Swedish of the period. Further, if the language of the stone were possible, then an examination of the physical evidences must be taken into account. The critics, he noted, failed to do this, and his examination of these evidences found they leaned heavily in favor of the Runestone's authenticity.
Inspired by Hall, Dr. Richard Nielsen began an examination of the runology and linguistics of the Kensington Runestone, starting in 1983. His work has disproved many of the contentions made by earlier critics. For example, the rune which had been interpeted as standing for the letter /J/, and according to critics, created by the forger of the stone, proved to be a rare variant of the /L/ rune, found only in a few 14th century manuscripts.
Additionally Nielsen noted that the dialect found on the Runestone was an "a" dialect, unlike the far more common "e" dialect which was spoken by most Swedes, including Ohman. This dialect was found primarily near the Bohuslan region of southeast Sweden, next to the border of Norway, and likewise near to Danish territory. This, Nielsen believes, may account for much of language used on the stone, which appears to combine dialectic forms from these languages.
A New Century
In December of 1998, just over a hundred years after the finding of the stone, plans were made to conduct a detailed analysis of the physical features of the Kensington Runestone. This examintation, the first since Winchell's report in 1910, included detailed photography with a reflected light microscope, core sampling, and scanning electron microscope work. In November of 2000, the geologist working on the runestone, Scott Wolter presented a paper on the preliminary findings of this research which suggested an in ground weathering process that would take a minimum of 50-200 years.
One of the points focused on by Wolter, was the complete degradation of the mica on the inscribed surface of the stone. In further investigations, he was able to procure samples from gravestones dating back 200 years. Under examination, these samples showed considerable degradations of the mica, but still lacked the the complete loss of mica in the runestone sample. With the caveat that the gravestone sample was not subject to exactly the same conditions that the runestone underwent, this comparison still suggests the runestone was burried long before the first settlement of the area in 1858. It has been suggested that further research be done in this area.
Dr. Nielsen has also continued his research into the linguistic aspects of the runestone. In an artilce published in 2001 on the Scandinavian Studies website, he counters a number of arguements which have been raised against the inscriptions authenticity, including the argument that the runes were of Dalecarlian origin. Nielsen shows that while some of the abberant runes in the Kensington Runestone are similar to the Dalecarlian runes, over half have no connections with those runes, and can indeed be explained by 14th century usage.
Nielsen has also engaged in a long discussion of the linguistics of the runestone with an opponent of the runestone's authenticity Henrik Williams, Professor of Scandinavian Languages at Upsala University. In a joint statement for a 2004 exhibition of the stone at the Museum of National Antiquities in Stockholm, they noted that there were linguistic discrepancies for both a 14th and 19th century origin of the inscription, and that the runestone "requires further study before a secure conclusion can be reached."
Text
 The runic cipher described by Edward Larsson, including figures and the letters ÅÄÖ, exactly match the deviant runes on the Kensington Stone. The inscription on the front side (where one or two words may be missing due to a spalling off of some of the stone) states:
- 8 göter ok 22 norrmen po ? opthagelsefarth ? fro winlanth of west we hathe läger weth 2 skjar en thags rise fro theno sten wi war ok fiske en thag äptir wi kom hem fan 10 man rothe av bloth og theth AVM frälse af illy
- Translation¹: 8 Geats [South Swedes] and 22 Norwegians on ? mission-sent-by² ? Vinland from west [way or direction] set camp near 2 shelters one day travel from this stone[.] we fish[.] one day after [we] came home [we] found 10 men red of blood and dead AVM [our] save from evil.
The lateral text writes
- har 10 mans we hawet at se äptir wore skip 14 thag rise from theno öh ahr 1362.
- Translation¹: have 10 men near sea [to] look after our ship[.] 14 day[s] travel from this island year 1362
- ¹Most words (and many runes) are disputed, but this translation tries to be as plain as possible into the English language. Letters or words inside the brackets are extensions.
An in depth debate over the authenticity of the words in the above text would be both considerable and inconclusive. To take as one example the Swedish word opthagelsefarth (journey of exploration), or updagelsfard as it is often shown. This word is not known to have exisisted in the Old Swedish of the 14th or 15th centuries. However, in a conversation with Holand in 1911, the lexicographer and founder of the Old Swedish Dictionary, Soderwall, noted that the root word opdage could have been a Germanic loan word. Nielsen on the other hand suggests that þ translated above as 'th' or 'd' could also be given a 't' sound. Thus the word for him translates as uptagelsfart, or a journey of accquisiton, an acceptable 14th century term.
A problem with this explanation is that in the rest of the text, the TH-rune regularly corresponds to modern scandinavian d-sounds, only occasionally to the historical th-sounds. For t-sounds, in the rest of the text, the T-rune is used.
It is perhaps simpler, and overall more accurate, to agree with the recent joint statement of Nielsen and Williams noted above. The words in the Kensington Runestone could indeed be of 14th century origin, though it must likewise be noted that a large number of the words require considerable explaination to fit that period.
Also, runic (pentadic) numerals have never been found on an actual rune stone. Numbers were written as words using individual runes. Thus, if you wanted to write EINN(one), you would write E-I-N-N in runes, not using numerals. Indeed, EN (one) is found in the Kensington inscription. Writing all the number out (such as thirteen hundred and sixty two), would have severly restricted the space available on the surface. Therefore, the stone's author (wether it is authentic or a hoax) simplified the process, using pentadic runes as numerals in the Arabic numbering system.
There is a parallel proposal for the destruction of the Native American town of Cahokia due to black death, estimated to be inhabited by 25,000 peoples according to modern scholars. However, this is just a hypothesis.
The runes used for the inscription are deviant from the normal fuþark, and exactly match a runic cipher used by journeymen of the tailors guild in the late 19th century. The Institute for Dialectology, Onomastics and Folklore Research in Umeå (Umeå, Sweden) have in their collection a document written by the tailor journeyman Edward Larsson in 1885, and which contain both the runes for the letters ÅÄÖ (as used on the stone) and the numeral runes used. The knowledge and meaning of these runes was quite widespread in the guilds.
See also
External links
|
