Kensington Stone

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, denied its authenticity but this has later shown be based on wrong information (he never saw the stone, just the letter which contained 33 errors sent from Breda.) 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 gave orders in 1354 for Paul Knutson to undertake a voyage using select men and the royal knorr (merchant ship) to maintain Christianity in Greenland. The Western Settlement of which 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.

The runic script is similar to those from Dalecarlia, thus almost like the alphabet a-ö but with other glyphs. The text is not old Norse but more some kind of 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] blesser from illy.

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

¹Each word (and almost each rune) is disputed, but this translation tries to be as plain as possible into the english language. Letters or words inside the brackets are extensions.

²Opþagelsefarþ is by experts translated to "discovery or colonialisation voyage." The existence of this word make so many experts doubt its authentication, in spite of the fact that a similar word did exist.

The most clear indicator that the stone is a hoax is the language, which is far too modern compared to what was used in 1362. Illy or illnes is actually the name of the Bubonic plague or Black Death in early medieval times and since it is a word of English descent it led Oluf Rygh et al to call the stone a hoax from the beginning. It also contains the word "þeþ," which is actually the English word "dead," and not Scandinavian at all.

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 1895, 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: Vinland map