# Any New ANalysis on the "Kensington Runestone"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 18, 2012, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-new-analysis-on-the-kensington-runestone/628614 "2012-07-18T11:39:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-new-analysis-on-the-kensington-runestone/628614/41 "2012-07-20T16:21:08Z")
While it’s possible – that is, within the range of human skills – that the Vikings traveled 1000 miles inland in one trip, note that their explorations tended to be in short bursts, establishing colonies and trading back and forth. Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, Newfoundland, in sequence. This pattern would suggest settlements and exploration much more gradually on the way to Minnesota, over hundreds of years, leaving evidence along the way. Yet we have found nothing to suggest that actually happened. And all the known exploration was along the ocean and the Atlantic coast. All of the settlements were on the shore. Minnesota would have been an unusual inland turn for cultures wedded to the sea as much as they were. Finding artifacts in New York on the lower Hudson would be much more logical than 1000 miles inland, far from any major body of water, even if you include the Great Lakes. As far as the stone’s inscription being “simple” and “readable”, remember that it was chiseled in stone, not written with a quill pen. That would encourage brevity and discourage floridity. I don’t think you can directly compare it with 14c books and expect a perfect match for this and many other reasons. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-new-analysis-on-the-kensington-runestone/628614/42 "2012-07-20T16:46:45Z")
It should also be noted that the Vikings didn’t discover Iceland, Greenland, or Vinland out of any love of exploration, but because they were lost. According to accounts, Iceland was first visited by Vikings when [Naddoddr](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Iceland#Norse_Discovery) and his men lost their way en route to the Faroes (although Irish monks were evidently there much earlier). Greenland was discovered by [Gunnbjorn Ulfsson](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunnbj%C3%B6rn_Ulfsson) when he was blown off course en route between Norway and Iceland (and settled much later by Eric the Red). And Vinland was first sighted by [Bjarni Herjolfsson](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bjarni_Herj%C3%B3lfsson) when _he_ was blown offcourse, providing the basis for the later visit by Eric’s son Leif. So there isn’t really much precedent in the North Atlantic for Vikings exploring simply for the sake of exploring. The first sightings of new lands were by accident. Return visits, if any, were for the purpose of settlement. In fact, there was very little little exploration by Europeans just for the sake of discovery before the Eighteenth Century. The early explorations by the Portuguese, Spanish, and English in the 1400s were very specifically for the purpose of establishing trade with the Far East (which they already knew about). Later explorations were for the purpose of finding gold or other trade goods. It really wasn’t until the 1700s that European countries sent out expeditions for no other reason than geographical knowledge. There would have been no rational purpose, and no precedent, for a Viking expedition into the center of North America. There were no goods there that Vikings would have had any interest in for trade. In any case, they would have bypassed thousands of miles of territory equally suitable for trade or settlement. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-new-analysis-on-the-kensington-runestone/628614/43 "2012-07-20T17:03:03Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > **TriPolar** your arguments make sense except that the “hoax” side has the same biased agenda. Some bias is inevitable, but scientific investigation should have a skeptical bias. People are addicted to positivism, but scientific testing should be focused on disproof. But either way you go, humans lack total objectivity and tend to find what they are looking for. But in this case I don’t see anything but the general academic ego bias, and no indication from a cursory examination that a purely objective analysis would be any different from the scientific consensus. As new evidence of Viking exploration of North America emerges, it consistently shows that it didn’t happen, not the other way round. I’ll also point out that this stone was found at a time when hoaxes of this nature were common. I don’t know if this was a hoax at all. This could have been a piece of art or political statement by some Scandanavian immigrant that was found by an innocent farmer. But the evidece of Viking origin is grasping at straws, very dried out, meager straw at that. ---
**Author:** ![Huvudtvatt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Huvudtvatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huvudtvatt)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-new-analysis-on-the-kensington-runestone/628614/44 "2012-07-20T17:13:29Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > As far as the stone’s inscription being “simple” and “readable”, remember that it was chiseled in stone, not written with a quill pen. That would encourage brevity and discourage floridity. I don’t think you can directly compare it with 14c books and expect a perfect match for this and many other reasons. When I said that the text was easily understood to a modern reader I wasn’t referring to the brevity or choice of words, but the spelling and grammar. It reads almost like a letter home from a 19th century emigrant with a few archaic elements. A 14th century text would be more like reading Chaucer ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-new-analysis-on-the-kensington-runestone/628614/45 "2012-07-20T17:13:44Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > As new evidence of Viking exploration of North America emerges, it consistently shows that it didn’t happen, not the other way round. I’ll also point out that this stone was found at a time when hoaxes of this nature were common. Are you thinking of the Cardiff Giant? I don’t know of any time when hoaxes _weren’t_ common. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-new-analysis-on-the-kensington-runestone/628614/46 "2012-07-20T17:16:47Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > Are you thinking of the Cardiff Giant? I don’t know of any time when hoaxes _weren’t_ common. That’s one. Historical hoaxes using stone abounded in the 19th century. I don’t want to go off on a tangent here, so just check out the[19th-century hoaxes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:19th-century_hoaxes)wiki. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-new-analysis-on-the-kensington-runestone/628614/47 "2012-07-20T17:30:39Z")
> [@Huvudtvatt](#): > > When I said that the text was easily understood to a modern reader I wasn’t referring to the brevity or choice of words, but the spelling and grammar. It reads almost like a letter home from a 19th century emigrant with a few archaic elements. A 14th century text would be more like reading Chaucer Now we’re in highly-subjective realm of what something should look like. Remember that learning wasn’t as widespread, uniform, or codified as today. Significant differences between writers, works, countries, years and scholars must have existed, making it very hard to definitively say something is genuine or a hoax. And our evidence is thin. We don’t have a huge number of examples of the time, at least compared to the number of articles in the 1920’s NY Times. One linguistic convention might be supported by very few examples, perhaps only one. This means extrapolation and distortion of conventions. We simply don’t have any examples of Viking writing by that supposed writer, in that year, in that country, of that subject to compare. We only have examples of other writers, far away in time and place, who haven’t had contact with this continent of any kind for years. Their styles may well have diverged. Or not – we just don’t know. Have you read any of Holand’s books? In one, he describes taking the K Stone to various institutes of learning and upon engaging Professor #1, finds the Prof in considerable agreement with some linguistic point. “But,” Prof. #1 says, “the spelling of this other word is suspicious. Why don’t you check with Prof. #2?” So Holand goes down the hall to Prof. #2, who says, “No problem, that word is just fine. It’s used all the time. But I don’t like the look of this sentence structure, which seems out of place for the century. Why don’t you check with Prof. #3?” And the process is repeated down the hall, each expert finding things that looked OK and others that didn’t. Holand used this certainty/uncertainty discussion as proof that since no one could agree, it must be genuine, as no uneducated Minnesota farmer would be able to fool or satisfy so many experts at once. I don’t buy it. Fascinating story Holand tells, but I don’t find it convincing if not backed by other evidence, and so far, little of that has been found (or manufactured). ETA: I would say the only thing that would be a smoking gun would be for someone to find a word, letter, abbreviation, or linguistic element in the book that Ohlman was known to possess about runes, something that could be found nowhere else in Viking literature, but was chiseled in the Kensington Stone. Now _that_ would be damming. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-new-analysis-on-the-kensington-runestone/628614/48 "2012-07-20T17:52:16Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > Have you read any of Holand’s books? In one, he describes taking the K Stone to various institutes of learning and upon engaging Professor #1, finds the Prof in considerable agreement with some linguistic point. “But,” Prof. #1 says, “the spelling of this other word is suspicious. Why don’t you check with Prof. #2?” > > So Holand goes down the hall to Prof. #2, who says, “No problem, that word is just fine. It’s used all the time. But I don’t like the look of this sentence structure, which seems out of place for the century. Why don’t you check with Prof. #3?” And the process is repeated down the hall, each expert finding things that looked OK and others that didn’t. In my experience, if you ask three experts for an opinion on a subject, you’ll get five answers.😃 ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-new-analysis-on-the-kensington-runestone/628614/49 "2012-07-21T01:50:45Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > As new evidence of Viking exploration of North America emerges, it consistently shows that it didn’t happen, not the other way round. I’ll also point out that this stone was found at a time when hoaxes of this nature were common. I don’t know if this was a hoax at all. This could have been a piece of art or political statement by some Scandanavian immigrant that was found by an innocent farmer. But the evidece of Viking origin is grasping at straws, very dried out, meager straw at that. Except look at that list of hoaxes:The Balloon-Hoax, Calaveras Skull, Cardiff Giant, Fiji mermaid, The Great Moon Hoax, Great Wall of China hoax, Kinderhook plates, Michigan relics, Oera Linda Book, The Prophet Hen of Leeds, The sawing off of Manhattan Island, Solid Muldoon, … etc etc. Clear and obvious hoaxes. Hoaxes that by and large had some reason (mostly as a joke or to make money). The KSR (as well as a couple other doubtful ancient stones on that list) don;t fit in at all with other 19th century hoaxes. Nothing to gain, no publicity, no unveiled joke, and not crude at all- even today scholars are debating the KRS. If anything that list of hoaxes makes the KSR become all that more possible. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-new-analysis-on-the-kensington-runestone/628614/50 "2012-07-21T01:53:36Z")
> [@Huvudtvatt](#): > > I would just like to add some support for fellow Swede Floater here. Some of the “believers” here seem to think that there are two equal sides in this dispute and that the evidence may swing either way, when in fact virtually everybody who knows anything about runic inscriptions agree that it is a hoax. If you transcribe the runes to latin letters the text is almost completely modern and understandable to any present day scandinavian, with words and grammar that just didn’t exist in the 14th century. I assuem you’re Swedish? Do you know that (wiki) _Written Icelandic has changed little since the 13th century. Modern speakers can understand the original sagas and Eddas which were written about eight hundred years ago, though this ability is sometimes overstated. The Sagas are usually read with updated modern spelling and footnotes but otherwise intact (as with modern English readers of Shakespeare). With some effort, many Icelanders can also understand the original manuscripts._ ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-new-analysis-on-the-kensington-runestone/628614/51 "2012-07-21T02:14:02Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Hoaxes that by and large had some reason (mostly as a joke or to make money). The KSR (as well as a couple other doubtful ancient stones on that list) don;t fit in at all with other 19th century hoaxes. Nothing to gain, no publicity, no unveiled joke, and not crude at all- even today scholars are debating the KRS. Oh please. There was very clearly something to gain. The runestone was found by a Scandinavian, in an area heavily settled by Scandinavians. Even if Ohman didn’t make it himself, someone else in the area might have. Establishing that other Scandinavians had explored so far into North America would be a source of nationalistic pride - as it still is today, in the name of the Minnesota Vikings football team. The stone would have more credibility if it had been found by someone who didn’t have a vested nationalistic interest in the story. ---
**Author:** ![Enuma\_Elish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5e9695/32.png) [@Enuma\_Elish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enuma_Elish)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-new-analysis-on-the-kensington-runestone/628614/52 "2012-07-21T02:15:23Z")
How about the Narragansett Rune Stone in Rhode Island? It might be an Icelandic-culture land-claim stone. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-new-analysis-on-the-kensington-runestone/628614/53 "2012-07-21T02:16:57Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > I assuem you’re Swedish? Do you know that (wiki) _Written Icelandic has changed little since the 13th century. Modern speakers can understand the original sagas and Eddas which were written about eight hundred years ago, though this ability is sometimes overstated. The Sagas are usually read with updated modern spelling and footnotes but otherwise intact (as with modern English readers of Shakespeare). With some effort, many Icelanders can also understand the original manuscripts._ That quote is about Icelandic, not Swedish. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-new-analysis-on-the-kensington-runestone/628614/54 "2012-07-21T02:19:22Z")
> [@Enuma\_Elish](#): > > How about the Narragansett Rune Stone in Rhode Island? It might be an Icelandic-culture land-claim stone. Even if is, it wouldn’t have any bearing on the authenticity of the one from Kensington, being on the east coast of the U.S. and thus far more accessible to Viking navigators. ---
**Author:** ![Enuma\_Elish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5e9695/32.png) [@Enuma\_Elish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enuma_Elish)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-new-analysis-on-the-kensington-runestone/628614/55 "2012-07-21T02:49:03Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Even if is, it wouldn’t have any bearing on the authenticity of the one from Kensington, being on the east coast of the U.S. and thus far more accessible to Viking navigators. Your right, but it would have bearing on whether ‘Vikings’ penetrated the area that is now the continental US . I believe that was also an issue, albeit a minor one, in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-new-analysis-on-the-kensington-runestone/628614/56 "2012-07-21T03:08:41Z")
> [@Enuma\_Elish](#): > > How about the Narragansett Rune Stone in Rhode Island? It might be an Icelandic-culture land-claim stone. Glad you brought this up. I never see this one addressed. It’s more common to hear about the Newport Tower, sometimes called the Viking tower. Careful analysis of the mortar has shown that it was built in colonial times. The Narragansett Rune Stone is unique as far as I know. It sits off shore, and the runes are covered by water most of the time. They’re only visible at low tide. The runes don’t really say anything. There really isn’t any way to determine who carved them or why. I don’t know who found it or when, it’s just said that it was found by clam diggers. I assume that if real, the stone was above the water line when carved and sank into the mud over time. But it still seems like an unlikely place to carve runes that with a charitable translation says “Property of Iceland”. And even though Vikings could have reached the east coast, it’s located deep into Narragansett Bay, in unlikely place to be marking something that would only be seen from a ship. So at best it’s another piece of information that does nothing to confirm it’s own origin, and has nothing at all to do with the Kensington Rune Stone. And the constant appearance of similarly inconclusive evidence of Viking settlement of North America seems a lot like crop circles to me, a popular type of mischief. If the Vikings traveled to even half the places where rune stones and structures are claimed to exist, they would have left a lot more evidence of their presence. And if they did go to any of these places and it can never be proven, then that’s the way things are sometimes. A meteor hit my car once, but I don’t have the meteor, so no one ever believes me. ---
**Author:** ![Huvudtvatt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Huvudtvatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huvudtvatt)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-new-analysis-on-the-kensington-runestone/628614/57 "2012-07-21T09:13:13Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > I assuem you’re Swedish? Do you know that (wiki) _Written Icelandic has changed little since the 13th century. Modern speakers can understand the original sagas and Eddas which were written about eight hundred years ago, though this ability is sometimes overstated. The Sagas are usually read with updated modern spelling and footnotes but otherwise intact (as with modern English readers of Shakespeare). With some effort, many Icelanders can also understand the original manuscripts._ Yes, I know that Icelandic has changed less than Norwegian or Swedish. That was sort of my point. Because the text on the KRS looks more like Norwegian or Swedish than Icelandic it is less likely to be genuine. The most obviously modern feature is that the KRS does not have plural verb forms. They were still used in formal texts a hundred years ago but disappeared in spoken language earlier. Not as early as the 14th century though. ---
**Author:** ![Huvudtvatt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Huvudtvatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huvudtvatt)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-new-analysis-on-the-kensington-runestone/628614/58 "2012-07-21T10:03:35Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > Not according to [this paper,](http://www.keithmassey.com/files/KensingtonStone-Massey.pdf) although I am not an expert enough on Latin and Norse languages or medieval history to critique the paper or the Massey Brothers’ claims. That paper only deals with the phrase “AV.M: fräelse:af:illy:”. That wasn’t the line I had problems with. I suppose if you take each word or line by itself you can probably find a medieval example to back it up if you dig deep enough (though the word “opþagelsefärd” seems to be causing some trouble). Like you I am not expert enough to disprove any of this. It just seems that for every 14th century explanation you have to really stretch it, but there is nothing that couldn’t have been written by a 19th century minnesotan. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-new-analysis-on-the-kensington-runestone/628614.md?page=2)