In archeology, only those finds that are strictly documented are recognized as authentic. All other artifacts found by amateurs immediately fall under suspicion. Especially if these are so-called irrelevant artifacts, that is, contrary to the official historical doctrine. The Kensington Runestone was immediately classified as irrelevant.
The stone, which was named Kensington, was found on a hillock next to their house in the fall of 1898 by Olof Eman and his 10-year-old son Edward.
The mystery of the find
The farmer was going to clear a plot for the future field, removed dead wood, uprooted the stumps and, ridding the field of another frail tree, suddenly saw that its roots were twisted around a weighty piece of sandstone. Maybe he would have thrown the find aside and continued working, but then his boy said: "Dad, and there is some kind of inscription." Olof took a closer look: there was indeed something written on the end of the stone. And when he freed the stone from the roots and turned it upside down, he saw that there was also an inscription on the back of the stone. So the Kensington Stone was discovered, the authenticity of which has been argued for more than a century.
First, clearing the sandstone from the ground, Olof decided that he and his son had found an Indian pictorial letter - in their Minnesota there were such good things in bulk. But, taking a closer look, I realized that somehow it was not very similar to Indian scribbles. So, putting the find on his shoulder (and it weighed, by the way, 90 kilograms), he decided to take the stone to Kensington, to show it to more educated neighbors. Olof was originally from Sweden. He would know, dragging this stone slab on his shoulder, what an adventure he is getting himself into! And how its ethnic origin will come back to haunt the found stone!
In Kensington, no one could read the inscriptions. A variety of assumptions were made as to what language it was engraved in. For some reason, after a long reflection, they decided that it was in ancient Greek. Although, it seemed, where would a stone with an ancient Greek letter come from in America? The stone dug up by Olof Eman was immediately taken to the local bank, and left there so that everyone could look at it. And the most educated resident of Kensington took a copy of the inscription and sent it to the Greek department of the University of Minnesota.
Everyone there was dumbfounded. The inscription traveled from department to department until it ended up with a specialist in Scandinavian languages and literature Olaus Breda. Brad did not understand the runic script very well, but he somehow translated the inscription. He did not like the meaning of the text or the writing of the runes. And upon learning that the find was made by the Swede Eman, he immediately announced that it was - without any doubt - a gross forgery. Nevertheless, I sent a copy of the inscription to the Scandinavian linguists. Professor Oluf Ryghh there warmly supported his American colleague. He called the inscription fraudulent. Other Scandinavian scientists - Sophus Bugge, Gustav Storm, Magnus Olsen, Adolph Noreen - were also respected professors who agreed with his opinion.
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To clear his conscience, the stone was sent to Northwestern University in Chicago. There, the request to make an accurate translation of the text was considered an inappropriate joke. In the end, the artifact was returned to its owner without any scientific conclusion. He did not stand on ceremony with the find that made him a laughingstock. Either he put it in the barn instead of the sill, or he attached it over the threshold in the form of a canopy.
What was it about the text set in stone that so outraged university professors?
What was carved?
The text on the underside of the slab was short, but completely incomprehensible to a modern Scandinavian. Olof himself, although he knew his native language, could not read it. The text inscribed in runes translates something like this: “8 Göthes and 22 Normans made an exploratory voyage from Vinland to the west. We camped on two rocky islets, one day's journey north of this rock. After leaving the camp, we went fishing for one day. When we returned, we found 10 of our people dead and covered in blood. Ave Maria, protect us from evil."
If it were not for the mention of Vinland and the runic writing, the inscription could well have been knocked out on the stone by some desperate American of Swedish origin. Clashes with Indians in the then United States were commonplace. And although by 1898 most of the Indians were already sitting on the reservations, 50-60 years ago the Indians slaughtered the white conquerors with taste.
However, there was also a second inscription on the stone, much more terrible for any learned person. “We have 10 people by the sea to watch our ships, 14 days from this island. Year 1362.
Excuse me, what year? Can not be! This is how everyone who read this text reacted. As you know, Columbus discovered America 130 years after that date. So it was not even the linguistic analysis of the text, but the date stamped on it that decided the outcome of the entire enterprise. Before Columbus, a white man had never set foot on American soil. Of course, the entire scientific world recognized the inscription as a fake. And this despite the fact that then the newspapers published many articles about the Vikings. Books with the runic alphabet were printed. The latest news was hotly discussed in the Swedish communities. American Swedes felt like real warriors and Vikings.
The weighty word of Hjalmar Holland
The scientific community denied the authenticity of the find. But Hjalmar Holland, a Norwegian historian, bought the stone from Eman and began the process of his rehabilitation. Firstly, Holland believed that the text could well have been written in the 14th century in some mixture of dialects, since the composition of the expedition was international, and the use of Arabic numerals, which were seen as signs of falsification, was commonplace for that time, starting with the era of Pope Sylvester II. Second, he believed that the Vikings sailed to America long before Columbus. Thirdly, he proved that the land where the stone was located was once an island, because half a century ago it lay between the lake and the river bed, which one enterprising farmer took away for household needs: it was then that the water level in the lake dropped by three meter, the island became dry land. Fourthly, he believedthat the Swedes are involved in the emergence of the Indian tribe of Maidans - "White Indians". They not only visited America, but - quite possibly - became the first white colonists to eventually mingle with the Indians. He stubbornly searched for traces of Swedish sailors all over Minnesota. And even found them. They laughed at him, they did not believe him, but he did not give up. And he was, by the way, right.
But it doesn't really matter if the Kensington Runestone is fake or not. More importantly, the Vikings actually discovered America long before Columbus. They made their first voyages across the ocean in the 9th-10th centuries. Even the names given by the Vikings to American lands are known - Vinland ("grape land"), Markland ("forest land"), Helluland ("stone land"), and the names of sailors: Bjarni Herulfsson, Leif Eriksson, Thorvald Eriksson, daughter-in-law of Eric the Red Goodrid, his daughter Freydis. We can say that by the XIV century the Vikings visited America several times.
Basically, of course, they were trying to develop the territory of Canada. It was there, in Newfoundland, that the Viking village, L'Anse aux Meadows, was excavated in 1960. And in 2016, another settlement was discovered in New Brunswick. And even farther south, in Minnesota, traces of the Viking presence were found: a sword hilt, a flint, a ship's hook, and in addition - a lot of specially treated stones with grooves, to which the Vikings anchored their ships during anchorage. Holland even put forward the theory that the search for a missing expedition that did not return to Greenland forced the Viking people to penetrate deep into the continent.
Why not? The route was well known to them. They also left the runestones in case of need. The modern explorer Bronsted, who studied the stone in 1948, agrees with Holland - the Kensington stone is not a fake. Today, the Smithsonian Archeology Department also agrees with this. After the finds of real Viking buildings in America, the date "1362", engraved in stone, no longer scares anyone.
Mikhail ROMASHKO