Kensington Runestone The Mysterious Artifact

The "Kensington Runestone," is a slab of greywacke stone (gravestone-sized slab of hard, gray sandstone) covered in Scandinavian runes. This intriguing artifact weighs 202 pounds and measures 6 inches thick, 16 inches wide, and 31 inches long. It was discovered in 1898, clutched in the roots of an aspen tree on the Olof Öhman farm near Kensington, Minnesota (15 miles southwest of Alexandria).

Olof Öhman with Kensington Runestone (Image credit: Mystery of America: Book 1 - Enigmatic Mysteries and Anomalous Artifacts of North America: A Connection To The Ancient Past by Tedd St. Rain page 69)

On November 8th, 1898, Olof Öhman (a Swedish immigrant who came to Douglas County, Minnesota, in 1879) claims he was trying to remove a 40-year old aspen tree from his property and when it finally came up the monolith was tangled in its roots. This would seem to indicate that it had been inscribed long before Ohman found it, since he was just settling the land. After he found it, and local authorities showed little interest in it, he used it as a doorstep outside of a farm building.

A number of years had passed, and a student from the University of Wisconsin, Hjalmar Holand, heard of the stone. When he first asked to purchase it, Öhman wanted ten dollars, but the young student could only afford five, so Öhman just gave him the stone. Holand was then able to make what appears to be an accurate translation (without the punctuation) in 1909:

“8 Goths and 22 Norwegians on exploration journey from Vineland round about the west. We had camp by [a lake with] 2 skerries 1 days journey north from this stone. We were [out] and fished one day. After we came home [found] 10 red with blood and dead. AV[e] M[aria]. Save [us] from evil.” And along the edge of the stone was inscribed: “Have 10 of [our party] by the sea to look after our ships. 14 days journey from this island. Year 1362.”

The markings were confirmed to be Scandinavian runes, and the find became a regional sensation, covered by Minnesota journalists and put on display at a local bank.

If the inscription is genuine it places Norse seafarers deep in the North American continent 130 years before Columbus reached the West Indies.

Norse colonies are known to have existed in Greenland from the late 10th century to at least the 14th century, and at least one short-lived settlement was established in Newfoundland, at L'Anse aux Meadows, in the 11th century, but no other widely accepted material evidence of Norse contact with the Americas in the pre-Columbian era has yet emerged. Still, there is some limited documentary evidence for possible 14th-century Scandinavian expeditions to North America.

It should be mentioned that some authorities believed that the stone had been forged by Öhman, but if that is indeed the case, he most surely did not profit from it.

For the next 40 years, Holand struggled to sway public and scholarly opinion about the Runestone, writing articles and several books. There have been a number of books that have written about the Kensington Runestone.

At nearly the same time, Scandinavian linguists Sven Jansson, Erik Moltke, Harry Anderson and K. M. Nielsen, along with a popular book by Erik Wahlgren, questioned the Runestone's authenticity. In The Vikings and America (1986), Wahlgren stated that the text bore linguistic abnormalities and spellings that he thought suggested the Runestone was a forgery.

The details of the stone’s geology, discovery, carving, and weathering, and the personality, education, writings, and possessions of its finder have been dissected, analyzed, and debated for more than a century.

The stone itself can still be found, eminently displayed, in the city of Alexandria, Minnesota.

References:

• Mystery of America: Book 1 - Enigmatic Mysteries and Anomalous Artifacts of North America: A Connection To The Ancient Past by Tedd St. Rain
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kensington_Runestone
• https://runestonemuseum.org/runestone/
• https://www.minnpost.com/mnopedia/2020/05/the-kensington-runestone-minnesotas-most-brilliant-and-durable-hoax/
• https://www.history.co.uk/shows/secrets-of-the-viking-stone/the-kensington-runestone-fascinating-find-or-fake-news-