Introduction
The Kensington runestone is one of Minnesota’s greatest mysteries. Found in 1898, it is also one of their oldest unsolved mysteries.The Kensington Runestone: Incarnate or Counterfeit?
The Kensington Runestone: Incarnate or Counterfeit?
In 1898, The famous Kensington Runestone was found entangled in the roots of an aspen tree by the farmer Olof Öhman in Kensington, Minnesota. Many scientists came to investigate the Runestone in about 1910, and most confirmed that it was, in fact, a fake. Because he was a Swedish immigrant, some people believed that Öhman “knew runes” and some even suspected that he forged the runes himself. It was humiliating for the Öhmans, but they still denied carving it. Later, the …show more content…
R. Holand’s studies changed the authenticity of the Kensington Runestone. According to Holand, there is evidence of a journey as such described on the Runestone: Ivar Bardsen had been sent to lead a group to aid a small colony in Greenland. When they arrived, they found that the colonists had set out for America. After this, there were several more expeditions to America and a steady flow of trade from colonies in America to colonies in Greenland. An account of one of these such journeys tells a tale much like the one on the Runestone. Around the year 1342, a group of men set out for Vinland. While several of the men left to explore the surrounding land, ten stayed behind to guard the ship. Unfortunately, when the explorers returned, the men that had stayed behind were “red with blood and dead”, as the Runestone describes it. While the rest of the party had been exploring, those who had stayed behind with the ship had been killed by Natives.
Geology
Though many people were satisfied with proclaiming the Kensington Runestone as a fraud, in 1909, twelve years after the Runestone’s discovery, Newton Winchell performed several tests in order to give a rough estimate of when the stone was carved. Much later, researcher Scott Wolter used modern technology to repeat these tests and was able to affirm Winchell’s findings. According to the experiments on the mica on the Runestone, it had to be at least 200 years