Eight goths and 22 Norwegians on a journey from Vineland very far west. We had camp by 2 rocky islands one days journey from this stone. We were out fishing one day. After we came home we found 10 men red with blood and dead. Ave Maria save us from evil. Year 1362.
What does this inscription mean? Did Norse explorers travel to Minnesota as early as the 14th century?
Historians pretty much agree Vikings were in NA well before Columbus. However, it is not likely they made it too far in from the east coast. The Kennsington stone is considered a hoax, in general, by historians/archeologists/etc.
False. There are indications of norsemen all the way into Oklahoma. If there were large rivers nearby, there were likely norsemen. They were reported to have traveled all the way to present day Iran as well.
Alexandria MN, which is basically where the stone was found, is not very accessible. Sure, it COULD have been a destination of some early Norwegians, but it just does not make a lot of sense. Why so much effort? Brutal winters, not easily accessed by water, possibly hostile natives. I'm not saying it didnt happen, just does not make sense "on paper."
If there were Norwegians in central MN around 1400, those would some tough as nails people with a huge spirit of adventure, really cool to imagine.
One can travel by boat to roughly thirty miles from Kensington, MN where the stone was found via Hudson Bay, the Nelson River, Lake Winnipeg, and the Red and Ottertail Rivers. In the late 1800s a steamship used to run from Fergus Falls, MN to Winnipeg.
There is a reference to a voyage that went beyond Greenland, which returned to Bergen, Norway in 1364, two years after the date on the stone. While this was known in the 19th century when the stone was unearthed, it was known only as an English expedition, not a Norse journey. It was not until the 1950s that it was commonly know that the expedition was indeed Norse.
Examinations by geologists point to considerable weathering of the inscribed surface, and though it is nearly impossible to properly date an inscription through weathering, it appears to have been created prior to the settlement of the area.
So what is the consensus nowadays? Is the Kensington Runestone fake?
and thanks alot to the jackweed that deleted my post.
I live in MN (not near Alexandria, however) and most of the chatter around the stone is that it's fake. I've never seen it in person...only heard the stories about it on the radio, TV, etc.
I heard that the stone appears to be real. The person who found it cleaned it up with a nail, and the new scratches were what created the most skepticism. In my mind, it's much easier to walk hundreds of miles, than to sail hundreds in a dinky boat. My only question is: what would their motivation be? They clearly weren't trying to find a faster rout to China
Are any of you familiar with a wonderful book by Evan Connell called The Aztec Treasure House? It is a compendium of essays on various historical/exploratory episodes, written in a conversational, occasionally digressive, and always informative style. Anyway, he has a cool chapter called Vinland Vinland that addresses this controversy, though he reaches no definitive conclusions.
Thorvald's rocks in Hampton Massachusetts is another artifact that may be from the pre-columbian vikings. It is very unclear.
The Maine penny, also known as the Goddard coin, is a lot more likely to be legitimate, although it is not a slam dunk either. How it got to Maine would be a mystery as well, as it could have been traded several times. There were no other Viking artifacts found near it.
I don't think the Kensington Stone is very likely to be genuine, it is too late and doesn't seem to be consistent with anything else we know about viking movement.