A brief summation of the points I've covered in the
past few months
regarding the Kensington Rune Stone:
1) HIstorically, we have evidence of a expedition
returning from
Greenland to Bergen in 1364. According to Cnoyen,
this expedition
included a priest from Oxford, thought to be Nicholas
of Lynne.
Fragmentary accounts of the expedition suggest that
it proceeded along
the Northeastern shores of Canada, possibly to the
general vicinity of
the magnetic pole, and may have reached Hudson Bay.
Certain maps, made
prior to Hudson's explorations and possibly based
on the accounts of
this journey, show a large bay on the north side
of Canada.
Although not conclusive, it does create the basis
for a Norse presence
in Hudson Bay at the same time as the date on the
Kensington Rune
Stone. The number of recorded survivors of the expedition
(8) also
falls within the limits of the number of men the
Stone records as having
been left with the boats (10).
This information would not have been known in the
19th century except to
a diligent scholar with a knowledge of Latin.
2) Winchell's notebook shows that he spent considerable
time
investigating Holland, and that he was not in Holland's
pocket as some
have suggested. No doubt Holland did exert considerable
influence on
the preliminary report, as he must have been considered
an expert on the
stone - this would most likely have been in the area
of the linguistics,
particularly in answering the objection of Flom.
It can also be seen in the report that Winchell allows
room for error in
his judgments, and does not seem to allow any personal
beliefs to
influence his professional judgments.
3) Those persons who best knew Olof Ohman considered
him to be a very
honest and open man, including such original critics
of the stone as
Breda and Curme. It is only when distanced by location
or time that
rumors about him began to develop. And it was only
after his death
that any attack on his character occurred, or that
any concentrated
effort to try and link him with a forgery of the
stone began. As Breda
concluded "I have never seen any reason to connect
Mr. Ohman... with the
forgery in any way".
4) Two people were present when the inscription on
the stone was
discovered (Olof and Edward Ohman) and the stone was
still in the roots of
the tree, and Nils Flaaten was there almost immediately
afterwards.
Unless all three were lying, the stone was found
quite firmly gripped by
the roots of the tree in such a fashion the the stone
was pulled up by
the tree and needed to be cut away from the roots.
This suggests that
the stone must have been beneath the tree for quite
some time.
5) A flattening on the roots of the tree where it
was in contact with
the stone were noticed by many, again pointing to
a long stay beneath
the tree. One root, estimated to be three inches
thick, some few inches
below the ground, followed the width of the stone
before heading
downward into the soil. In order for such a thing
to occur, the stone
must have been beneath the root for the length of
the roots growth, that
is roughly the age of the tree.
7) The calcite disintegration on the stone shows
that it must have been
exposed to the weather for a number of years. This
severely undercuts
any such theory as would have a hoaxer remove the
stone, inscribe it and
rebury it, as it would not have had time to undergo
the weathering
necessary.
8) It is reasonable to conclude from this evidence
that the inscribed
stone lay undisturbed beneath the tree for a period
of roughly 40 years,
or at least back to 1860. The white population of
Douglas county at
that time was 164.
9) It was noted by those who first examined the stone
(including those
at Northwestern University) that the coloration of
the inscription where
not scraped away was the same as on the rest of the
stone. It is since
been noted (based on a mark placed on the stone in
1909) that it would
take approximately 70 - 80 years for the inscription
to acquire such a
patina.
10) The physical clarity of the inscription should
not be considered as
odd given the nature of the stone it was inscribed
upon. This can be
shown by the 'freshness' of the glacial striations
on the back of the
stone, which would be approximately 8,000 years old.
11) Winchell estimates the age of the inscription
as about 500 years
old. Indeed none of the geologists who examined
the stone in 1910
suggested that the inscription could not be of that
age, and the minimum
age of the inscription was given at 50 years. This
would at the very
least place the time of the inscription as prior
to 1860.
CONCLUSION:
There is very strong physical evidence
from the patina, the
weathering, and the tree roots that the inscription
on the stone could
not have been made any later than 1860. To the extent
of my knowledge
there is no evidence to the contrary.
If we assume that date, the possibility of the inscription
being a hoax
is diminshingly small. I shall attempt to show,
in further arguments,
that the inscription was of such a complexity that
although recent
research validates the inscription, such knowledge
would have been
beyond
the reach of 19th century scholars.