Rune Stones were normally found in old excavations around Scandinavia, but have also been found in Ireland, evidently brought by the forbears of the Vikings, but also in far away places as Minnesota, USA.
It takes a great deal of rationalization to figure out how ancient Rune Stones got to Minnesota. Perhaps some lost Royalty brought them to Minnesota, or a stonecutter with an artisan bent just made them for fun.
Ah well, since we have them, please enjoy them.
In 1907, nine years after Olaf Ohman uncovered the Kensington Runestone on his farm near Kensington, MN, Norwegian writer and scholar Hjalmar Holand offered Ohman five dollars for the relic. Several experts questioned the stone's authenticity, so Ohman declined. 5.00 was too much money for a fake, Ohman said..
So Holand took the dusty relic from Ohmans granary, ridding Ohman, his wife and nine children of what had become the source of ridicule.
Ever since it's discovery in 1898, the runestone has been denounced as a fake, Many insisted that Ohman carved the stone himself.When Ohman died in 1935, He was never cleared of his supposed forgery. The mystery of the stone and it's inscription may be further unfolded as the result of new analysis done on the relic the past two years.
I started researching the literature, says Barry Hanson, a chemist and project for the maple, Wisconsin nonprofit Archeology ITM. No one in the history of the stone has.....even recommended that it be looked at. 8 Swedes and 22 Northman on an exploration journey from Vinland westward. We had our camp by 2 rocky islet's one day's journey north of this stone. We were out fishing for one day. When we came home we found 10 men red with blood and dead. AVM save us from evil. We have 10 men by the sea to look after our ships, 14 days journey from this island Year 1362
Runestone inscription translated.
NOTE:
Before debating it's authenticity scholars needed to interpret the stones ominous inscriptions written in old Swedish. Scholars understand Vinland to mean present-day America, and AVM is an abbreviation for one of the oldest Christian prayers_ Ave Maria, a staple prayer of the Catholic Church.
For those scholars who didn't write off the stone as a hoax, the stones inscription seemed to indicate a Indian Massacre. But how could these men have survived the long trip from Norway to North America if they were carrying the plague. The trip could have been made in several stages. One thing people tend to forget is that the journey began in Vinland not Europe. What's more, Reirsgord says the early stages of pneumonia form of the plague are not particularly severe, and travelers could have made the journey without succumbing to it.
But given the assumption that the Europeans did make it to the Heartland in 1362, how plausible is it that the plague killed 10 men in the same day? There are many instances of the plague, as reported in the 14 th, century, where ladies ( would) sit down to play cards and later all (were) found dead.
