Did the Scandinavians beat Columbus to America twice?

Yahoo! News - AFP ^ | 10.22.03

[mhking]

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - Archeologists have already established that Viking explorers beat Christopher Columbus to America by about 500 years, but experts in Sweden now hope to determine whether another group of Scandinavians landed in the New World in 1362, 130 years before Columbus.

A 90-kilo (200-pound) rune stone, a block of stone featuring symbolic engravings common during the Viking era, has been sent from the United States to Sweden's Museum of National Antiquities to establish whether it really dates from 1362, as its markings claim, or is just a hoax.

If confirmed as an authentic relic, the so-called Kensington stone would prove that another wave of explorers, more than 300 years after the Vikings, made it to the American continent before Columbus did in 1492.

"The stone is very important. But whether or not history will have to be re-written because of this stone is very difficult to say," museum curator Karl-Olof Cederberg told AFP.

A farmer in Kensington, Minnesota claimed to have found the stone on his property in 1898. The man, Olof Ohman, originally from Sweden, immediately suspected it was a rune stone.

He handed the slab over to experts, many of whom dismissed it as a fake; after years of dispute over its origin, the stone was returned to Ohman, who put it to use as a doorstep.

Decades later, interest in the stone was resuscitated and it eventually ended up on display in various US museums, including the Smithsonian Institution (news - web sites) in Washington.

Now, a dozen experts have descended upon Sweden's Museum of National Antiquities -- which is featuring the rune stone in an exhibit that opens Thursday -- to examine the stone's inscriptions and geological composition to determine its true origin.

According to experts, the inscription, translated into English, reads:

"Eight Geats (southern Swedes) and 22 Norwegians on this exploration journey from Vinland in (unclear) west. We made camp at two (unclear) one day's journey north of this stone. We went fishing one day. Upon our return we found 10 men red from blood and death, Ave Maria. Save us from evil. There are 10 men down by the sea guarding our ships, 14 days' journey from this island. Year 1362."

Those who believe that the stone is authentic claim that the marshy surroundings of its origin were areas of water in 1362, and therefore the area in Minnesota where it was found was indeed an island at the time.

At least one US expert, Scott Walter, has concluded that the stone was exposed to weather and winds for several centuries, boosting the claim that it is authentic.

One theory is that the Swedish-Norwegian king Magnus Eriksson in 1354 sent a team of explorers to find out what had happened to an expedition he had sent to Greenland. It would be this team that ultimately ended up in Minnesota.

However, sceptics note that the era of Viking exploration is believed to have ended some 300 years before the stone's date, and point out that the Viking practice of engraving rune stones was no longer common in the 1300s.

Others also wonder whether a group that has just found 10 companions savagely murdered would hang around to laboriously engrave a rune stone.

The Stockholm museum is now pinning its hopes on modern technology and a group of Nordic experts to once and for all resolve the more than 100-year-old mystery of the Kensington stone.

"Whichever conclusions are drawn, they will be interesting. If it is a bluff, it's still interesting because it would show that emigrants used the stone as part of their identity-building, playing on the references to the Vikings," Cederberg said.

[Marysecretary]

There should be! Uffda to you, too, my friend.

[Travis McGee]

That book, if I ever write it, will be many years in the future.

[archy]

Just imagine if North America had been settled by Vikings beginning in AD 1000! How does that sound for an epic novel!

Asatruist Viking *Pilgrims* fleeing the [Christian] religious persecution of Harald Bluetooth? Sounds like a Viking Free State Project.

I seem to recall something similar in one of Clive Cussler's yarns, though I'm not certain about the First Millenia timeframe setting. And there's at least one book you might find to be of interest that's not fiction on something along those lines.

-archy-/-

[archy]

is there a Norwegian ping list? Uff da!

There's a *Suomi ping list* for Finns.

Suomi, how I love ya, how I love ya, my dear old Suomi.... -archy-/-

[archy]

That book, if I ever write it, will be many years in the future.

I hate to mention this, but circa 1000 a.d. would be many years in the past.

-archy-/-

[HenryLeeII]

What?!?!?! 40+ replies and no Swedish Bikini Team pics? Surely, the SBT was instrumental in the discovery and opening of the New World!

[Travis McGee]

Well, it has to get in line after Domestic Enemies, Foreign Enemies, and some straight adventure yarns I already have in the hopper.

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

This guy preceded the Asian immigrants by several centuries.

Jean Luke Pickard ?

[Seydlitz]

There is at least one such book based on the rune stone. I cannot remember its name, but I read it as a kid while attending a Norwegian language camp in Minnesota. It was a darn good story about a Scandinavian expedition gone horribly wrong.

[Travis McGee]

I'd love to read it!

[Charles Henrickson]

Ten thousand Swedes
Ran through the weeds,
Chased by one Norwegian.
He smelled so bad,
They sure were glad
When they had left the region.

[Marysecretary]

I remember that only too well from my childhood. My mother was always saying that (at least the first half of it). Ah, such memories.

[Charles Henrickson]

My mother was always saying that (at least the first half of it).

I don't think she would have said the second half, since I made it up.

[Marysecretary]

Cute. Norwegians and Swedes have always had this sorta hatred for each other. Kinda like the Hatfields and the McCoys.

[SunkenCiv]

Just updating the GGG information, not sending a general distribution.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the
"Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list or GGG weekly digest
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[SunkenCiv]

This is a re-ping to an old and moldy topic.

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• Icelandic rocks could have steered Vikings
• First American in Europe 'was native woman kidnapped by Vikings and hauled back to Iceland...'
• Vikings visited Canadian Arctic, research suggests: Artifacts suggest Norse settlement in Nunavut
• Inuit and viking contact in ancient times
• Inukpasuit, Inuit and Viking contact in ancient times
• Kimmirut site suggests early European contact [ Vikings ]
• Archaeological sensation in Oestfold [ Inca remains from 11th c Norway? ]
• Viking sagas read through the lens of climate change
• Leif Erikson Day, October 9, 2004
• Strand of Ancient Yarn Suggests Early European Presence in Canada
• The Viking farm under the sand in Greenland
• DNA Tests Debunk Blond Inuit Legend
• DNA Study To Settle Ancient Mystery About Mingling Of Inuit, Vikings
• "Vinland Map" Parchment Predates Columbus's Arrival In North America
• Are the Narragansett and other American Indians the descendants of Viking settlers?

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

“I always wondered how anybody could consider Columbus, or anybody else from Europe, “discovering” the Americas when roughly 20 million people already lived here and had for a dozen centuries...”

Come on! The Americas were unknown to the rest of the “civilized” world. It was discovered in that sense by either Columbus or the Vikings.

[dfwgator]

[Rebelbase]

It’s the status quo of Euro-centric history.