Posted on 07/22/2002 2:22:42 PM PDT by vannrox
As RandomUserName observed, Yahoo (and possibly other sites) have an idiotic filtering policy where they replace all occurrences of certain "dangerous" strings with other strings, in an attempt to block hostile scripts. "eval" is a Javascript keyword, so anywhere it occurs, even in the middle of another word, Yahoo replaces it with "review". Thus "medieval" -> "medireview". See this Slashdot story for more information on this stupidity.
Truly, the oceans enabled human intercourse (in every meaning of the word) long before Columbus, and probably even before the Vikings, as each seafaring civilization rose and fell back into it's own dark age.
And so those stone carvings on Rossilyn Chapel in Scotland really are depictions of corn, tobacco, etc. and Titicacans maybe did learn their boat building skills from ancient seafaring Egyptians. Accounts of these travels could very well have gone up in flames along with the great library of Alexandria.
Peri Reis, call your office.
This is fascinating, but I agree with you that it's still a mystery. Hjalmer Holand wrote an excellent book on his research of the Stone. He thoroughly debunked the sloppy reporting that surrounded the stone's discovery. But what was the most important fact of the case that made me believe that the stone could well have been a forgery is something not mentioned in this article. Several friends of Olaf had studied runes before immigrating. Also, a not altogether reliable, but very well educated, minister was involved. So reports that this man possessed just a few weeks of formal education is deceptive. However, I find the geological findings very, very interesting. The jury is not in on this one yet!
If we stop thinking east-west, and turn the map around, we will find that the longitude of the Runestone is the easiest point to cross the American continent north-to-south! Hudson's Bay cuts way in on the north, and that is just the proper longitude to get in to the Mississippi system and float down to New Orleans. No mountains, lots of water, and the only real problem is the portage and dry spell up there in NW Minn/E NDak where they had some troubles...
The Michigan tablets will be the next to be verified, I believe. Thousands of them. Many destroyed because people didn't want a "hoax" around.
Americans were very moralistic a hundred or two years ago, and when "scientists" would come out with their usual denunciation of anything that did not fit existing theories, ordinary people thought "hoax" was like a lie or fraud, a terrible moral failing that ought to be punished by lifetime shunning if not jail.
What this poor family the Ohmans, suffered over the last 104 years is beyond belief, and it is still going on! Look at the posts just this past winter of "Darlene," a local young woman in that area.
I now believe that the lost boatmen were intentionally trying to move ESE into the Mississippi system, and were using the (few) high hills NE of the present village of Kensington as a landmark in the trackless prairie. Runestone Hill, the third and lowest, is where this stone was found.
Whatever one makes of the Stone itself, it is now generally conceded by neutral observers that Scandinavians had been visting parts of North America for centuries, even millennia, and there was probably an ongoing knowledge of sea routes, currents, etc. handed down among mariners there.
What we NOW need to get admitted and established, is that "Vinland" was not just a name, but an established colony that, like Greenland, lasted some 500 years and had, in its heyday, thousands of inhabitants. Note the comment by Roger Williams that in his view, the inhabitants ("Indians") of Narragansett Bay were "for the most part descended from the Icelanders."
Above all, note that -sett on the end of the name of the bay. Only in SE Mass and Rhode Island, of the whole Atlantic coast, do we get all these place names ending is -sett, which is pure Norse as in our words sett-ler, sett-lement, etc. It means a place SUITABLE FOR HUMAN DWELLING, a place ACTUALLY INHABITED BY civilized=Norse, people. A sett-lement, IOW!
Look at the map of Mass & RE, look at the number of place names. Narra-gan-sett is the real biggie, that bay was their favorite spot, site of the Norse Church whose Newport Tower is still standing. Narra="foolish"; gan="voyage"; sett="settlement, homestead." Apparently someone set out on a voyage considered foolish or dangerous, and discovered this marvelous bay. A large runestone at the entrance to N.B. warns that there is danger from wolves and bears but come on in anyway. Indians are not mentioned.
Anthracite coal from Rhode Island was discovered at the Norse sites in Greenland, btw.
Vannrox, thanks for putting this up. -Laters, Darksheare
At that time, the remnants of the party turned southward through a chain of lakes which he felt were higher and more navigable water than now...to reach the runestone site.
He also traced their progress for some 25 miles on eastward, including a spot where they seem to have carved a makeshift altar for the offering of mass (very Catholic, these pilgrims)... leading one to think they may have made it into the Mississippi after all.
If not, the Mandan Indians and a fort just downstream of Pierre, S.D. would indicate two possible ultimate destinations.
BTW the highest hill there at the runestone site is now a ski resort, called "andestowerhills.com" as I recall.
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