The Norse Code Stone

[Hanslune]

40 minutes ago, jmccr8 said:

Well when you make historically incorrect comments and adding personal perspectives it is well within the forum protocol to give acurate rebuttals. There are many people that visit this site looking for information and many of us tend to take a dim view of misleading information so Piney is no under any obligation to apologize for correcting you.

jmccr8

Just checking: you were challenging Bob on the time line from the faked Walam Olum source, or something else?

[Piney]

1 hour ago, Bob Voyles said:

I believe that all humankind is warlike, as part of our nature.  The Viking Age speaks for itself, just as Crow Creek speaks for itself.  Piney, you are doing the same thing as the earlier person did here who chose to be disrespectful to me as the initiator of a subject rather than join in the debate.  Unless you apologize, I will no longer respond to you, either.  

 Good, There is no sense in arguing about a proven fraud with someone with no archaeology background.

[Hanslune]

2 minutes ago, Piney said:

 Good, There is no sense in arguing about a proven fraud with someone with no archaeology background.

Besides Kmt is there anyone left he can talk to here?

[jmccr8]

49 minutes ago, Hanslune said:

Just checking: you were challenging Bob on the time line from the faked Walam Olum source, or something else?

About his comment to Piney

jmccr8

[jmccr8]

Ahh well several people have pointed out your lack of understanding in history and you get agitated which shows a lack of credibility.

jmccr8

 

[jaylemurph]

3 hours ago, Bob Voyles said:

Unless you apologize, I will no longer respond to you, either.  

Oh no, Piney. You might not have a white man lecture you about your own people and history any more! How will you get by?

2 hours ago, Bob Voyles said:

Specifically, it is improper for you to say that I am making historically incorrect comments, when I'm not, and specifically, it is improper for you to attempt to back up Piney and his undisciplined comments.  It will not be worth responding to you again in the future, as with the other self-identified trolls here.

Actually, it's improper for you to try to decide what is and isn't proper here. That's the mods' job, and they have always done and continue to do it very well, completely without your assistance.

1 hour ago, Hanslune said:

Besides Kmt is there anyone left he can talk to here?

OP: I want to talk to everybody about my opinions!

Actual historian: Your historical facts are incorrect and your critical assumptions are unwarranted.

OP: I don't want to talk to you! You're mean!

Actual archaeologist: Your archaeological facts are incorrect and your critical assumptions are unwarranted.

OP: I don't want to talk to you, either! You're also mean!

Actual Native American: Your cultural facts are wrong and your cultural assumptions are unwarranted.

OP: You don't know what you're talking about. You don't understand Native American history.

Other Deeply Leaned People: Your facts are still incorrect and your critical assumptions are still unwarranted.

OP: EVERYONE HERE IS SO UNCEASINGLY MEAN TO ME.

...did I miss any salient points of this thread so far? I give this thread another 36-48 hours before the OP requests the thread be closed or a mod beats him to the mark.
 

--Jaylemurph

[Jarocal]

2 hours ago, Hanslune said:

Besides Kmt is there anyone left he can talk to here?

Me...

[Hanslune]

7 minutes ago, Jarocal said:

Me...

Well be nice he's a tad sensitive.

[kmt_sesh]

2 hours ago, Hanslune said:

Besides Kmt is there anyone left he can talk to here?

I may not be included in that list, either. I have posted a couple pf times, yes, but I'm in this thread primarily to keep an eye on things. Vikings overall don't interest me—too akin to current events. And although I do know the history of Native Americans and homesteading in the area of Minnesota I mentioned earlier, I don't know enough about Vikings to make an informed comment—other than to say I don't believe there's any validity to the narrative being presented here.

That's my opinion. Am I allowed to share it? 

[jmccr8]

13 minutes ago, Jarocal said:

Me...

Well just so long as that is all the response you make he likely won't snub you.

jmccr8

[Jarocal]

11 minutes ago, jmccr8 said:

Well just so long as that is all the response you make he likely won't snub you.

jmccr8

I'm curious about the purported significance to the many stone holes. Even if KRS is not a forgery, it documents a short lived expedition which did not make it back. In fact it appears to me to be( if true) so short lived that there would not have been time to make very many of the stone holes the OP seems to pinning his assertions on. There is no existing evidence of a Norse settlement in the area during the period or for quite some time after.

[kmt_sesh]

After all those years I lived in Minnesota, I'm kind of surprised I never visited the Kensington Runestone Museum. I've never believed the stone was authentic (even as a child with a nerdy interest in local history) but I've always enjoyed museums, big and small. It's near a modest-sized town named Alexandria, in Douglas County, where I used to have a fair amount of friends.

Jarocal brings up an excellent point, even if he is a devotee of those feline-wanna-be Bassets. Consensus is the runestone is a hoax, and there is no agreed evidence for a Norse presence that deep into the interior of North America. So if we choose to accept a much older date for the holes in the rocks, where is the evidence to support this? I don't accept it myself, but the point is, holes drilled into rocks are insufficient unto themselves. One cannot build a theory on that alone, when so many other possibilities exist.

[Hanslune]

1 minute ago, kmt_sesh said:

After all those years I lived in Minnesota, I'm kind of surprised I never visited the Kensington Runestone Museum. I've never believed the stone was authentic (even as a child with a nerdy interest in local history) but I've always enjoyed museums, big and small. It's near a modest-sized town named Alexandria, in Douglas County, where I used to have a fair amount of friends.

Jarocal brings up an excellent point, even if he is a devotee of those feline-wanna-be Bassets. Consensus is the runestone is a hoax, and there is no agreed evidence for a Norse presence that deep into the interior of North America. So if we choose to accept a much older date for the holes in the rocks, where is the evidence to support this? I don't accept it myself, but the point is, holes drilled into rocks are insufficient unto themselves. One cannot build a theory on that alone, when so many other possibilities exist.

Lets accept for a moment that the KRS is true. What affect would that have? The effect on history in my opinion would be minimal. While an interesting historical footnote it made no lasting impression on the NA or FN folks. Presuming the rest of group back it gained no traction in history either.

[Bavarian Raven]

19 minutes ago, kmt_sesh said:

After all those years I lived in Minnesota, I'm kind of surprised I never visited the Kensington Runestone Museum. I've never believed the stone was authentic (even as a child with a nerdy interest in local history) but I've always enjoyed museums, big and small. It's near a modest-sized town named Alexandria, in Douglas County, where I used to have a fair amount of friends.

Jarocal brings up an excellent point, even if he is a devotee of those feline-wanna-be Bassets. Consensus is the runestone is a hoax, and there is no agreed evidence for a Norse presence that deep into the interior of North America. So if we choose to accept a much older date for the holes in the rocks, where is the evidence to support this? I don't accept it myself, but the point is, holes drilled into rocks are insufficient unto themselves. One cannot build a theory on that alone, when so many other possibilities exist.

Personally I'm onthr fence about the KRS. If it is a forgery it was one of the best. And if the stone runes are weathered as claimed, how was it forged? (Not to mention there was an apparent expedition sent to the new world around this time that never returned - one of several over the period). 

 

But it all that aside, if it is real it doesn't change history that much? It'll make for a wonderfully interesting footnote, but nothing in the grander scheme of things will likely change. Sadly. 

 

Cheers. 

[Piney]

I don't a thing about runes. What I do know as a former tribal cultural resource type person and former "token Indian" for the local prehistory museum is archaeology. I was trained by John "Jack" Cresson, Alan Carmen and Anthony Bonofiglio, two of them well respected archaeologists nationwide. I hobnobbed (exchanged ideas) with Brad Lepper, Scott Tankersly and Kathy and Micheal Gear themselves. They all think the KRS is fake. Not just because experts on runes say it probably is, but because of  the upheaval known as the "Columbian Exchange" negates any real contact from outside the Americas prior to 1492.  

[Jarocal]

25 minutes ago, Hanslune said:

Lets accept for a moment that the KRS is true. What affect would that have? The effect on history in my opinion would be minimal. While an interesting historical footnote it made no lasting impression on the NA or FN folks. Presuming the rest of group back it gained no traction in history either.

I have no issue with anyone accepting the KRS as real. For me the evidence both for and against is not sufficient to prove conclusively either way. People have been carving depressions/holes in rocks over millenia for a variety of reasons. 

What I would like from the OP is an articulate, detailed reasoning why these holes were not simply for grinding grains, pulping berries, holders for debarking limbs, or one of the myriad of uses such holes may have had for a culture other than the Norse.

[Gingitsune]

One detail that feels off to me is they would have been so war inland. Norse settlements and raids are usually close to the coast. The only exception is in Eastern Europe, but they associated with the local Russians and there was riches to steal and trade to be done in the Byzantine Empire and Muslim world.



On the other hand, there is nothing in Minnesota that isn't there in Ontario, Michigan or Wisconsin. And to get there they would have to befriend a lot of people or else they would need an army, but once again, to go where and to do what? There was only hunter-gatherer tribes there, which mean very little to pillage, far from English, French or German coasts. Which contrast with the Nunavut scenario, it was close to their Greenland home and they could buy polar bear pelt, walrus ivory and narval tusks. which they got good price for on the European market. It all makes sense. But to spend resources to go to Minnesota and come back with nothing of value? 

For all these reasons, Keningston stone is currently in my "well made, but probably hoax" category. I could change my mind if we find some Norse settlement closer to it, like on lake Superior. And it sure would have been more credible if the stone was discovered by Portuguese or Italians. 

Edited October 19, 2017 by Gingitsune

[Bavarian Raven]

2 hours ago, Gingitsune said:

One detail that feels off to me is they would have been so war inland. Norse settlements and raids are usually close to the coast. The only exception is in Eastern Europe, but they associated with the local Russians and there was riches to steal and trade to be done in the Byzantine Empire and Muslim world.



On the other hand, there is nothing in Minnesota that isn't there in Ontario, Michigan or Wisconsin. And to get there they would have to befriend a lot of people or else they would need an army, but once again, to go where and to do what? There was only hunter-gatherer tribes there, which mean very little to pillage, far from English, French or German coasts. Which contrast with the Nunavut scenario, it was close to their Greenland home and they could buy polar bear pelt, walrus ivory and narval tusks. which they got good price for on the European market. It all makes sense. But to spend resources to go to Minnesota and come back with nothing of value? 

For all these reasons, Keningston stone is currently in my "well made, but probably hoax" category. I could change my mind if we find some Norse settlement closer to it, like on lake Superior. And it sure would have been more credible if the stone was discovered by Portuguese or Italians. 

One point you mention that I would like to touch upon is that not everywhere the norse went was "at the head of an army". They were known traders and travelled FAR inland (through russia, etc) on trading missions, etc. That being said, i agree with your premise. Why would they be so far inland when you can trade/capture slaves, etc on the coast? Unless they happened to be following on the trail of gold/silver that had made its way through trade far from its source? Though that is unlikely at best... (as I am sad to say! - not that they physically couldn't have made it to where they did, technology wise. Motivation is another factor, unless it was some sort of religious quest by the pope or the such. Again very doubtful). 

 

[Bob Voyles]

I appreciate the sincere comments here.  If readers don't mind, I'd like to clear something up.  Roughly speaking, the Viking Age was over by AD 1100.  The time of the Kensington Runestone was 1362, if one chooses to believe the stone's self-dating.  We have in-between, a quarter of a millennium--about the length of time the US has been a nation.

Several persons here are confusing the proposed medieval happenings in MN with the Viking Age.  This is common, and the problem is exacerbated by looking at Big Ole standing proud and 28-feet tall a stone's throw away from the KRS museum in Alexandria, MN.  In short, I have my own theory that the stoneholes out west towards the SD border probably predate the stoneholes at Runestone Hill.  Someone wondered why we're zeroing-in on this area.  Again, I believe it is because visiting Scandinavians realized from multiple explorations that the area by the Code-stone is special because of the completion of a huge waterway circle at that location.  This is what makes the spot special.  Travel was by water back then, mostly, so it was wonderful for them to realize that one could come west from Vinland by water and then continue on up towards Hudson Bay to complete an oceanic journey.  Special note:  many prospective medieval Scandinavian evidences show up where this hooking together, or merging of dwindled-down waterways takes place.

My best guess is that the Code-stone I found is from around AD 1250, give or take fifty years.  My reason for this is thinking that it likely took many years for exploration expeditions to move down the MN River to the Chippewa River, the navigable waterway nearest to Runestone Hill.  Briefly, I think it is likely that the dozen or more stoneholes surrounding Runestone Hill were made many years before the placing of the memorial runestone.  I think it logical to suppose that the KRS party left the runestone at Runestone Hill because they figured that Scandinavians would some day come back to that spot.  Why is that?  I'm not sure, but I think Runestone Hill was a point of inland mapping, having to do with camping at a pre-existing natural defensive position.  I have photos of a site I visited a few years ago, which is also off the Chippewa River about the same "safe" distance as Runestone Hill is, and also on the east side of the river.  This apparent medieval rock sconce defensive position (with stoneholes in the area) is about a day's actual journey south of Runestone Hill.  So, I tend to think Runestone Hill was likewise a known and appreciated defensive position to camp while exploring.

Some here have questioned what a scant impact finding out Scandinavians came here so early would have on history.  Well, for starters, our history books would need to be rewritten.  Suppose whatever is buried on the ridge is identifiable as being from medieval times...representing a land-claim, as I think is likely.  Suppose whatever is unearthed pre-dates the adventures of Christopher Columbus by, say three hundred years...1192...well out of the Viking Age, but well within the period of the Crusades.  Suppose the Catholic Church may have been involved with this prospective land-claim.  This would not be insignificant.  In fact, it would be awesome.  Well, hopefully, time will tell.  The exact spot to dig is already pin-pointed.  What will be found?

By the way, at the site, there are no other "hits" by my metal detectors.  The only place I get a strong hit is the same place indicated by the stonehole encoding.  I accept this as being very exciting--especially given all the other associated evidences in the region.  I expect that time will tell what was purposely buried there so very long ago.  I realize this sounds fantastical, but under the circumstances, that doesn't diminish the possibilities....  

[Bob Voyles]

Jarocal, I appreciate your request to know more about stoneholes.  I hadn't intended to put Part III of my recent presentation in Park Rapids, MN on YouTube, because of slight redundancies, but it does contain ten purposes for stoneholes, both medieval and modern.  Give me a few minutes to make this very esoteric information available.  It will soon be at YouTube under "Norse Code-stone."  I'll be more than delighted to answer any further questions you may have about stoneholes...which are the very glue holding everything medieval and Norse together up in this area.  By the way, I was invited to give my presentation after someone in the Park Rapids area read my piece in the Norwegian American about the proposed Nose Code-stone.  A lot of information surrounding the KRS is available at the Norwegian American newspaper from articles I recently wrote:  http://www.norwegianamerican.com/?s=bob+voyles  

[jaylemurph]

40 minutes ago, Bob Voyles said:

I appreciate the sincere comments here.  If readers don't mind, I'd like to clear something up.  Roughly speaking, the Viking Age was over by AD 1100.  The time of the Kensington Runestone was 1362, if one chooses to believe the stone's self-dating.  We have in-between, a quarter of a millennium--about the length of time the US has been a nation.

>>Right. So long after their raiding period, after their (formal) conversion to Christianity, when the precise, intricate knowledge of long sea voyages centuries behind them, a group of Vikings decided to visit a place they had no maps for, no direct knowledge of, and very little idea of how to get there, and for no apparent motivation.

That only makes sense if you're suggesting everyone in that crew was a wealthy, nineteen-year-old white male with a substance abuse problem.

Quote

Several persons here are confusing the proposed medieval happenings in MN with the Viking Age.  This is common, and the problem is exacerbated by looking at Big Ole standing proud and 28-feet tall a stone's throw away from the KRS museum in Alexandria, MN.  In short, I have my own theory that the stoneholes out west towards the SD border probably predate the stoneholes at Runestone Hill.  Someone wondered why we're zeroing-in on this area.  Again, I believe it is because visiting Scandinavians realized from multiple explorations that the area by the Code-stone is special because of the completion of a huge waterway circle at that location.  This is what makes the spot special.  Travel was by water back then, mostly, so it was wonderful for them to realize that one could come west from Vinland by water and then continue on up towards Hudson Bay to complete an oceanic journey.  Special note:  many prospective medieval Scandinavian evidences show up where this hooking together, or merging of dwindled-down waterways takes place.

I'm not quite sure I could hear that over the sound of William of Ockham, rocking in a corner, crying himself to sleep.

Quote

My best guess is that the Code-stone I found is from around AD 1250, give or take fifty years. 

Yes, I think "guess" is the most relevant word in that sentence.

 

Quote

Some here have questioned what a scant impact finding out Scandinavians came here so early would have on history.  Well, for starters, our history books would need to be rewritten.

Perhaps you're aware most academic history books and textbooks go through multiple editions. They get re-written, to a degree, regularly as it is. Even so, most of the good ones already have a section that runs along the lines of "We know small groups of Norsemen traveled to and briefly stayed in North America." You're not really adding anything substantive enough to warrant a new edition, although it might be funny to see a line in a textbook that reads, "The Norse also traveled to the centre of the country to dig several small holes and a leave runestone covered in a confused jibberish, incomprehensible to anyone likely to see it."

Quote

Suppose whatever is buried on the ridge is identifiable as being from medieval times...representing a land-claim, as I think is likely.  Suppose whatever is unearthed pre-dates the adventures of Christopher Columbus by, say three hundred years...1192...well out of the Viking Age, but well within the period of the Crusades.  Suppose the Catholic Church may have been involved with this prospective land-claim.  This would not be insignificant.  In fact, it would be awesome.  Well, hopefully, time will tell.  The exact spot to dig is already pin-pointed.  What will be found?

Suppose Thor himself came down from Valhalla and fought with his brother for control o... wait, no. That's the plot to the first Thor movie.

Without a shred of evidence, all your supposings are little more than a spec treatment for a movie. Not that "Vikings travel to Minnesota and dig little holes" would amount to much of a movie.

By the way, saying the Catholic church (insofar as there even /was/ a 'catholic' church at the time) might have been involved in a prospective land claim in the 12th Century is speculating on a poor knowledge of history. The church had little control of events in northern countries that early. Scandinavians were very recent, very nominal converts  -- and many other tribes/cultures in the Baltic and far north weren't even converts -- and even if they weren't, there was an aristocracy there that was loathe to cede any power to Rome, which was thousands of miles off. (And it's a good chance that a lot of the converts would have been Arian, with precious little to do with the Pope or any other catholic. Nor would any navigator lightly reveal his secrets for getting to the new world for the church to get any bodies there, the only way they would have wielded any significant power. 

And please, please, *please* disagree with me on any of this. It's been a while since I've issued a real take-down of someone peddling risible theories about the Medieval church and the political world around it, and I enjoy it ever so much.

 

Quote

By the way, at the site, there are no other "hits" by my metal detectors.  The only place I get a strong hit is the same place indicated by the stonehole encoding.  I accept this as being very exciting--especially given all the other associated evidences in the region.  I expect that time will tell what was purposely buried there so very long ago.  I realize this sounds fantastical, but under the circumstances, that doesn't diminish the possibilities....  

Not that I would know myself, but I understand the internets provide a wide variety of places to visit for those so concerned with holes.

--Jaylemurph

Edited October 19, 2017 by jaylemurph

[Hanslune]

1 hour ago, jaylemurph said:

And please, please, *please* disagree with me on any of this. It's been a while since I've issued a real take-down of someone peddling risible theories about the Medieval church and the political world around it, and I enjoy it ever so much.

....ah, I disagree with you on that........................RUNNING AWAY, Running Away, running away running away, running away, running away,  gone, gone, ...

[Quaentum]

12 hours ago, Bob Voyles said:

I appreciate the sincere comments here.  If readers don't mind, I'd like to clear something up.  Roughly speaking, the Viking Age was over by AD 1100.  The time of the Kensington Runestone was 1362, if one chooses to believe the stone's self-dating.  We have in-between, a quarter of a millennium--about the length of time the US has been a nation.

Bob,

 

I'm sure you missed my post (#71) that shows the runes on the Kensington stone are most likely from the 1800's, hundreds of years after it was supposedly carved.  This would invalidate it's supposed authenticity and remove it as a support for your hypothesis.   I would also like to know how you have determined that what you have found are not hag stones.

[jmccr8]

1 hour ago, Quaentum said:

Bob,

 

I'm sure you missed my post (#71) that shows the runes on the Kensington stone are most likely from the 1800's, hundreds of years after it was supposedly carved.  This would invalidate it's supposed authenticity and remove it as a support for your hypothesis.   I would also like to know how you have determined that what you have found are not hag stones.

Way to go, now you will get a bold print reply for not sqwinting you eyes and looking through your eyelashes to see just how compelling his discovery is tisk tisk.

jmccr8

[Bob Voyles]

Quaentum, thanks for your questions.  (I copy & paste names sometimes, hence the occasional bold.)  First, I'll address the hag stones.  Hag stones are different from these other stoneholes in MN and SD because of two reasons:  Hag stones are generally made by nature, and the holes generally go entirely through the rocks.  Go back to the Part I video and you will see that each of the several rocks making up the proposed encoding have two stoneholes each in them, precisely the same.  Again, this is impossible for nature to accomplish there in that setting.  I checked the stoneholes and none of them go all the way through.  I've never seen or come across a prospective medieval Norse stonehole that goes all the way through the rock.   Here is an immediate reference for you:

https://www.pinterest.com/elisabethro0528/hag-stones/

Hag Stones

"Also known as Witch Stones, Fairy Stones, Holy Stones and Eye Stones, are stones with naturally formed holes running clean through them. These holes are usually formed by centuries of wave action. It is this association with running water (which itself is said to negate the effect of evil that is believed by many people to be the source of the Hag Stone's reputation for guarding their owner against ill-fortune and the Evil Eye."

 

In answer to your other question/comment about the runes on the KRS, I think one can easily turn this around and suppose that the "secret code runes" we're talking about may actually help prove that the KRS is authentic.  In other words, it is very unlikely that a hoaxer in rural MN would have known about the secret code indicated on those late 1800s papers.  Many people who have studied the subject believe the "hooked X" rune found in the papers helps to show that at least that one rune may be attributed to a degree of secrecy being involved with the KRS mission.  As you likely know, Scott Wolter attributes the aforementioned rune to post-Knights Templar and then assigns a fictional "holy bloodline" into the hypothesis, as well as introducing very confusing "Masonic numerology" into the equation as a way to understand the KRS's message.  I do not ascribe to any of this, of course, since I take the message at simple face value.

 

I also do not believe--as someone offered here--that the infamous "dotted R" was created by accident.  I believe that it very obviously was made on purpose, and this rare runic character was basically not known about until recently.  The outcome, then, is about the same as with the hooked-X, in that the use of this dotted R rune on the KRS helps to prove its authenticity; again, a hoaxer would likely not have known about the dotted R.  Unfortunately, there is a can of worms associated with all this:  extreme academic and "professional" bias.  Much of this bias has come from Scandinavia in the past, and some of this bias still drifts across the pond towards MN today, like an obfuscation-laden fog.