New findings in Kensington Runestone enigma
Ben Tracy Reporting
(WCCO) It’s one of Minnesota’s greatest mysteries. It’s something that puts settlers in America well before Columbus. A Minnesota geologist thinks the controversial Kensington Runestone is the real thing and there is evidence that he says backs up the theory.
The Kensington Runestone is a rock found near Alexandria a century ago. It’s inscription speaking of Norwegians here in 1362. It begs the question. Were Vikings exploring our land more than 100 years before Columbus? Or is it just an elaborate hoax?
New research shows that the stone is genuine and there’s hidden code that may prove it. It contains carved words that have haunted these hills and the Ohman family for more than 100 years, yet their faith has never wavered.”I just never had any doubt. I mean I was very emphatic about it. Absolutely it’s real. There’s no doubt,” said Darwin Ohman. His grandfather found the Runestone.
Darwin’s grandfather Olof Ohman has been considered the author of Minnesota’s most famous fraud, the Runestone. He says he found it buried under a tree in 1898. Critics say the language on the stone is too modern to be from 1362, that some of the runes are made up. They say this simple farmer carved it himself to fool the learned.
“You’re calling him a liar. If this is a hoax he lied to his two sons, he lied to his family, lied to his neighbors and friends and lied to the world,” said Scott Wolter a geologist and researcher of the Runestone.
Wolter and Texas engineer Dick Nielsen are sharing for the first time new evidence about the hidden secrets they say are carved in this stone.
“It changes history in a big way,” Wolter said
In 2000 he performed one of the very few geological studies on the stone. He says the breakdown of minerals in the inscription shows the carving is at least 200 years old, older than Olof Ohman. Those findings support the first geological study in 1910 that also found the stone to be genuine.
“In my mind the geology settled it once and for all,” he said.
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