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Kensington Runestone - Aliens 70
507 Plays2 months ago
This time, we will look at the infamous Kensington Runestone found in the USA and the claims made by Scott Wolter from America Unearthed. Is the stone evidence of templars and Scandinavians in the US? Or is it a creation in modern times?
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Transcript
Introduction to Digging Up Ancient Aliens
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network.
00:00:18
Speaker
Welcome to Digging Up Ancient Aliens. This is the podcast where we examine alternative history and ancient alien narratives in popular media. Do these ideas hold water to an archaeologist or are there better explanations out there?
00:00:33
Speaker
We are now on episode 70 and I am Fredrik, your guide into the world of pseudo-archaeology, and this time we will look at the infamous Kensington Runestone, found in the USA and also the claims made by Scott Walter from America on Earth.
00:00:51
Speaker
Is the stone evidence of templars and Scandinavians in the US? Or is this just a creation in modern times? Remember that
The Kensington Runestone Debate Resurfaces
00:01:00
Speaker
you can find sources, resources and reading suggestions on the website, diggingupenginealians.com, together with the transcript of this episode.
00:01:09
Speaker
They also find contact info and all that good stuff. If you're noticing any mistakes or you just want to come in contact with me, and I also want to give a huge thank you to all those who supported the show through Patreon or the membership portal on the website. If you want to join those fine people and get some bonus stuff, I will tell you exactly how to do this at the end of this episode.
00:01:34
Speaker
This is a rather long one and well, let's finish up our preparation and let's dig into the episode.
00:01:51
Speaker
Much like an irritating rash, the Kensington Runestone keeps returning when you think it's finally gone. Again, it's popped up due to Scott Walter's talk during the Cosmic Summic 2024, and also ticked about by Jenna James, another promoter of pseudo-archaeological claims, and also lost civilization. If you're not familiar with Scott Walter, he is a geologist,
00:02:16
Speaker
But today is maybe more known as a TV host for the show America on Earth, one of the entertainment shows promoting pseudo-historical claims put out by our favorite The History Channel. There are conspiracies, Templar, the Ark of the Covenant in the US, and the aliens of course appearing on this television show.
00:02:41
Speaker
Scott Walter has also been a starch advocate for the authenticity of the Kensington Runestone. ah We call it KRS going forward, meaning the stone was created by American Vikings or at least Scandinavians some hundreds of years before Columbus arriving in the America.
00:03:00
Speaker
So let's
Discovery and Claims of the Kensington Runestone
00:03:01
Speaker
once and for all put this matter to rest, because the case has been closed for some time at this point. But before we get into the nitty-gritty about the Kensington Runestone, we should maybe talk about what it is, where it was found, and when, and whether it really is an important discovery in the first place. Let me take you back in time to the year 1898.
00:03:27
Speaker
A man named Olof Erman, a Swedish immigrant, is working hard to clear ah internal improvement land he recently took over in rural Solen in Minnesota. Under a tree stump, he supposedly finds a stone that he first claims might be an Indian calendar, his words, not mine, but a stone was later identified as being written with a runic script.
00:03:55
Speaker
and I will give you the original language here and then you will get the English translation.
00:04:05
Speaker
This is the first time I've ever been to a place like this, where I live in the west. I've never been to a place like this, where I live in the east, where I live in the south, where I live in the south, where I live in the south, where I live in the south, where I live in the south, where I live in the south, where I live in the south, where RVM, I live 3LZ of in the south, where I IL. At live the end in the south, of where I the month, we had to skip the FUTON live in the south, where I live in the south, where I live in the south, where I live in the south, where I live in the south, where I live in the south, where I live in the south, where I live in the south, where I live in the south, where I live in the south, where I live in the south, where I live in the south, where I live in the south, where I live in the south, where I live in the south, DOG where I live in the south, RIZZ where I live in the south, where I live from then on. R-Treton 64.
00:04:56
Speaker
were out to fish one day. After we came home we found 10 men, red or blood, and dead. Ave Virgo Maria, save us from evil. We have 10 men by the sea to look after our ships. 14 days travel from this island. Year 1362.
Misconceptions about Vikings and Runes
00:05:22
Speaker
A theatrical yet short story. The explorations, there's death and of course there's Christianity. Elements that might help us figure out why the stone was made later. And I want i won't be cocky about this, that the stone is a hoax. And I'll prove this from several angles and all the roads lead to this being a modern creation.
00:05:47
Speaker
but we should touch on a couple of things before proceeding with Mann's roomstone. It is established that the Vikings were in the Americas before other Europeans started to arrive here. The discovery of the Leons-Meadot in the 1970s was a huge deal and did show that the North Sagas were correct about Finland. However, this settlement was very short-lived. If you want to hear more about it, I'll actually have a tour up of the site on the app historian. relatively soon There's also a study from 2023 by Lisbeth Gudmund Stottir showing that elite families in Greenland seem to have imported lumber from the America. so
00:06:33
Speaker
Today's discussion isn't whether Vikings visited North America, because we know that they did. So even if the Runestone would be authentic, it would, as Professor Ken Fader puts it, no cliched writing of textbook would be called for. Maybe just a footnote.
00:06:52
Speaker
And as we will see however, the the importance of the stone is more prominent as a reflection of a modern history. I also want to point out that many authors made the mistake of connecting these stones with Vikings.
00:07:07
Speaker
By 1362, the Viking Age was long gone. Sweden and Norway were well into the Middle Ages regarding both art and culture in this aspect, and Iceland and Greenland also followed these new influences at this point. So we should stop trying to connect the stone to Vikings, because that's not Vikings at this point. If the stone was real, early Nordic medieval would be a better term for a stone, not Norse or Viking.
00:07:39
Speaker
Let the runes speak.
00:07:44
Speaker
The most significant contributor to the confusion regarding Vikings in Minnesota might be that the
Analysis of the Kensington Runestone Runes
00:07:52
Speaker
stone is written in runes. And I don't think it's weird that people make this association. Still, the issue is that the runic script is not isolated to the Viking Age. In Sweden, runes were used for everyday writing up until the 20th century.
00:08:08
Speaker
So people were still using runes when the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was founded and them on the Manhattan Bridge was opened for traffic for the first time. But runes are not some monolithic writing systems that remain unchanged. Now, we have several versions of it, which each can be traced back to different periods in time.
00:08:31
Speaker
And the oldest version of these rooms dates back to around 100 CE. The system that was developed is known as the Old Futhark. You might wonder what the Futhark means, and it's basically the ABC of Old Germanic writing system.
00:08:50
Speaker
We have found several stones where all the runes in the old Germanic alphabet are written out, and the first six signs are always f you the V, A, R, and K. they kill The Culver stone on the Gotland in Sweden is the oldest example of a complete alphabet and dates back to around 400 CE.
00:09:14
Speaker
Other examples where we find a complete Old Fethork are on the Wodstina Bractate and Grumpan Bractate. These are medallions meant to be carried around a neck, a fairly common trinket found during this period in Swedish history.
00:09:30
Speaker
As I mentioned, this writing system evolved, and during 800 CE the old Futhark was replaced by the new Futhark. The critical difference between these systems is that the old version contains 24 different runes, while this younger version contains 16. This is a bit of a paradox, since we see new types of sounds in the language, meaning more runes would have been better than fewer, but during the 9th century we see as expected a period where room carvers seemed to be able to handle both the new and the old Futhark, and the world's longest runic inscription on stone is found in a small parish called Rök here in Sweden,
00:10:15
Speaker
And this is an example where the carver demonstrating on the stone that it understood both old Futhark and the new Futhark and the different runes and sounds within these systems. And almost all rune stones are written in the younger Futhark. worth remembering though is that the rune stones were carved mainly during the 11th century and that nearly a quarter of all these known carvings in the world are from Upland in Sweden. During what we could classify as the Viking Age, the Jungfutalk was the primary writing system. But it would not last, we see yet another change as Sweden, Norway and Denmark enter the early medieval age.
00:11:02
Speaker
The Latin alphabet becomes the primary writing system in Sweden during this era, but the runes are still sticking around here. Again, they they change. The Runic Futhark is replaced by the Runic Alphabet. The runes go from 16 back to 24.
00:11:19
Speaker
so you can fill out the Latin alphabet. While most literate people in Sweden would prefer using the Latin alphabet, there were locations in Sweden such as Gotland, Dalina and Jämtland where the runes would stick around for a much longer time.
00:11:37
Speaker
The Runic alphabet was used to write both Latin and Swedish. On a spindle wall found in Jämtland we can read Pax Portani Solus Habente, which translates to something like peace to the bearer, well-being to the possessor.
00:11:54
Speaker
There's also a shaving kit box with a runic description on it that's dated to 1610, but written in Swedish. With these short crash cores in Swedish runes it becomes clear that different periods and regions have their own sets of runes, so where does the runes on the Kensington stone fit in? You might not be surprised that the runes are neither the old or the young Futhark,
00:12:19
Speaker
And I hate to bring bad news, but this rules out Viking involvement. And with the Futharik rule out, we are left with a runic alphabet. And this gives us a windows of 700 years. But of course, we can narrow this gap to a smaller one. The Kensington runes were for a long time, a bit of a mystery.
00:12:44
Speaker
No known alphabet we knew about did fit with what we see on the stone. Due to this, this type of runes has been known as Kensington runes. The first real breakthrough to find where and when the runes were made came when the KRS was on loan and on exhibition in Sweden back in 2013. three. For the first time, experts in both Swedish and runes could effortlessly examine the inscription. Quite quickly they realized that these runes looked like those found on a specific yoke. The runes carved into yoke said, that taber tre yur di yog ti yun le september nithun rachu oos.
00:13:30
Speaker
And if we translate this to English, it says, I made this joke on September 10, 1907. Perilas Olof Oluson made the inscription in more on Dolan. And this is the first connection between Sweden and the Kensington rooms. They also quite early managed to connect the rooms we find in Kensington to writing that appears in Elvedalen, specifically writing made by Jada Verev, and this is the reading in Dalana. Due to the joke's 1907 date, it was a bit of a chicken or egg situation at first, whilst the farmer inspired by the stone written about in the news with all those weird runes, or did Ehrman learn the signs from the same source.
00:14:23
Speaker
The origin of the Kensington runes, as I said, was a bit of a mystery in general. There's a large variation and different version of runic alphabets out there. Still, none of those that we had really matched the rune that we see on this American piece of stone.
00:14:43
Speaker
And the solution to where these runes came from was a mystery until a few years ago. And the solution came from a rather surprising source.
00:14:59
Speaker
a middle school teacher and her students.
2019 Breakthrough on Runestone's Origin
00:15:02
Speaker
In 2019, Anna Björk and her students deciphered runes found in a small Swedish parish called Hassela in the northern province of Helsingland. While the National Heritage Board of Sweden received documentation of the Hassela runes back in 1980,
00:15:20
Speaker
They received little notice from academics or scholars until Anabjurk and the kids' efforts were celebrated and the Swedish National Heritage Board awarded them with a medal of merit. In addition to deciphering the Hassela runes, there was an additional twist coming from this.
00:15:41
Speaker
The runes used in the parish were identical to those in Minnesota, except these predates Erman's discovery of the stone, and with this information it did not take long for the vale of the runes origin to fall.
00:15:57
Speaker
Minus Scheldströmmer, Runaologist and Associate Professor at the National Heritage Board, did in 2022 discover more about where the Kensington and Hassela rooms came from. He was tipped up by the regional archive of Miedelpod about a memorial plaque with the Hassela rooms on it, and that date 1868.
00:16:23
Speaker
On this plaque, we can read that it was created to celebrate the wedding between two people, and that part is written in Latin letters. But at the bottom of the plaque, we find a line in Kensington rooms that says, The naminest hafla er upretad underenskrief schoola i homestar, japril monad, or arton humre 60 ota.
00:16:53
Speaker
This memorial plaque was erected during a writing school in Homestar in month of April in the year 1868.
00:17:03
Speaker
Further down, we find a pigpen cipher, where we learn more about the writer.
00:17:28
Speaker
Now, Erik Ström was a writing teacher who specialized in offering classes to workers, household staff, and servants, and he was active in the mid-northern part of Sweden. In addition to his teaching, Ström published a booklet featuring several of writing systems, including the Hassela runes, which notably include a hooked axe found on the Kensington rune stone,
00:17:55
Speaker
as well as a pig pen cipher. Later copies of these runes, such as those found in the writings of ah or the writing exercises of the Larsen brothers, also contain this pig pen cipher. What's more interesting is there appears to be an older and a younger version of Strom Runic's alphabet.
00:18:18
Speaker
And while Stram not have been the original creator, the alphabet can't date much earlier than the beginning of the 19th century, and evidence suggests that a younger version of Stram's runes was created after 1880. This conclusion is based on a shift in the runic system that the Stram created And in artifacts like the Harvard staff, the Monza joke, and the runes written in Elvedalen. And the most intriguing part in all of that is the runes we find on the Kensington stones are written in this younger version of Sturm's runic alphabet. So we know that the runes used can't be older than 1880. All of Eman, as you may recall, emigrated to America.
00:19:12
Speaker
Originally, he was born in Forza Parish, located in the Helsingland province in Sweden, where the influence of Ström's runic alphabet would have been very common and prevalent. Initially, Erman's surname was Olsson, and this is a very common last name, but he changed it to Erman upon emigrating to the United States in 1879. And a compelling question arises here.
00:19:41
Speaker
Did Olof have any exposure to Ström's runic alphabet? And the answer here seems to be yes. His first fiancé and cousin, Anna Iestotter, worked as a valpige, as a shepherdress, in and around Hassela, an area with strong connection to the script, as we mentioned. Moreover, the Olsson family owned land in Kulchan. This is a region within Hassela.
00:20:09
Speaker
Though Ehrmann first emigrated in 1879, he returned to Sweden in 1883, staying for several years before heading back to the US. Given the deep connections between Hassela and Strahm's Runic alphabet, it would be most surprising if Ehrmann did not encounter this script during his stay in Sweden.
00:20:33
Speaker
and he most likely spent summers in Hassela while the family's cattle was grazing in the area, and that was a common practice. Now, some authors have tried to portray Ehrman as a relatively uneducated person, but this doesn't seem to hold up under scrutiny. He was literate, definitely, and seemed interested in both history and language.
00:20:56
Speaker
and one of the books Erman Onn is named the Enkunzkapsrik schoolmaster or the well-informed schoolmaster, and this book aims to give the reader understanding on everyday topics. But one section in this book deals with runes and medieval language
Language Analysis of the Runestone
00:21:14
Speaker
of Sweden,
00:21:15
Speaker
and given his tie to the area where Sturm's grip was widely used, it's difficult to argue you to argue that Erman wasn't familiar with these type of runes that we find on the stone. New or old Swedish?
00:21:38
Speaker
Let's ignore for a moment that the runes runes used on the stone were created in the 1800s. Instead we will ask if the language used on the stone is what we would expect to find in medieval Sweden.
00:21:54
Speaker
Again, the answer is no. The language on the stone is not what we see in letters, runestones, or books for that matter, published in the 1300s. Mätze Lauschen points out that what we see on the Kensington Runestone seems to be a mixture of 1800s Swedish, Norwegian and English.
00:22:18
Speaker
something that becomes evident if you are well familiar with the Swedish language. The stone sounds more like the author August Strindberg trying to write a runestone himself than early medieval Swedish.
00:22:35
Speaker
And the national state archive of Sweden has many written communication preserved from the 1360 and even earlier than that. Now, most of these communications are donations or receipts or sale or land transfer, but they can still be used to understand how Swedes spoke and spelled around the year 1362.
00:22:59
Speaker
And on the transcript page for this episode, I've added two examples of medieval letters. One is from Svijaland and another is from Jöttaland, the area where those refer to as Jöttar on the Runestone come from. But I don't think it will give you much if I read them here, because I'm not sure how many of you understand Swedish. I know many of the listeners are from the Americas. So go to the web page if you're interested in this stuff.
00:23:29
Speaker
A fair point to raise here is that these letters would be written by the upper classes, of course. They might not actually reflect on how the average yo who spoke during this time. Another point is that the letters that we have here is not written in rooms. Luckily, we also have many runic medieval inscriptions that we can use.
00:23:56
Speaker
In the Yerta Land region, we have ah just 67 inscriptions that have a secure medieval date on them. None have the Kensington or Hasselaeroons, and none have a language similar to that we see on the KRS.
00:24:14
Speaker
Now, those who think that the KRS is an authentic 14th century rune stone, like, for example, anthropologist Alice Beck Kehoe points out that some of the words that are found on the stone can also be found in a medieval Swedish language.
00:24:33
Speaker
But to get there, they often sometimes have to go quite far outside Sweden to find this connection, like the word Frum on line 12. To find a connection to medieval Swedish, you have to go to a direct found in the Swedish colony in Estonia, on the islands of Nook and Orm.
00:24:54
Speaker
And the source for this post connection is Dr Richard Nielsen, an engineer. But Kehoe never cites where he makes this ah claim or where he really got this from. But the best evidence for this stone being a modern creation can be found online too.
00:25:15
Speaker
The word upthog is a fourth is not found in early medieval Swedish and would not make sense at all to a person living in this period. Henrik Williams points out that the word seems to be taken from modern Danish, and the word in Danish is upthog is a fad.
00:25:36
Speaker
And there's no medieval version of the word. The closest we get to a similar word is the word uptoka in early medieval Swedish, but the word in this case would transfer to the act of clearing land, you know, removing forest burning or making it ready to be used as an agriculture area or something similar.
00:26:00
Speaker
The language on the KRS is, as we see, a mixture of modern language and this is not something that sits debated among scholars today that has ah expertise in early medieval Swedish. To be fair, there are those who don't really agree with this conclusion.
00:26:18
Speaker
one of which we mentioned at the top of this episode, and it's the geologist and TV host Scott Walter, who is maybe one of the most active promoters of the Stones of Distant Tea that's active today at least. The hooked X does not mark the spot.
00:26:45
Speaker
Now, Walter claims that linguists and runeologists are all wrong about the stone's language, and that it's indeed a 14th century creation. In his book The Hooked Eggs, he argues that linguists don't see this because they have not realized that the stone is written in Gotlandic. According to Walter, this misidentification is due to the lack of research on the Gotlandic rune stones.
00:27:13
Speaker
and And this is a rather bold statement, ignoring much of the work that's been done in the field so far, such as Thorgen's Nel Dolls' excellent dissertation on the Gothic language and evolution, and that was published in 2002. And the last part of the Fakismil covering the Gothic Runestones was published with their preliminary findings in 2004, not 2009, as Walter claims in the book.
00:27:43
Speaker
These articles also contain previous publication on the stones and inscription that's discussed in this last edition of the Gotlandic Runestones. And Walter's argument here that the stone is Gotlandic, or Gotlandic Ordinis,
00:28:03
Speaker
In somewhat flight, the stone gives us the origin of the people that made the stone. It's Goethe and Norwegian. Goethe, not Goth, are, but the people from Järtland on mainland Sweden are called and was called back then, too in the medieval period.
00:28:21
Speaker
Güttar is what the people of the island of Kotlin are and would have been referred to during this time. Also not Güttar. And Scott Walter completely ignores this in his book and instead relies on share picking data that fits his conclusion that the language is Gotlandic.
00:28:41
Speaker
Now Professor Henrik Williams from Uppsala University summarised why Walter is incorrect in a great 2012 article. The typical medieval gothlandic esrune is completely lacking on the KRS stone,
00:28:59
Speaker
But if you look at Runestones on Gotland, you will quickly notice that they have this very distinctive Gotlandic S on almost all the Stone Age. It's strange that such a typical rune is not found on the Keira Stone if it was Gotlandic.
00:29:17
Speaker
Williams also pointed out that Gotland kept these diphthongs for a very long time, and we find them on written materials across the island. Again, this is not something that we find on the KRS, along with the Gotlandic case endings, that's also weirdly missing on the stone. so The word for example for ship on the KRS should be ah written skippum if it was gothlandic and not only just skipp as we see on a stone. Walter also points out that modding gothlandic dialect often switch out the A at the end of the word.
00:29:54
Speaker
to E instead. For example, GON or BOTTA in Swedish he is pronounced as BOTTA in Gotland. On the KRS we find the word FISKE and he claims that this is a connection showing that this is BOTTA.
00:30:13
Speaker
Medieval authentic Runestone seems to keep the A at the end of words. Anyway, Williams used for example stone G39 as an example to demonstrate this, and all Runestones in Sweden are catalogued and they have a distinct letter and a number. So the G in this case means that the stone is cotlandic and it has number 39. And you can look up all the stones, all the rune stones in Sweden and ruin the inscription in a database that's hosted by the National Heritage Board. And I will link this again in the show transcript if you want to go and look everything this up yourself.
00:30:58
Speaker
Now, G39 is not the only example. On top of that, we also have G255, G240, and G393, and so on and so on. Then there's the issue. On Gotland, the word stone is so written as stain, but on the KRS, it's written as stain.
00:31:20
Speaker
So again, we see something that clearly differs from what we would expect from a medieval Gotlandic language compared to what we actually find on the KRS Runestone. With all this in mind, the argument that the author of the KRS is from 14th century Gotland is quite dead and gone.
00:31:44
Speaker
What's left to look at is well the dotted R as Walter calls them. But if you want to look up what the dotted R is, and don't use that term. Look up stone runes as scholars refer to these.
00:32:01
Speaker
types of runes. So on the KRS we do seem to find strong hours while their use in the gothlandic language is intriguing, and their appearance on the KRS could be explained by reasons other they than a gothlandic connection.
00:32:17
Speaker
Walter also claimed to have found a stung rune on stone G282, but here I have to i agree with the Thurgun snail doll that this is a result from flaking, not the intentional stung. And again, the creator of the KRS could likely just add these things for, well, artistic effect licensing, so to say. There's other reasons why they could have added these so-called Dots.
00:32:51
Speaker
Numbers and runes.
00:32:55
Speaker
So to sum up our findings so far, the text and the runes used don't match with what we see in 14th century
Debunking Claims of Medieval Numerical Systems
00:33:02
Speaker
Sweden. So the case for this being an authentic medieval runic text becomes less convincing as we continue to tally up the evidence. Each piece we add to the equation seems to subtract from the stone's out authenticity. Now let's shift our focus to the numbers engraved on the stone.
00:33:25
Speaker
Much like the language, these numerals stand out as anomalies, elements that don't quite fit into the historical equation we're trying to solve here. First, the numbers on the stones are written with a sort of a pentatic runes. A symbol is used to represent each of the base 10 Arabic numerals.
00:33:49
Speaker
One looks like an uppercase version of the Greek letter gamma, so it's a straight line and a vertical line on the top right side. Then a perpendicular line is added for each number that you go up until you reach the number 5. At 5, the symbol starts to look like an uppercase P instead, then a vertical line is added for each numeral on until the re you reach and the ending of 9.
00:34:18
Speaker
A vertical line with a circle on top represents the zero. And I want to make something extremely clear here. The runic type numbers found on the KRS are not medieval. There is no medieval text or rune carving using these type of pandatic numbers.
00:34:38
Speaker
The earliest known instance of the use of the KRS numeral is found in the practice sheet of Edvard Lorschon, dated to 1885. This sheet also contains the version of the KRS or Haselalu runes.
00:34:54
Speaker
We later learned that Scott Walter claims that the KRS are created by Cisterion monks, making the pandetic runes actually even stranger. Because the Cisterion monks, they had their own numeral system that they developed. So how did do you write numbers in Sweden during the early Middle Ages? Well,
00:35:19
Speaker
As Morit Olien points out, with quite a bit of effort, numbers were written out in almost all cases if Latin numerals were not in use. So, if you would like to write that something happened in the year 1350, like on the medieval Grothlandic runestone G 293,
00:35:42
Speaker
It would have been quite a mouthful there. The author wrote the year on the stone as 1000 years and 300 years and 50 years. And we see the same practice in mainland Sweden, for example on SM 114 and fourteen and the VG 210. It's almost as if the carver were paid by the rune. And the same goes so for another numeral on the stone G 293.
00:36:10
Speaker
And in that case, they're referring to the birth of the biblical Adam, which according to the stone happened 5201 years before the birth of Christ. Again, the numbers are all spelled out. They don't shorten it. It's 5201 years in the same form.
00:36:32
Speaker
There is of course a single exception to this and that's on that mainland Sweden on the stone DR 366 and in that case they did not write out ah the number in the words but instead used Latin numerals.
00:36:51
Speaker
The same goes for the longest runic text we have, Codex Runicus. And this is a set of laws originating from Scania written on Velum with runes around the year 1300 CE. The most common practice during this time was simply to, again, write out the numbers. And if we look back to the Viking Age, we see the same practice of writing numerals as text.
00:37:17
Speaker
We still see this practice in the Swedish medieval letters from this period. The only difference is that latin numerals tend to be a bit more common when it comes to dates and years. But if latin numbers aren't used, well then the year amount of money etc is all spelled out.
00:37:36
Speaker
What we learn here is that if you find yourself back in time working as a scribe, make sure to show it per letter. And with all of this said, there are cases where runes were used to symbolize numbers in a way These can be found in the Scandinavian version of the Easter table, a computation method developed in the Catholic Church to know when Easter was supposed to be celebrated, but also keep track on other celebrations or events you must participate in during the year. So it's a sort of calendar where the runes are used as arbitrary symbols, not really numbers in that sense.
00:38:18
Speaker
And the majority of these ah type of calendars or perpetual calendars in Sweden are wooden stoves. An alternative ah version can also be found in a table format, often referred to in Sweden as an Easter table.
00:38:35
Speaker
and These had 19 columns and 28 rows. The earliest known versions of the Runic Calendar are from the 14th century. However, the vast majority of the almanacs we have preserved are from the 1500s and later, still using runes as arbitrary symbols.
00:38:55
Speaker
The staffs consist of golden numbers in this case, it's ah the Younger Fothark with three runes invented just for this computation device. And these represent a 19 year moon cycle. It takes about 19 years for a new moon to appear on the same day. Again, then the first seven runes are repeated 52 times to represent the weeks of the years.
00:39:20
Speaker
The crux here is to use the Runestaff or the Easter table. You must know the golden year and the Dominical or Sunday letter. If you have these two, you can call calculate when Easter should occur. And the upside with the table computation is that you can also use it to refer to a year within the Easter table using the golden year and the Sunday letter of that year.
00:39:46
Speaker
Another bonus is that this short covers around 532 years, allowing people to refer to a year between 1114 and 1671 in the the version we have of this Easter almanac.
00:40:03
Speaker
And we do have a few examples of the medieval rune inscriptions where the text indeed refers to the Easter tablet. For example on stone G. 171 commemorates a church fire in Heide on Gotland.
00:40:19
Speaker
And in the last line we can read then H was the Sunday Stave and S the Prime Stave in the 13th row. So if we go to the Easter table and look for the S rune in the 13th column,
00:40:34
Speaker
On the line with the H rune we can learn that the year of the fire was 1492. Another example of the use of the Easter table is on G78, which tells us when a house remodeling was completed. In that case it was and then H was the Sunday Stave and K in the 13th row. And if we look at our short we can see that the kitchen renovation was completed in 1478.
00:41:04
Speaker
Every reference to the Easter table follows this formula. We get a Sunday letter, the prime or golden number, and then what column to ensure that we actually get the correct year. Now, in the hooked eggs, Walter claimed that there are secret codes there, several of them, hidden on the KRS. One is supposedly a repetition of the year 1362 that we find on the stone.
00:41:33
Speaker
Walter mentioned that by using the U-Rune to the left side in line 9, and the L-Rune on line 4, combined with the Pentatic Rune 8, we get the year 1362 on the Easter table.
00:41:48
Speaker
One of Walter's claims regarding the KRS is that it was a land claim, so the authors feared that someone would come there and then alter the year by changing the one of the pandemic numerals, moving the date of the claim to another century or so.
00:42:07
Speaker
A huge flaw, as you might see, is that pandatic runes were not used during this time, or at all in Sweden. Also, it's much harder to change a date that's written out in plain text, and if you add the reference to the Easter table, it would be basically impossible to change it without destroying the stone itself.
00:42:29
Speaker
Now, to support this idea of repeated dates in medieval Sweden and that the KRS is authentic due to that, Walter refers to two stones on Gotland with the designation G99 and G100. The unfortunate reality here is that it's only G99 that actually has dual dates.
00:42:52
Speaker
first as 1400 years and one year less than 50 years and then in that year K was the prime stave and the R the sunday in the 11th row in fact G99 is more or less the only stone we have that has a repetition of the year Note here also that the core were used the exact same formula we see on every other inscription on Godland that we have preserved you. You can also check my work on this again. The Swedish National Heritage Board offer a searchable service of all known Runic inscriptions found to date.
00:43:30
Speaker
Another issue with the voltage claim is that the version of the KRS U-Roon, all Runestones on Gotland use the U-Roon found in the Futhark. So it would be quite odd that people trained in a Gotlandic setting would all of a sudden differ on key runes used during this period.
00:43:55
Speaker
but as we already covered, the Hassela script is a 1800 creation. So the sum of all of this is that the KRS differ significantly from the material found on mainland Sweden and Gotland during the 14th century. The use of Larsen's Pantatic Runes is another thing that points to this being a 19th century creation of the KRS that we suddenly find a stone that differs so much from all known material is a rather crucial indicator that this was created much, much later in history. I also want point one to point out that the book we found in Irma's possession, the one that contained information on runes and the medieval language,
00:44:44
Speaker
also have a section on the old calendars. The Easter table has also been in different prints since at least 1626, when Oliverum published a copy of this Easter short in his book on Danish calendars.
00:45:04
Speaker
So both the use and the calculation of dates are well within reason to have been and understood and utilized by Uldof Erman or a person that he might be cooperating with.
00:45:22
Speaker
Kensington
Lack of Archaeological Evidence for Scandinavian Presence
00:45:23
Speaker
Runestone and Archeology
00:45:27
Speaker
How about we shift a little and look at the archaeological aspects and findings regarding the stone? Are there any? And the answer here is, again, no. Professor Fader points out in his book, Archaeological Oddities, that There isn't a single archaeological trace of Scandinavians in Minnesota during the 1300s. There are no signs of camps, trash, locitum or anything connected to Swedish or Norwegian medieval explorers.
00:46:00
Speaker
From an archaeological perspective, we know that this is ah undoubtedly an archaeological oddity. Finds of the Vikings' presence in northern Canada can be found throughout the area where the short-lived settlement was, and the lack of Scandinavian artifacts in the area isn't due to a lack of trying either.
00:46:21
Speaker
Fader, and Kehoe also mentions excavations that's been done in first 1899 and then in 1964 in the area where the stone was found. And Kehoe also mentioned in her book that further test and service has been carried out both in 1981 and 2001.
00:46:44
Speaker
You might argue that a small encampment would not ah appear or be found in an archeological limit here, but that's simply not true. Archeologists do find nomadic temporary encampments all the time. Specifically, we find a fire hearth in many cases.
00:47:03
Speaker
And there are also a large amount of trash humans have a tendency leaving behind. Well, since the dawn of time, basically. And for as an example, if you hike up in the Nordest part of Sweden, and you know what to look for, you can actually find these temporary encampments in the landscape even today. It's just not possible that a party of 30-some people would come to an area and not leave a single item behind or create a single earth, since it took the time to carve a whole slab of stone full of runes
00:47:40
Speaker
It strongly talks against these and ninja-trained Scandinavians. A runestone is not something you used to bash out during the lunch break. Ten of them even died and must have been buried, or maybe they were cremated, but that also leave archaeological material. Some trying to get around this by claiming that it was Native Americans attacking and were killed, not the explorers. still Even then, it would have been good practice to at least put together a mass grave, as we see in the aftermath of ah the Battle of Wiesbeungoldtland that took place in 1361, for example. And it might be a bit surprising that Alice Kehoe is a rather respected anthropologist, especially since she promotes the idea that the Keras is a genuine 14th century artifact to this day.
00:48:34
Speaker
As recently as 2016, she proposed the stone as authentic, ignoring all the things that doesn't fit and relying heavily on outdated information or faulty assumptions that we already covered in this essay. Remember that a degree doesn't necessarily protect you against bad ideas if critical thinking is not applied.
00:49:00
Speaker
You might counter here that the stories about Vinland were considered fiction for a very long time and then proved to be an accurate description or somewhat accurate description of what happened. The key difference here is that Newfoundland turned out to have real artifacts, proving that the Vikings visited the area even if it was briefly.
00:49:27
Speaker
We're not talking about some century-long occupation, we're talking about a settlement maybe lasting tops five decades at most. Many scholars argue that the the settlement found in Newfoundland for maybe about 10 years or so.
Critique of Geological Age Claims
00:49:48
Speaker
The Kensington Runestone and Geology
00:49:54
Speaker
Now we come to an area where Scott Walter could have me beaten. The stones geology. I could add a quip here regarding agates, but I will try to refrain from this now. I'm not a geologist, but luckily I have a couple geologists around me.
00:50:13
Speaker
One part of Wolters and others' arguments is that a stone is authentic based on the idea that weathering proves the stone to be of proper age. However, a geologist Dan Fallow told me in a personal communication, quote weathering has no universal constant rate. It varies with pH, eight temperature, moisture, energy regime and mineralogy.
00:50:40
Speaker
Even when you restrict mineralogy, you still have every other issue. Depending on the environmental conditions, you could try to use soil weathering or clay formations to date something, but this would be highly uncertain on an object already removed from the soil. I recommend reading Michael Mishlovich's 2010 paper and Harold Edward's 2020 paper for a more in-depth breakdown of the geological claims regarding the Kensington Runestone.
00:51:12
Speaker
Now, anthropologist Andy White wrote a fine blog post discussing the calcite weathering found in the bottom left corner of the KRS with input from AdWords that also adds a lot of valuable information regarding juicing the weathering we see on the stone as an indicator of its age. Now, we can summarize Walter's claim into two points. Walter's first piece of geological evidence is comparing the pyrite in the KRS and the confirmed hoke stone called the AVM stone, and that's a Granite Gnaes boulder.
00:51:55
Speaker
with runes that was created in 1985 by a couple of students. Now, Walter claims that this comparison shows that the KRS stone must have been made some at least 20 years before Uldus discovered the stone.
00:52:15
Speaker
Secondly, Scott Walzer also compared biotite found in the KRS with gravestones in Maine. Walter claims that this comparison again shows the KRS is much older than 200 years due to the weathering of the mica minerals found in the KRS stone. Michlovich raised several concerns regarding this comparison made by Walter,
00:52:41
Speaker
and other geologists have also determined that the comparison between different rocks is, well, questionable at best. Even I raised an eyebrow regarding that statement. And a tombstone in the coastal main would have a quite different weather and climate than Minnesota that's located in the central US. Why?
00:53:07
Speaker
Walter shows this comparison is a bit unclear. Walter also uses a very minimal sample size on top of all of this. In his first comparison we have one stone and both are of different types.
00:53:23
Speaker
and his second comparisons he bases analysis on only three graveslabs that he found in Maine. It it might be interesting if the tests were based on several more gravestones or slabs and different stones or the same stone at least in the same and located in the same environment.
00:53:45
Speaker
A cause for concern here, however, is that nobody else seems to use this method or seems to try using this method to date carvings on stone. I mean, it would be amazing, close to a holy grail, to be able but to create a method for absolutating a carved object in stone.
00:54:05
Speaker
Just imagine what we could be able to find out if we had this ability. But the lack of people pursuing this method might indicate that this method does not work as Scott Walter hopes.
00:54:24
Speaker
River Kings without Rivers
00:54:31
Speaker
Another glaring issue with the stone is its location. We learned on the stone that the medieval explorers were 14 days from the shore or the coast, but Solum in Douglas County where this rock was found is who is' very far from any coast,
00:54:50
Speaker
When Ehrman supposedly found the KRS, ships could take the Erie Canal to travel between the Atlantic and the Great Lakes, which would bring the shore a bit closer to Zollam and Douglas County. But this route definitely didn't exist in the 14th century.
00:55:10
Speaker
This means that the explorers would have had to either push their ships over land for, well, quite a far, far bit to get to the Great Lakes and then sail in there to get closer to Douglas County, or they would have travelled solely on foot, a journey definitely more than 14 days away.
00:55:32
Speaker
Both operations would have been quite an undertaking and would definitely have left evidence of their journeys and the visits. and As shown in Europe along the river tradeways that was operated by the Vikings in the 11th century, we find a lot a lot of artifacts and evidence that the Scandinavian or people within the Viking biking world were operating along these rivers and trade routes. So while the text on the Kensington Runestone makes sense in a 19th century context, it would not have made sense for a person in the 13th or in the 14th century here.
00:56:24
Speaker
Here comes
Walter's Theories and Templar Connection
00:56:25
Speaker
the Templars.
00:56:32
Speaker
But why was the Kensington Runestone created then? Let's deal with the more imaginative version first, and then I will get to the more grounded or probable version. now According to Richard Nielsen and Scott Walter, the Kensington Runestone was created as part of and some sort of land claim, but most importantly, it was created by the Templars.
00:56:56
Speaker
Yeah, those templars. And of course, the holy grave seemed to be ah the involved. Do you remember when I mentioned there was a couple of hidden codes on the stone when discussing the numerals? Well, according to Walter's 2009 book, there is another code, of course. But by using a microscope, Walter claims to have seen hidden punch marks and strokes on certain characters.
00:57:26
Speaker
You can get the following sentence by adding these characters or words or symbology later, according to Richard Nielsen and Walter, at least. It goes, quote, Grail, these 10 men have wisdom. The 10 men are with Holy Spirit.
00:57:50
Speaker
Now, the issue with this supposed hidden code is that it builds heavily on Nielsen and Walter's assumptions, attempted translation, imagined translation, and their approach to symbolism from their subjective mind. Could there have been a hidden message in the stone?
00:58:14
Speaker
Sure, I mean why not, but this sentence does not prove that the stone is from the 14th century. And I looked at a recent high resolution 3D scan of the stone and could not really see these markings that the that the Walter was talking about. Maybe they are there, maybe they aren't, Scott is welcome to publish more details about them, but Again, the fact that there might or might not be a second message on the stone does not prove it is from the 14th century. Now, Walther is trying to present the idea that the Knights Templar went to the US maybe to hide the Grail or Jesus' bloodline and then have state scenes and acting a little bit like the man behind the curtain.
00:59:02
Speaker
But how does the island of Gotland fit in in all of this? Well, according to Walther, the Templars had a base there, or at least a connection through the Cisterian monastery operating on the island.
00:59:20
Speaker
In the book The Hooked Ex, Walter speculated that a Cistercian monk from Godland created a KRS, but as we have seen so far throughout this ah episode, this is ah very far from what could have been the reality.
00:59:39
Speaker
Now, you might wonder why the Cistercians and the Templars are connected to the Great Idea. It all goes back to Arthurian legends, especially the work Prose Lancelot. In Cuesta del ah Saint Gral, we get the beginnings of what will become the legends about the Holy Grail.
01:00:01
Speaker
and this particular story seems to have been influenced by Cistercian ideals and the values that would later influence the Templars. For a more in-depth exploration of ah the great story, I recommend reading Karen Pratt and Margot Nivergill's articles on the topic.
01:00:24
Speaker
And something interesting here to note is that according to Stephen Knight, the rise of Arthurian Romans works can be connected to a decline in the population's enthusiasm regarding the Crusades. So in a sense, the legends about the Grail could be viewed as, well, a propaganda tool to promote the Crusades and the ideas that the Cistercians and the Crusades promoters wanted to inflict on the population. To support his claim that the Templars and Cistercians controlled the religious life on Godland, Walter claims that the churches have Templar crosses within them. The issue with this claim is that, well, Walter seems to have confused
01:01:15
Speaker
the Templar Cross with the Consecration Cross. These type of Consecration the Crosses can be found throughout the medieval world and, well, definitely in medieval churches. And these were put up where the bishop spreads holy water during the Consecration and consists often of a cross within a circle. Now, there's a different version of it, but that's the most common one, especially on Gotland.
01:01:44
Speaker
Walter also misidentifies a painting of St. Peter for Bernard or Clairvaux in L'Herbero Paris Church for some reason. And a quick lament on my part here, it doesn't really add much to the story but I have to bring it up.
01:02:03
Speaker
Walter claims that there are six defense towers on Gotland. This is incorrect. There are nine confirmed defense towers. And then there we have an additional nine towers, depending a little bit on how you want to define a defense tower within the Swedish language. It's a bit obvious how to define it with the words to be used, but it's a bit over the top here.
01:02:33
Speaker
But on top of these 18 towers, we have a records of 5 more, but we don't really have hard evidence of their existence, we just have mentions of them. And another problematic claim from Walter is that the Teutonic Knights were active in Gotland and part of the KRS expedition.
01:02:57
Speaker
Now, this is a other order and is again separate from the Knights Templar. Now, this order was founded by German merchants to support the war in the Holy Land. But after the defeat in Acre, the order would later form an independent state in Poland. And they have a beautiful castle in Malburg that I highly recommend you visiting. but the order was active in the Baltic area and were having a sort of crusade, especially towards Estonia and Latvia and that part of of the Baltic area. Now, so while the order was active in the Baltic Sea, they were not present in Gotland until 1398. And it was the year they invaded the island to protect merchants ah from pirate activity, especially the German merchants, of course.
01:03:51
Speaker
The island was under Teutonic control until 1408 when it was returned to the Kelmar Union that was governing Sweden, Denmark and Norway. So the orders activity does not really fit with Walther's claims nor the date of 1362 that we find on the stone. Why
Modern Creation Hypothesis of the Runestone
01:04:15
Speaker
and who?
01:04:22
Speaker
So if we consider everything that we have talked about for the past hour or so, it's really hard to make an argument that the stone is from the 14th century. Everything we have found so far points to a modern date. So who made it? Well, that part is slight mystery at least. Most likely, it was Ull of Ehrman, but he might not have been acting alone in this. Two more persons can be connected to Ull of Ehrman and the stone. We have a de-frogged priest named Sven Forgelblad, and a man called Jon-Pier-Gron. All immigrants from Sweden.
01:05:07
Speaker
In 1967, in an interview later transcribed by the Minnesota Historical Society, Gran's children would admit that their father, together with Ehrmann and Fogelblad, created the stone. A strange accusation if there was no truth from it, especially from the children of Gran who might want to keep their father in some Some revere, but how did the world look like around the supposed creation of the Kensington Runestone? We have to remember that the creation would not have been long after a period where national romance and a fascination of the Vikings were taking place in Sweden.
01:05:53
Speaker
societies were created to promote manly ideas so and the brave exploring Vikings. And on top of this, there ah was a sort of Viking revival taking place across Europe and the US. Books like Fridge of Saga by the Swedish author Teghnir and other books were published and they were popular and they were read by many people across Europe, America, Sweden, the United States.
01:06:23
Speaker
And claims of Vinland really being the Americas and the Scandinavians arrived here before Columbus was theorized by, for example, Professor Rasmus B. Anderson and Gustav Storm. The later writings can be found in Swedish newspaper newspapers that was published for Swedish immigrants in the US.
01:06:47
Speaker
And the creation would also have coincide with the World Fair in Chicago that were celebrating the 400th anniversary of ah Columbus arriving in America. So there was a lot of Vikings on a lot of people's minds during this period.
01:07:07
Speaker
And according to the children of the Yuan Gran, Man and others seems to have thought it was an excellent time to pull a prank on, well, so society as a whole. They are quoted to saying that they want to maybe even make a fool of those that's more educated than them. and And it kind of fits with the description we have of Erman and the other that was ah involved in this little um hoax, so to say. And I also want to mention that archaeologist Carl Feigen makes a connection between the KRS and the Dakota War of 1862. And this war were taking place almost a stone throw away from where Erman would later come to live. but
01:07:56
Speaker
and was only a few decades before he arrived in the Aryan, the aftermath and the war would still have been an event that were engraved in people's minds that they talked about still.
Cultural Impact and Modern Interpretation
01:08:12
Speaker
and Feigen writes that it dates similarities 1862 and the stones 1362 might be a slight nod to the war if well the stone is a hoax which is most likely is but I think it's a nice little connection and but I'm not sure how accurate at this ah speculation is I think Feigen just included to show that you if you want to make connections you can can make connections So in light of all of this, the stone has played a more important role in modern history. In a way, the stone is a more is more important as a reflection of American identity and how history is viewed
01:08:58
Speaker
when arriving in a new country and maybe even to some extent on how an immigrant is trying to keep a connection to their identity. And the stone can also be looked at in how it's been displayed in museums and what values and ideas these different exhibitions represent.
01:09:22
Speaker
Is the stone or exhibition about migrations or people, or is it representing that i the idea of the when and how the funding ah or founding of the US took place? So while why it not might not be authentic,
01:09:40
Speaker
it can still serve as a way for us to explore our history and our connections to it, even if the events are much closer in time than first thought. And on
Conclusion and Future Topics
01:09:56
Speaker
that note, we close this case. We can, with extremely high confidence, say that this is a modern creation.
01:10:06
Speaker
And next time we will be back investigating something else, something with a bit more aliens. But until then, please spread the word by leaving a positive review on platforms like iTunes, Spotify, or even better, recommend it to your friends, but reviews really do help.
01:10:27
Speaker
And if you want the sources or resources used to create this episode, you find everything, I mean, all the sources on the episode transcript page on diggingupenginealiens.com. And if you want to support the show with, the well, more than just the reviews, you can become a patron or member.
01:10:53
Speaker
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01:11:36
Speaker
Sandra Martelor created Intramusic and her outro is by the amazing band called Tralsgroove, who is going on tour mostly in Sweden, but that's another issue. And they are singing their song Tin Foil Hat. Links to both of these artists will be found in the show notes. Now until next time, keep shoveling that science!