Nothing has changed out here, Sandy—people still fight over Vikings in Minnesota. I live just a few miles from the Kensington Runestone Museum, and I know better than to dispute it now. (Nah, not really. If some asks, I'll tell 'em I think the runestone is a hoax.)
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The infamous Kensington Runestone is kept in a museum just a few miles up the road from me. It's a carved rock that was dug up on a farm in the 19th century by a Swedish farmer, and purports to tell the tale in runes of a doomed Viking expedition that had come down from Hudson's Bay to meet a…
[More blog entries about archaeology, runes, Minnesota, kensington, middleages; arkeologi, runor, medeltiden, usa.]
The Kensington runestone is a 19th century fake from Minnesota. It purports to be a monument left behind by a Scandinavian expedition in the 14th century, but uses anachronistic turns…
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Sorry, but any museum showing a viking wearing a helmet with horns or wings has lost all credibility in my book. I mean, that's just so 19th century opera kitsch (think Wagner). Hence, the people at Kensington would face an uphill battle convincing me their rune stone is genuine...
Still, it's funny how people still feel so strongly on a personal level about things that happened a millenium ago!
As a descendant of Vikings I am shocked, SHOCKED, at the suggestion that my ancestors went to Minnesota. Based on my observations of danish travelpatterns today I have concluded that Florida is closer to the mark.
I propose sending archeology PHD´s in droves to look for runestones on Miami beach. I will lead the expedition. All funding is welcome.
Geez, I'd be happy finding a single arrowhead. I don't want to be any more ambitious than that. (Though there are legends of lost Spanish gold in southern Missouri that I'd love to be true.)
Tis such a sad state of affairs it is, that you seem to have forgotten that when the Vikings came to MN, they were greeted by the Irish with a bit of the poteen and the shileleigh.
Somewhere, packed up in a box, I have a little plaster replica of the Kensington Runestone. The part of the equation that people forget is the subtle sense of humor you can find out there amongst the Scandanavian farmers. Ol' Whatisname that 'found' it probably giggled himself to sleep for for the rest of his life.
"they were greeted by the Irish with a bit of the poteen and the shileleigh"
You're suggesting that any of them who survived the poteen were put out of their misery with the shileleigh?
Ah, PZ, it's good to know some things never change. I still remember seeing the Viking ship the last time I visited Duluth.
I'm still proud of a cartoon I drew for the magazine of the state branch of the National Speleological Society. It showed a Viking (horns and all, drawn from a figurine I had) with axe in hand in a cave, while from a nearby tunnel, you heard a caver telling another, "I tell you, Fred, that stuff about Viking runestones is just a bunch of bunk!" Meanwhile, the Viking thinks to himself, "uff-da" (in runes), and a small runestone leans against the cave wall.