Kensington stone

In August 1898, farmer Olaf Oman, who purchased a farm near Kensington, Minnesota, cut down aspen on his land. When the roots were uprooted, it turned out that they were wrapped around a huge gray stone. Almost rectangular Kensington stone weighed 91 kg. When it was cleared from the ground, strange scratches appeared on the surface, which turned out to be at the close examination of runic signs!..

When the roots were uprooted, it turned out that they were wrapped around a huge gray stone. Almost rectangular Kensington stone weighed 91 kg

Kensington stone was immediately sent to Professor O.J. Bred, a Scandinavian scientist - he also made and published the first transcript of this rather long and unusually beautiful inscription signs. "We are 8 ready and 22 Norwegians, participants in the reconnaissance voyage from Vinland to the west, one of the soldiers carved an inscription on a large stone. Ten of our detachment stayed by the sea to look after our ships 14 days from this island. We stopped at two skerries one day north of this stone We left for one day and fished the fish Then we came back and found 10 of our people bloodied and dead Ave, Maria, deliver us from evil Year 1362"!..

Then Kensington stone was sent to Northwestern University in Chicago, but they said that the inscription on the stone - "awkward forgery". Only in 1907 another Scandinavian scientist, H. Holland, to whom rumors of the inscription reached, subjected the Kensington stone to a new study.

The proofs of the authenticity of the Kensington stone collected by Holand already by 1920 were so convincing that a number of authoritative and competent scientists unreservedly spoke in his favor.

Holland's conclusions about the Kensington stone were bold, even implausible. They radically changed all earlier ideas about getting to know America before Columbus. According to his findings, back in 1302, 130 years before Columbus, the Normans not only knew the northeastern coast of the North American continent well, but also penetrated hundreds of kilometers to the west, to the central regions of the United States - up to the upper Mississippi, to where it was found Kensington stone. Moreover: in the vicinity of Kensington found many items that are strikingly consistent with the facts reported in the inscription on the stone. In different parts of the states of Wisconsin, Minnesota and Dakota, medieval weapons and utensils typical of the Scandinavians were found in the land and definitely indicated that the inhabitants of Northern Europe had visited these regions in very remote times. In different places, Scandinavian axes, an ax, an iron spearhead, and a flint were discovered.

Holland managed to "figure out" who exactly from the Scandinavian travelers could be in 1362 in Minnesota. According to the scientist, there is a connection between Kensington stone and the expedition; which in 1355 was sent to Greenland under the decree of the Norwegian King Magnus Eyrickson (1319-1355). This expedition was led by Paul Knutson from Onarheim. The task of the expedition was to preserve Christianity in the Norman colonies in Greenland, that is, in the struggle against the Eskimos and the strengthening of the colonies, and possibly in the exploration of new lands. The decree on this voyage dates from November 1354.

One of the main tasks of the expedition was to take care of the fate of the Normans, who had disappeared from Vesterbugda, a western colony on the coast of Greenland. Subsequently it was said that the disappeared settlers went to the West "to the people of America". It is not excluded that, having learned about this, Knutson considered it his duty to go there to search.

According to the inscription, 10 people died in battle, apparently during the attack of the Indians, and the fate of the rest is unknown. The fate of Paul Knutson is also unknown. After 1355, his name is not mentioned anywhere. At the same time, undoubtedly (as evidenced by a number of reliable facts) that some members of the expedition returned to Europe. Perhaps the disappearance of 30 Scandinavians (led by Knutson?) And explains the late return of the expedition to Norway. Their brethren, apparently, were waiting for their comrades who had gone into the depths of the unknown mainland and, only finally losing hope, decided to return to their homeland. It should be added to what has been said that the Normans of the late Middle Ages had a very common custom before the threat of mortal danger to report the fate that had befallen them with the help of runic inscriptions. This we can observe and the example of Kensington stone.

What was the fate of those twenty people who survived the massacre in the camp and found themselves in the upper Mississippi? Only hypotheses can be expressed on this score. One of them is connected with the mystery of the mandans - an Indian tribe belonging to a group of Sioux tribes.

The Mandans, the indigenous inhabitants of the upper Mississippi, who lived on the territory now divided between the states of Wisconsin, Minnesota and Dakota - perhaps the most unusual of all Indian tribes. For 200 years, the mandans have attracted the attention of ethnographers due to the fact that they were very different from all other Indian tribes in appearance, customs and religious beliefs. Moreover, their physical appearance showed signs suggestive of mixing with some northern race, for one-fifth or one-sixth of these Indians had almost white skin and light blue eyes. Among the mandans, there were often people with blond hair and an expression so unusual for the Indians. And in one of the traditions of the mandates it was said that the father of the tribe was a white man who arrived in their country in a canoe. Even in those times when no European had visited these places, the Mandalans were already familiar with the basic tenets of Christianity: they told of a savior, of immaculate conception, of the cross of martyrdom, of the miraculous saturation of 5,000 people, of the sin of the ancestor of the human race, about the flood, about the saved ark and the pigeon that was sent from it, which brought a willow branch, etc.

Holland's conclusions seem to place all the points in the mystery of Kensington stone, and in the mysteries of the mandans. These conclusions were supported by an overwhelming majority of specialists: in the United States of 50 competent scientists, only two opposed the hypothesis of Holand. Almost exactly the same took the conclusions of Holland in Europe.

Archaeologists consider Kensington stone one of the most noteworthy historical finds found in the New World. Kensington stone is today the only ancient ancient monument that has so far been found on the American mainland. "The most striking archaeological find of the 19th century" lifted the veil over many previously unknown pages of history, although it asked new riddles.

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