WEBVTT - Thinking Sideways: The Kensington Runestone 0:00:04.320 --> 0:00:15.840 Thinking Sideways. I don't know. You never know. The story 0:00:15.960 --> 0:00:20.760 is of things we simply don't know the answer too. Hey, guys, 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:26.960 welcome to an episode of Thinking Sideways the podcast. An episode. Well, 0:00:27.000 --> 0:00:28.840 I'm not going to say another because maybe this is 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:33.680 their first good point. It's an episode. Yeah, I'm Devin, 0:00:33.880 --> 0:00:37.360 I'm joined by and and we're going to talk about 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:41.080 an unsolved mystery. In case that's not how you found us. 0:00:41.760 --> 0:00:44.400 This is a big one too. It's you know what, 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:47.680 I actually think this one is really really interesting. It 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:50.199 is not so big, but it was heavy. Yeah. I 0:00:50.240 --> 0:00:52.159 had a really hard time in the research of this. 0:00:52.320 --> 0:00:55.960 Just there's so you and I talked about this earlier. 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:58.160 Is it? There's a lot of minutia in it, and 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:04.479 I did I started to get ahead. Ye happen. Yeah, 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:08.200 we're going to talk about the Kensington runestone today. R 0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:15.800 It's runestone. In eighteen nine, a Swedish immigrant named Olaf 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:21.080 Allman found a two hundred pounds slab of sandstone also 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:26.440 called graystone because it's gray but it's sandstone, in Solemn, Minnesota. 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:30.040 It was found when he was clearing an area of 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:34.959 what some websites report is unclaimed, but upon further digging. 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:37.720 Was totally his property, but it was just kind of 0:01:37.760 --> 0:01:44.720 an empty unreclaimed yeah, reclaimed maybe, um. But he was 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:48.280 clearing trees from it, and he fell a tree and 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:50.639 there was a stone that was entwined in the roots. 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:58.360 Probably again the stories and I'm inclined to believe that 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:01.280 it was entwined in the roots, but well, there's some 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:03.840 evidence to show that there were roots growing against it, 0:02:04.320 --> 0:02:06.440 whether it was on the ground and they were directly 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:10.320 under or it was underground. It was it was underground, 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:12.079 it wasn't you couldn't see the top of it. You 0:02:12.120 --> 0:02:14.840 couldn't see any part of it from the ground. But 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:17.120 whether it was actually entwined in the roots or if 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:20.600 it was kind of just nearby, hard to tell. And 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:23.480 this is this is not like a oh the Internet retelling. 0:02:23.520 --> 0:02:25.880 It's hard to tell. Literally, the three people that were 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:27.920 there when I was discovered, none of them can agree, 0:02:28.000 --> 0:02:30.239 Like they don't remember actually what day it was found, 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:33.040 or like what time of day or what exactly they 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:35.560 were doing or anything like that. One of those situations. 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:37.960 One of those. So that's why you know, I witness 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:43.519 testimony is it's hard, Well, it's so varied. One person said, oh, yeah, 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:45.720 it was November eight, and the other one said, no, 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:51.840 it was August eleven, right, eleven eight or eight eleven. Think, yeah, 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:56.000 it's hard to tell, so we're just gonna say I 0:02:56.000 --> 0:02:59.760 think it was entwined in roots in the fall of 0:02:59.840 --> 0:03:06.120 the Fall of eight. He named this stone after the 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:11.160 closest settlement, which was Kensington, because I thought Minnesota he was, 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:16.760 but that's like the county area. The closest settlement was 0:03:17.800 --> 0:03:21.200 town Village. I guess it was very small, large settlement 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:25.920 with that grouping of people. The stone was covered in 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:31.000 ruins and was said to be from about thirteen sixty two. 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:35.240 I'm sorry the year at thirteen sixty two. It apparently 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:39.600 tells the account of some Scandinavian explorers, and if this 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:42.840 is the case, many of our listeners will have already 0:03:42.840 --> 0:03:48.240 realized that means that these Scandinavian explorers managed to quote 0:03:48.320 --> 0:03:51.920 unquote discover right the New World like a hundred years 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:55.560 before Christopher Columbus, actually well over a hundred years because 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:58.960 a little because I wait, if you think about Europeans 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:01.760 coming here, you know, like the British and everybody like that, 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:04.360 they settled on the coast. But we didn't actually penetrate 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:06.200 as far into the interior. Is this for a long 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:09.360 time after that? Right? So yeah, so yes, you're right, 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:13.040 more than a hundred years before, way back. So the 0:04:13.120 --> 0:04:16.920 stone inscription has been translated a number of different ways. 0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:19.280 We're just going to use the text that's on Wikipedia 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:21.400 to start with, and then we'll talk about some of 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:24.560 the discrepancies later. Got it. So this is our baseline. 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:27.840 This is our baseline. What I would say is pretty 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:32.680 much accepted as the translation. Uh, the sorry, and I 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:34.720 should mention the front of the stone and then one 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:38.080 of the sides of the stone are carved, so we've 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:41.000 got it's kind of a monolith in terms of shape, 0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:43.920 it's a rectangle. We've got four faces too, you know, 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:45.760 the front and back that are larger, and then two 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:49.400 slimmer sides, and then the top and the bottom. Yeah yeah, 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:51.960 And there's nothing on top and nothing on top and bottom, 0:04:52.040 --> 0:04:54.960 nothing on the back one of the sides or the back, 0:04:55.040 --> 0:04:56.840 but something on the well, I guess you know what 0:04:56.920 --> 0:04:58.919 you'd call the front and one of the sides. Okay, 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:00.720 I think it's the front, then they is it the 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:03.000 right side? If you were looking directly at the inscription, 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:05.080 I believe it's the right side. The left side, is it? 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:09.360 I think so? Okay. So the front says eight Gotlanders 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:14.760 or Swedes and twenty two Northmen or north Norwegian Norwegian. 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:20.040 On this acquisition, journey from Vinland, far from the west, 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:24.360 we had a camp by two shelters. One day's journey 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:27.359 north from this stone, we were fishing. One day after 0:05:27.400 --> 0:05:30.640 we came home we found ten men red from blood 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:35.080 and dead. Maria saved from evil. And then the side says, 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:38.080 there are ten men by the inland sea to look 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:41.560 after our ships. Fourteen days journey from the peninsula or island, 0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:46.080 year thirteen sixty two, the inland see referring perhaps to 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:50.320 one of the Great lakes. It's possible there's some theories 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:53.280 out there that actually this little parcel of land that 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:55.719 it was found on, it was found on an incline 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:58.279 or like a little grassy knoll area, and that it 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:01.159 could have it was kind of rounded by wetland's much 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:03.159 further away, but that at that time it could have 0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:06.120 been that it was more of a wetland lake area, 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:10.920 so the waters had receded since receded, but that the 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:13.080 place that the stone was found was in fact a 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:16.440 small island on a small body of water, but it 0:06:16.480 --> 0:06:20.400 could also be a great lake. It's not specified. I've 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:22.960 also seen stuff that to answer part of what your 0:06:23.000 --> 0:06:26.200 question is is that to get there, they went north 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:29.640 of the United States where our borders are, came in 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:32.200 through Canada, and then that runs you into the Great Lakes. 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:35.279 I can't remember the name of the inlet or the 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:38.600 channel that you can use, but they use something like 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:40.080 I don't know, I mean, there is there was a 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:42.200 way to do that. I'm not sure that the lakes 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:45.160 naturally interconnected, and I should know this. You know, they 0:06:45.160 --> 0:06:47.880 taught me the stuff, and I believe that for the 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:51.400 most part, they were maybe not enough to do large 0:06:51.400 --> 0:06:55.160 shipping vessels like today. That was that man altered that. 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:58.280 But they were connected in some fashion, and so I 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:01.280 think that that is the research that I was doing 0:07:01.279 --> 0:07:04.760 about how did they get there. It's that the lakes 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:08.800 are loosely interconnected, and so they they theoretically could have 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:11.880 made their way. Doesn't explain where the stone was found, 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:15.440 but it gets him into the area. Is yeah, that's 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:19.520 a big kind of close to that area. And then 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:21.240 then they got to hoof it overland for quite a 0:07:21.240 --> 0:07:24.760 long ways for me, A little ways for sure. So 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:27.800 this stone was found and then kind of held onto 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:31.000 a little bit and then allman kind of thought, well, 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:34.320 maybe I don't know that it says it's from thirteen 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:37.200 sixty two. This was This was his actual thought pattern. 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:38.800 In case you guys were wondering, he wrote it down 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:41.360 in his diary. He said, I don't know, like it 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:44.360 was kind of from I'm kidding. Sorry. When when he 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:47.400 found it was he able to read the ruins himself 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:51.120 or decipher them. So this is kind of one of 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:54.400 the things about this story that's interesting. Most of the 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:58.120 stories that you'll hear there's so there's two camps that 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:01.080 you hear this story from, and they're both sure that 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:04.560 they're right. One camp is this is a huge hoax, 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:08.200 This isn't actually from that time. The other camp is, no, 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:11.200 this is real. And most of the people who say no, 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:14.280 this is real, they say it was real because the 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:17.520 guy who found it was totally illiterate, which is not 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:20.800 the case. This this guy omen was actually he was 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:23.920 a Swedish immigrant. He went to school in Sweden where 0:08:23.920 --> 0:08:27.360 he would have learned runes. So word for word, perhaps 0:08:27.400 --> 0:08:32.920 not were the US in common usage in the end 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:36.760 of the eighteen hundreds and Sweden. Still. Yeah, that's that's 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:38.600 what I wasn't sure because I had seen some stuff 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:41.240 that said he would have had books with runes, but 0:08:41.320 --> 0:08:44.880 wouldn't have necessarily been reading. I mean, it wasn't the 0:08:45.440 --> 0:08:47.960 it wasn't the number one of the languages, but they 0:08:47.960 --> 0:08:49.960 were still it was still taught in school, kind of 0:08:50.000 --> 0:08:53.760 like cursive is still taught in the United States, but taught. Yeah, 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:56.840 they still teach it. Yeah, So it's one of those 0:08:56.840 --> 0:08:59.040 things right where it's like, well, nobody uses that, but 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:04.080 you learn it. And well anyway, so he probably likely 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:06.960 would have been able to decipher at least some of it. Regardless. 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:08.760 It was an old stone he found on his property 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:11.400 and he thought, hey, maybe we should get this assessed 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:14.040 by somebody. So it was first assessed for authenticity by 0:09:14.040 --> 0:09:17.720 a professor at the University of Minnesota. And it's unclear 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:21.600 if this professor saw the actual stone, like they actually 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:24.559 took the stone to him to look at, or if 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:28.000 one of these copies of texts written copies of the 0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:30.040 text were just sent to him. That would be a 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:32.320 lot easier, and if it would be a lot easier, 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:37.080 but it's been mentioned that most of the written copies 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:40.400 of the text were kind of poorly and crudely done. 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:43.760 Well were they handwritten copies or were they rubbing? I 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:46.200 think they were handwritten copies, like somebody who sat down 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:48.600 and tried to write them, and that it may have 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:51.800 been copied by somebody who didn't actually write rooms that 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:54.400 often or didn't know so that it seems to be 0:09:54.800 --> 0:09:58.960 there's definitely some speculation that, uh, the written copies of 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:02.199 these rooms were not good, maybe to the point of 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:06.160 detrimentally to people being able to tell if linguistically it 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:09.280 was correct or not. And a lot of the copies 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:14.280 written copies of these have like very big differences in it, uh, 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:17.440 lots of discrepancies happening. So I think it's likely that 0:10:17.520 --> 0:10:20.280 he actually just saw a piece of paper. Um, but 0:10:20.360 --> 0:10:22.320 he dismissed it immediately. He said it was a really 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:26.040 poor attempt at forgery. And like I said, I can't 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:29.840 tell with accuracy if if he you know, saw the 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:32.439 paper or not, but if you saw the real thing, yeah, 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:35.360 if it was the paper, I I just want to say, like, well, 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:39.600 how would he know? And professor of linguistics linguistics, yeah, 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:47.520 specializing in um, Norse and Swedish, Scandinavian ruin and language studies. 0:10:48.320 --> 0:10:51.280 So he didn't like it. He didn't what next? Then? 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:54.600 The stone, the actual stone, as far as I can tell, 0:10:55.080 --> 0:11:00.000 uh In, was sent to Northwestern University. The opinion there 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:03.320 as that while the stone itself was pretty weathered, the 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:07.400 inscription seemed to be lighter and done more recently. The 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:13.480 stone was photographed, and um, apparently some archaeological venture was 0:11:13.600 --> 0:11:18.400 done kind of near where the stone was lightly but 0:11:18.480 --> 0:11:20.280 I don't think it was any It wasn't like a 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:22.800 huge scale. They weren't, you know, thinking, oh, there's a 0:11:22.840 --> 0:11:26.240 huge settlement here, we gotta dig six No. I think 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:29.640 it was just kind of some slight excavation around where 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:31.640 he said he found the stone, just to see. But 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:33.920 he had been clearing the land, so it's not as 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:36.559 though he wasn't preserving it. You know, he didn't find 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:38.640 the stone and go oh oh, no, I better stop 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:41.200 felling all these trees and make sure that somebody could 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:43.280 find something if there is anything. Oh yeah, I can 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:47.440 see A year later, Um, I think it was over there. 0:11:47.559 --> 0:11:50.440 But that is literally what happened. I mean, they started 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:52.719 interviewing the three people right and as I said, like, 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:55.320 they couldn't even agree on what month they had found it, 0:11:55.400 --> 0:11:58.040 let alone where they had found it. So well, if 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:01.199 he's if he's working the land and he's clearing trees 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:04.560 and he's changing the topography. I don't know if either 0:12:04.640 --> 0:12:07.680 of you have ever been to a construction site where 0:12:07.679 --> 0:12:11.560 they're doing major grade work. But you go on on 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:14.400 day one and you've got a good idea where things are, 0:12:14.600 --> 0:12:16.840 and and then if you leave for a week, you're 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:19.079 kind of lost because by the time you come back 0:12:19.280 --> 0:12:22.760 everything has changed. But stretched that over the course of 0:12:22.800 --> 0:12:24.600 a year, and you just kind of keep getting used 0:12:24.600 --> 0:12:25.920 to it a little bit by a little bit and 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:29.320 don't quite remember where things were before. That's easy to 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:31.800 understand why they had no idea where they found it. 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:34.640 True that I don't know if they all saw. They 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:36.920 didn't even see the ruins to begin with, right, I mean, 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:40.520 when when they first covered the stone, you know they 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:43.560 saw they saw they did, actually they saw a part 0:12:43.600 --> 0:12:45.360 of it and they tried to clear This is another 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:49.840 thing that affects the They the ruins on the side 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:53.880 were cleaned off with a nail. They just took a 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:58.360 nail and scraped away, which would obviously alter the ability 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:03.120 to actually accurately date when that had happened. Um, and 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:04.880 that's part of the reason that they had a different 0:13:04.880 --> 0:13:07.960 color because they were freshly scraped. So again it's you know, 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:10.080 it's hard to tell with that if they just did 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:13.080 a really good job scraping the runes Queen so they 0:13:13.080 --> 0:13:16.600 could see what was going on or what happened there. Regardless, 0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:23.000 nothing was reported to be found from this excavation, exploration, 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:25.360 whatever you want to call it. And the stone was 0:13:25.360 --> 0:13:30.320 returned to Omen in March of eight and since everybody 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:33.040 said it was pretty much just worthless, it wasn't really 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:36.160 an artifact. It was you know, totally fake. He just 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:39.840 used it as a stepping stone, uh, like the kind 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:44.080 of entryway stepping stone to his granary. Just stuck it 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:48.199 right in there, ruins down. He wasn't treading on the runes, 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:50.280 but he did. He just used it as a as 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:54.040 the entry stone. Well the backside is the flat side, Yeah, 0:13:54.080 --> 0:13:55.520 so of course they'd be the one he uses a 0:13:55.600 --> 0:14:00.520 step Yeah, so he just did that. Yeah, don't get 0:14:00.600 --> 0:14:04.040 no respect. Yeah, so interest waned in this rude stone. 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:06.400 But it had been kind of a big media you know, 0:14:07.000 --> 0:14:12.040 been shipped around a little bit. Yeah, but there, you know, 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:14.800 there had been some newspaper articles. It had been kind 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:16.960 of a big deal. Everybody said, that's a hoax. And 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:19.120 he said, all right, fine, it's a hoax. I'm going 0:14:19.160 --> 0:14:22.320 to use it as a stepping stone. A historian. Mr. 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:26.880 Holland was investigating the possibility of a Norwegian settlement in 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:30.920 Minnesota and became aware of the stone and became, of 0:14:30.960 --> 0:14:33.960 course very interested in the stone as it might provide 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:38.440 some I don't know, evidence or something like that. So 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:42.400 he uh went over to the Kensington area and spoke 0:14:42.440 --> 0:14:45.640 with Almond about the stone, um, and they pulled it 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:49.320 out of the ground and he examined it, and at 0:14:49.400 --> 0:14:53.120 about this time, the Minnesota Historical Society decided, Oh, I 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:59.160 guess we'll investigate this too. Okay, guys, oh I guess 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:02.640 we should because it's popular again, Yeah, that people are. 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:06.560 The fact that Holland got interested in it, he kind 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:09.680 of really drummed up a lot of support for it, 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:13.000 for its authenticity. He he thought it was real really 0:15:13.080 --> 0:15:14.800 kind of from the get go, you know, it was 0:15:14.880 --> 0:15:18.000 kind of one of those confirmation bias things where he 0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:21.560 he thought, oh, yeah, the Norwegians totally settled this area 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:24.080 way earlier than we think. And then he heard about 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:27.000 the stone and he said, see, it's totally it's real. 0:15:27.080 --> 0:15:28.920 Of course that's real, because I've been thinking this thing 0:15:28.920 --> 0:15:31.200 and now I found some proof for it. The Minnesota 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:35.840 Historical Society hired a man named Newton Winchell, and he 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:39.560 started collecting Affidavid's from the people who were there when 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:44.680 the stone was found and then also family and friends. Yeah. Yeah, 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:47.760 kind of trying to, you know, collect the stories of 0:15:47.760 --> 0:15:51.160 it and see if maybe they had created this forgery 0:15:51.240 --> 0:15:54.640 or anything like that. Uh. And he was also a geologist, 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:56.240 so they thought that he would probably be a pretty 0:15:56.240 --> 0:16:00.880 good person to carry out this investigation. I don't I 0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:04.320 don't know why, but he interviewed a lot of locals 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:10.280 as well as omens family, and interviewed Holland and some linguists. 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:13.960 And the linguists pretty much to a one said no, 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:17.240 this is this is a hoax. But Holland and Witchell, 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:20.880 we're both really convinced that it was real. For a 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:22.840 number of reasons that will lay out in a couple 0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:26.240 of minutes. Holland and Winchell definitely thought it was real. 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:30.240 The reason that they think it's real is because linguists 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:34.200 by and large are saying that this, the language used 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:38.280 on this stone is not consistent with with eleventh century 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:42.920 Scandinavian grammar, which is fair. The linguists were saying that 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:46.720 it was a poor forgery of eleventh century Scandinavian grammar, 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:52.280 and you know, uh, it should be fourteenth century. So 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:56.040 I'm not totally sure why it's the eleventh century that 0:16:56.120 --> 0:16:59.600 they're talking about in terms of grammar. And you know, 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:02.880 as we know, language is a living thing, so it 0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:05.879 does change. It allows people to be able to pinpoint 0:17:05.920 --> 0:17:09.000 and say this is when this language is from, based 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:11.520 on the slang or the way that grammars used, or 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:15.600 cases or things like that in some In some languages, 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:18.479 that is true, I know, for both the written and 0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:23.040 the verbal form. For some other languages, though, I know 0:17:23.240 --> 0:17:28.560 that though the spoken version may you know, ebb and 0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:33.680 wane back and forth and change, the written version is 0:17:33.960 --> 0:17:36.080 not to make a pun here, but it's set in stone. 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:39.919 It is one way. This is how it's done, and 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:43.159 it's not built to be flexible, and it's not allowed 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:45.760 to be flexible. So I wonder if that's why they're 0:17:45.800 --> 0:17:49.399 saying it's not consistent with the eleventh century. And I 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:52.439 unfortunately I read this as well in the research and 0:17:52.520 --> 0:17:55.280 never thought to look into that. But I wonder if 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:57.360 that's the reason is that there was they say from 0:17:57.840 --> 0:18:01.600 time A to B it didn't it did never change. Yeah, 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:05.520 I I think probably that's the case. I also think 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:08.280 you've to take into consideration how long this group would 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:10.840 have had to have been traveling to make it to Minnesota. 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:13.040 So I think they, you know, kind of backlook obviously 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:17.200 not three years. They weren't. They weren't obviously for three years. 0:18:17.240 --> 0:18:19.960 But if you can say, you know, maybe fifty years 0:18:20.080 --> 0:18:23.679 then or even ten, I don't know. I don't know 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:27.040 how long it takes Scandinavians to get across the ocean 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:30.199 at this time and then and then make landfall and 0:18:30.240 --> 0:18:32.920 then make it all the way to minnesotaeh he was. 0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:35.400 I could take a while. It would take it's it's 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:38.479 about a six to nine months journey. I'm ballparking here. 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:42.320 I'm guessing to get from one to the other across 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:46.159 the ocean, and then from there the exploration process would 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:49.080 be long and drawn out. So I can see where 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:52.640 I could see where ten maybe even fifteen years maybe, 0:18:52.680 --> 0:18:55.560 but I would imagine guys would get homesick after a while. Yeah, 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:59.119 you would think. But also they were here. If they 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:01.400 were around that long, you think there'd be more artifacts 0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:07.280 left over. Yeah, yeah, yes, that's true. The stone's ownership. 0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:09.440 You may be wondering, well, who owned the stone, because 0:19:09.480 --> 0:19:12.320 Olman owned it for a while. Well, he owned it 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:17.000 until nineteen o seven, at which point Holland purchased it 0:19:17.160 --> 0:19:22.399 for I believe it was ten dollars. Well it was, 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:26.520 you know, ten dollars in early nine hundreds, so that's 0:19:26.560 --> 0:19:28.720 a lot more than we normally think of it. But 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:30.639 when you hear how much he tried to sell it for, 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:34.239 you will galyze it was absolutely a good deal. He 0:19:34.320 --> 0:19:36.679 tried to sell it to the Minnesota Historical Society for 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:41.760 five thousand dollars in nineteen ten. Holland and, well, that's 0:19:41.760 --> 0:19:46.800 some serious appreciation. It is. Obviously they said no, thank you. 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:52.520 But in nineteen forty eight on the I guess I 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:55.920 haven't really mentioned that the authenticity of the stone has 0:19:56.000 --> 0:20:00.719 never really been like a yes, everybody says it's uh 0:20:00.720 --> 0:20:03.119 this it's a hoax, or it's not. It's never been 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:05.840 agreed upon. It's always had this huge ebb and flow. 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:11.800 So it's gone through periods of legitimacy, validated by this 0:20:12.119 --> 0:20:15.359 fact that in nineteen forty eight, the stone was on 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:19.080 display at the Smithsonian Institute in d C. For a 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:21.320 full year. And they don't really they don't put things 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:25.760 they think are fake in the in the usually not 0:20:25.800 --> 0:20:28.840 normally not Usually they've displayed things they've discovered later on 0:20:28.920 --> 0:20:32.280 we're fake. But everything they can discern it's real. That's 0:20:32.280 --> 0:20:35.080 the only reason to go up. Yeah. So the curator 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:37.680 actually said of the stone that it is quote probably 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:40.800 the most important archaeological object yet found in North America 0:20:40.960 --> 0:20:44.000 unquote when it was in the Smithsonian apparently, so he 0:20:44.040 --> 0:20:47.240 really thought it was real. Obviously, after the year long 0:20:47.240 --> 0:20:50.639 display in the Smithsonian, the stone was set up as 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:53.720 a permanent exhibit or I guess, the only exhibit at 0:20:53.800 --> 0:20:59.720 the room Stone Museum in Alexandria, Minnesota. I was just thinking, man, 0:20:59.720 --> 0:21:03.680 this to be. It can't be the most exciting museum 0:21:03.720 --> 0:21:10.800 to go to. Hey, kids, we're gonna take field trip. Okay, 0:21:11.040 --> 0:21:14.960 next stop is this thing that's our only stop? Actually 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:20.480 a stone? Yeah? And next up a stone? Yeah? Yeah, 0:21:20.520 --> 0:21:23.520 I think it's kind of an interpretive center as well, right, 0:21:23.560 --> 0:21:25.240 I mean it can't. It's not just a stone in 0:21:25.280 --> 0:21:28.119 the middle of a room. Um, it did. It also 0:21:28.359 --> 0:21:30.920 was shown at the New York World's Fair. It got around. 0:21:30.960 --> 0:21:33.560 It did get around it. Uh. It also went to 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:36.479 Norway for a year or two. It's so it's been 0:21:36.520 --> 0:21:38.800 around and again, you know, it's been this evan flow 0:21:38.840 --> 0:21:41.440 of how you know, when people are like on the yeah, 0:21:41.480 --> 0:21:44.480 it's real train and goes to interesting places, and when 0:21:44.520 --> 0:21:49.000 people are on the no, it's fake train, it stays boring. 0:21:50.000 --> 0:21:52.440 I say it's real. It's a rock for sure. It's 0:21:52.480 --> 0:21:56.879 definitely rock. I would agree with, Yeah, that's it. Okay, 0:21:57.280 --> 0:22:00.600 it's rock. So if you want to email us, you know, 0:22:00.680 --> 0:22:04.120 we got to talk about theories. Okay, there's many of them. 0:22:04.240 --> 0:22:07.520 There's a few, you know, my mo and I was 0:22:07.560 --> 0:22:09.000 about to say, I'm looking at this, I'm like, wait 0:22:09.000 --> 0:22:11.719 a minute, you broke this up into two very big categories. 0:22:11.720 --> 0:22:21.960 There's four categories. Yeah, just look harder, Steve, there's four categories. Technically, yeah, yeah, 0:22:22.040 --> 0:22:24.880 that's a technicality. Yeah. But as I've said, I will 0:22:24.920 --> 0:22:27.879 say again, I will continue to say. Everybody who's ever 0:22:27.880 --> 0:22:30.600 written about the Runestone is a percent sure that they 0:22:30.600 --> 0:22:33.760 are right, that it is either totally a hoax or 0:22:33.880 --> 0:22:39.439 totally not. There's very little stuff out there about somebody's saying, well, 0:22:39.480 --> 0:22:42.080 it could be this, and I did find two theories 0:22:42.119 --> 0:22:45.280 and both of them are good. I think that kind 0:22:45.320 --> 0:22:48.320 of land sort of in the middle. But pretty much 0:22:48.320 --> 0:22:51.640 everybody else is in their camp. All right, let's let's 0:22:51.680 --> 0:22:55.160 camp one. Camp one is it's a hoax. Okay, here's 0:22:55.200 --> 0:22:58.000 why this word that I'm gonna make Joe pronounce them 0:22:58.000 --> 0:23:03.600 that I'm gonna spell, but I I know I'm mispronouncing that. Well, 0:23:03.600 --> 0:23:07.119 it's a Norse word. Yeah, it's spelled O p d 0:23:07.480 --> 0:23:11.439