[T. Hamilton]

Last night I watched an interesting show on the History Channel. It talked about several stones with runic script that have been found along the east coast of the U.S., and one larger one found in Kinsington, MN. All of the stones contained a rune unique to Templar ciphers. The episode explored a possibility of Templar excursions (in conjunction with the Norse) into North America around 1362-1394. A lot of the episode was devoted to a Scottish templar named Prince Henry Sinclair and a possible short-lived Templar settlement in Rhode Island. While I'm skeptical, they presented their case well enough to whet my appetite for more information. Did anyone else catch this, or had ever heard of this before? I've always been a little jealous of our European forum members and their closer proximity to all things medieval, so Templars in the backyard seems kind of exciting

[Blaz Berlec]

Templars? Templar ciphers? Never heard of this in connection to the (undoubtedly fake) Kensington runestone. I think most of the runologists and historians dismiss the runestone as anything else than late 19th century forgery.

The "Templar" ciphers probably relate to the "Edward Larsson's notes", a 19th century notes that contain exactly the same rune-row as on the Kensington stone, and also contain a Pigpen cipher, devised by the Freemasons. It looks like there was a book written about that, but I'm sure it's as factual as Holy Blood, Holy Grail or DaVinci Code.


I prefer the real stuff. (Click on the thumbnails for larger images)



(self-portrait) Runestone U121. Stockholm, near Haga park.

Iobiorn/Øybiorn ok Svæinn/Stæinn þæiR ræistu stæin æftiR Þorfreð, boanda Ingiþoru




The runestone U 124. The inscription reads + anutr + auk × þorkiRsl × þaiR × lRtu × rasa × stain × ifR + askaut +. In English "Ônundr and Þorgísl, they had the stone raised in memory of Ásgautr."

Dating: 1050 - 1080 CE.

Location: Stockholm, Karlsberg's park. Pictures taken on 31. 12. 2009.

Oh, and in Vallentunna, "The Kingdom of the Runes", we even saw the runestone discovered only several months before.

[T. Hamilton]

A fake? But the Kinsington stone had a pair of gloves just like Runestone U121 sticking out of it

[Lin Robinson]

I have seen the same show and it is pure speculation. The Kensington Rune Stone is considered by most serious scholars to be a fraud.

The Templars were founded by French knights in the Holy Land in 1118. I doubt that they were conversant in runes and there is little - perhaps no - evidence that they even had Scandanavian members. Dan Brown - a novelist after all, Mr. White and Mr. Baigent and the huge number of other writers who have taken Templar history as a special project, have produced so much mis-information and speculation and innuendo that it is becoming very difficult to sort out the truth. I can assure you that the history of the Order is far more interesting than most of the stuff these folks are writing

[Lin Robinson]

[Maurizio D'Angelo]

[Lin Robinson]

[T. Hamilton]

As I mentioned at the start, I'm skeptical about claims of Templars in the New World, and the replies to this thread only reinforce that belief. Still, it's a cool story (and one I'm suprised I had never heard of until the other night). Why does bad history make for such good TV? I'll have to ponder that as I watch Braveheart

[Sander Marechal]

[Liam O'Malley]

early on the templars were just another holy order of knights, and by the time they got massacred the templars were basically a bank operating under a papal bull. nothing fancy. anything you hear about them was more or less propaganda supporting the massacre, or post-fact justification. nothing secret and awesome about them really, unless you consider the incredibly pivotal role they played in the crusades interesting, which i do, far more than conspiracy theories, in fact.

[T. Hamilton]

[Michael Zalar]

I have been studying the Kensington Rune Stone for a little over 11 years, have published several peer reviewed articles on the artifact. I believe that I have the respect as being a reasonable and logical researcher by experts on etiher side of the authenticity question. There are numerous reasons to believe the inscription to be authentic, more than can be explained in a short article, but I would like to put forward several important ones.

There is a historic context for a voyage at the same date as is noted on the Rune Stone. A letter in the 16th century between Mercator and John Dee makes note of a voyage (copying from an earlier work) that went beyond Greenland, and returned to Bergen in 1364, a date in sync with the date of 1362 on the Kensington Stone. I tracked down several references in the 19th century to this voyage, but in every case it was referred to as an English voyage (one exception, a foot note in a book on the Kenstington Rune Stone, does reference a Swedish exploration, in a book from the late 1800s but I have not been able to track down the original reference).
Regardless, there does seem to have been a trans Greenland exploration at the time the Kensington Rune Stone claims to have been inscriped. It does not seem to be well known, and knowldege that did exsist primarily referst to it as an English rather than Swedish mission.

The county in which the stone was unearthed (in 1898) was not settled until about 1858, with the main influx of Swedish settlers not arriving until the late 1860s. Perhaps the earliest time one could reasonably expect Europeans passing bay would have been around 1847 when one of the Red River trails was created near to what was the discovery site.
The weathering on the stone strongly suggests a date prior to these times. Newton Winchell, a well respected geolgist of the early 20th century suggested the inscription was from the era of about 500 years previous (his inspection was in 1910). At the same time the state geologist of Wisconsin said the incription must be at least 50-100 years old. More recently Scot Wolter (as seen in the TV show) noted that certain micas in the stone had completely disappeared. A comparison with micas in inscriptions known to be 200 years old found that the micas, though heavily deteriorated were still in existence, suggesting the Kensington Inscription predated 200 years of age.
No geolgoist who has examined the stone has suggested the weathering was very recent to the discovery. Weathering is a very difficult subject, and cannot be used to give a specific date to an object. However the weathering on the Kenstington Rune Stone strongly suggests it was inscribed prior to the habitation of the region.

One of the runes, an 'R' rune, has a strike mark or dot in it. This dotting light enough that was not noticed until the 1950s by an opponent of authenticity. The dotted 'R' rune is an authentic rune from medieval times though it was not recognized in the modern era until the 1930s. The connection between the dotted 'R' on the Kensington Stone, and the similar medieval runes was not noticed until the past few years.
The research done into the dotted 'R' was conducted by Dr Richard Nielsen. He discovered that the the rune stood for the palatal R sound. This led to a deeper investigation of other runes on the stone that would have had the same sound - and indeed these runes were also found to be dotted (one was splayed off making it hard to recogize, and the other cut even lighter possibly to prevend splaying.
In short several authentic medieval runes were properly (from a phonetic point of view) inscribed on the Kensington Rune Stone. The existence of this type of rune as medieval was not known until roughly 40 years after the stones discovery, and the connection to the Kensington Stone not understood until the past decade. I would suggest that this rune, found on any other stone which has not been subject to such heated debate as the Kensington Stone would almost automatically demand that it be considered authentic.

[T. Hamilton]

[Michael Zalar]

[R Smith]

If the Kensington stone had been found by someone not Scandinavian in an area not populated by those from Scandinavia then it would be much easier to believe. Are we to believe it just a happy coincidence that Sven off the boat happened to find archeological evidence in his backyard that his ancestors had visited there centuries before? That raises the BS flag quite high for me.
Doubtless many people were/are somehow comforted by this and clung to it. Add Templars into the mix and the so called "History" channel had a sure hit.

[Roger Hooper]

[Lin Robinson]

[Jared Smith]

I have not seen this television show. The Templar theory explanation of some similar stones has been explored (undoubtedly with a bias) in some books though.

I have a copy of the book "Templars in America", Tim Wallace-Murray, and Marilyn Hopkins, 2004. I don't recall a discussion of the Kensington stone it the book. There was another stone discussed; the "boatstone at Westford MA, etc. That text has some discussion of the background of the discovery of the "boatstone", and claims that there is an extant Captain's (Nicolo Zeno) journal of a "Templar" voyage supposedly occurring early in the 14th century, but not published until 1536 along with some letters. (This was long after the captain's death.) The explanation for the delay in publication advocated in "Templars in America" was that the earlier explorers sought to keep the secrete of the continent's existence a secret until so many knew of it that publication no longer mattered. The route discussed (Greenland, Nova Scotia, New England) was replicated in a yacht, based on the journal descriptions, by Lara Zolo in 1999-2000.

[Michael Zalar]

[Lin Robinson]