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obscure island of Nomans Land harbor an
important link to the distant past?
Discovery & Initial Evaluation of the Possible Runestone
The
island of Nomans Land was owned by Joshua Crane in the 1920s. Late one afternoon
in November 1926, as the setting sun was settling low on the horizon, he spotted
some strange lettering on a large black rock by the water's edge. Even then, the
rock was submerged except at extreme low tide. The strange marks cut into the
stone were indecipherable to him.
As noted in a diary
entry made by a Mrs. Wood, her husband, Captain Wood, had stumbled onto the same
strange rock about a year earlier. Captain Wood was not skilled in writing and
was caretaker of the island for Mr. Crane.
The strange marks were photographed
in 1927 by a writer, Edward F. Gray, who was researching the Norse voyages to
North America for a book (Published in 1930 by Oxford University Press). He
noted that it was difficult to photograph because the stone was only fully
exposed at extreme low tide and even then, waves broke over it.
The letters were about
4" high. The top two lines being fairly evenly spaced. The lower two were
either incomplete or had been worn smooth in spots by the action of wind and
waves. Mr. Gray was not knowledgeable in runic, the written language of the
Norse, but subsequent efforts to decipher the letters concluded that the first
two lines read, "Leif Eriksson, 1001". The lower lines were not
interpreted, although a case could be made for the word "Vinland" as
part of the lower lines.
Gray sent the photos to Oslo
University for examination. There, the noted Professor A.W.Brögger and
Professor Magnus Olsen examined the pictures. They concluded that based on the
images submitted to them, they had serious questions as to the
"genuineness" of the inscription. Specifically, they questioned some
of the runes themselves and the use of the Roman numerals for the date. The
latter they felt was fairly decisive evidence against the stone's validity
because Roman numerals were not, they claimed, used for dating until the 14th
or 15th centuries in Scandinavia.
Professor Finnur Jónsson, of
Copenhagen University stopped short of calling the stone a forgery, but he too
questioned the mixture of runes in the inscription. He went on to note that
leaving runic records was unknown in Iceland in 1000. He also admitted that the
last two lines were undecipherable to him. He concluded the inscription dated
from sometime after 1500.
Other 'experts' were consulted at
the time, though none ever actually saw the stone - crucial to making an
accurate reading. They reached similar conclusions. Specifically - the mixture
of runes with Roman numerals was not known, there are grammatical anomalies, and
the mixture of runes from different periods raises red flags.
In short, the consensus was that
the stone was not authentic. Yet, not one expert ever actually examined the
stone. All based their interpretations upon photos of a glistening wet rock,
photos that could easily lead to errors in interpretation.
Problems With the 'Experts' Conclusions
My own research,
conducted on both sides of the Atlantic, has led me to conclude that the
inscription's dismissal may have been premature.
In an exhaustive
work devoted entirely to the copying and interpretation of runes, Erik
Moltke, stresses that lighting, coupled with inadequate knowledge of an
inscription's language and contents, often can lead to "faulty
readings". If the indistinct outlines of the worn letters were
misread from the photos, then the probability of grammatical flaws and
inappropriate letters being mistakenly found in the text increases
greatly.
As noted above, no one
knowledgeable in runic has ever actually seen the stone. One wonders if
the 'experts' consulted back in the late 1920s were not also somewhat
biased against Vinland being placed in New England. To this day many
'experts' dispute this conclusion with fervor. Yet there is substantial
evidence indicating that New England was the setting for Vinland. So
strong a case can be made for this, that one 'expert' I debated publicly
on the subject was laughed at by the other distinguished guests at New
York's Explorers Club as he tried in vain to defend his theories.
Grammar in runic inscriptions
should also be viewed with the understanding that there were no published
rules. Few individuals knew the runic alphabet, and those who did
certainly did not give it regular use; carving symbols in wood or
chiseling them into stone is a tedious process. Nor could a mistake be
erased even if the carver realized an error after the fact. The runic
alphabet underwent three distinct periods during the centuries it was in
use. Though generally grouped into these categories by modern scholars,
there was no exact date at which use of a certain symbol ended and a new
one was instated. The transformations were gradual, with more remote areas
generally lagging behind in changes. It should be noted that authentic
inscriptions exist with mixtures of early and later runes. And there are
authentic inscriptions with grammatical flaws.
The use of Roman numerals
together with runes was considered a major flaw in the Nomans Land
inscription. The combination was rare, but did exist. A tiny
coin struck in Denmark around 1070 bears runic letters on one side and
Roman characters on the obverse. It clearly refutes Professor A.W.Brögger's
assertion that Roman numerals were not used in Scandinavian countries for
dating prior to the 14th or 15th centuries. This
authentic coin, struck less than a seventy years after Eriksson's voyage,
rests in the collection of the British Museum.
It has been argued that
knowledge of the Roman alphabet would not have reached Greenland prior to
1001, nor would the changes in the runic alphabet spurred by the Roman
alphabet's influence. Both conclusions are highly questionable because prior
to his Vinland expedition, Leif Eriksson was in Norway. There he visited
King Olaf Tryggvesson. The king was a fervent convert to the new faith,
Christianity, and he imparted some of his zeal to his guest from
Greenland. Eriksson must also have been exposed to another . . . (Please
click her for Eriksson Runestone - Part 2)
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