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Review of America's Lost Vikings S01E04 "Ghosts of the Great Lakes"

3/5/2019

320 Comments

 
Picture
Picture
​If you tuned in to America’s Lost Vikings S01E04 “Ghosts of the Great Lakes” hoping to see a serious investigation of the controversial Kensington Runestone, a nineteenth century hoax claiming to be a memorial left by Norse and Swedish visitors to Minnesota in the fourteenth century, you were seriously disappointed. If you came to the show expecting to see a discussion of recent conspiracy theories tying the stone to the Knights Templar, the Holy Bloodline of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, or cultic land claims to the Mississippi watershed, you were also deeply disappointed. Overall, the show provided a balanced, if not always critical, evaluation of the Kensington Runestone, but it also made rather plain that the truth behind the story—like that of the “Viking” spearpoint in New York last week—is much less important that the fact that these stories can be used as window dressing to draw in American audiences to a show that would otherwise be a bargain-basement effort to cosplay as Vikings. 
​The episode opens with Blue Nelson and Mike Arbuthnot traveling to Minnesota to examine the Kensington Runestone. Nelson calls it “one of the most fascinating” artifacts in America, and they note that “some” believe the artifact to be authentic and others feel it is a hoax. They decline to note that the date on the stone—1362—is after the Viking age (traditionally said to have ended in 1066), so while it would be Norse if genuine, it is not Viking.
 
At the Runestone Museum in Alexandria, Minn., the two men examine the rune stone and have special permission from the museum to inspect it close-up, outside of its display case. Nelson claims that “a lot of effort” went into the carving of the stone if it were a hoax, apparently suggesting that hoaxers are unwilling to put in effort. The sixty forged volumes of the Hitler diaries suggest otherwise. Using only a magnifying glass, Nelson says that the “cool” stone looks like it has not weathered enough to be genuinely medieval. Arbuthnot scans it with a portable 3-D scanner and says it will be the highest-resolution computer model ever made of the stone. Both men are more interested in the scan than the actual stone, despite the original object being available in front of them. As we might suspect, the show expects the audience to be in awe of technology rather than history.

In a sign of the lack of care that went into this show, no one bothers to connect the narrative on the rune stone about finding ten from the Norse party mysteriously and violently dead to the supposed war with Native Americans that the show speculated about last week. Perhaps they are not too interested in depicting their heroes on the losing end of battles. More likely, no one really thought through the master narrative and did not consider continuity. 
 
The men then travel to the site where the rune stone was uncovered in 1898, at the park where the expensive Kensington Runestone memorial bathroom—er, Douglas County’s Kensington Rune Stone Park Visitors Center—was erected last year. There, the men plan to test the soil to evaluate how much weathering the stone should have undergone if it had been buried for 500 years. This, I suppose, relies on a number of assumptions, such as the stone having been buried for 500 years rather than, say, falling down a hole after 200 or so, and the soil containing the same chemical composition today as it had in 1362—or the plowed-over top soil from what was a working farm accurately representing medieval soils down below. Arbuthnot concludes that the soil was not acidic enough to have weathered the stone significantly. They suspect, though, that the wetness of the soil—again, assuming this remained constant over 500 years—could have affected the weathering. Examining the depth of the carving on two different rock layers of varying hardness, the two men cannot agree whether the different depths of the carving represented weathering from the 1890s or 1362.
 
Therefore, they decide to use ridiculous evidence to break the tie. They plan to determine whether a Viking ship could make the 1,600-mile trip from the mouth of the St. Lawrence River to Duluth, Minn., thus “proving” that if “we can do it, they can do it.” It turns out they can’t do it because the river they wanted to use to test out their ideas froze over. In fact, they never really tried to go across the continent by ship. They barely even tried to go farther than your average party barge travels on a Saturday night booze cruise. Needless to say, the possibility that Vikings could sail up rivers implies nothing about whether Norse explorers carved a stone in the Minnesota woods three centuries later.
 
Much of the episode is devoted to the buddies commissioning a replica Viking ship (a glorified three-man canoe, really, not a massive long-ship), training to develop “survival skills” to make the journey in the style of the Vikings, and then going into lengthy detail on the manufacture of the various accoutrements needed to conduct a Viking journey. They also attempt to recreate the carving of the Kensington Runestone. The two men suggest that if they can carve a convincing rune, then “even a Minnesota farmer” could have done so. This is a rather insulting way to put it, since Victorian farmers likely had much better artisanal skills than modern TV personalities. Arbuthnot fails miserably, but Nelson managed to carve a convincing rune. Nelson correctly notes that the long period of time it would have taken to carve the rune stone—several days, or a week—doesn’t match the story told on the stone, which speaks of a disaster. He continues to doubt its authenticity. His partner in crime takes the opposite role. “It’s one hell of a hoax, if it’s a hoax,” Arbuthnot insists, still playing the role of believer.
 
Near the end of the hour, we get a long segment showing Nelson and Arubthnot camping in what they say is Viking style while waiting for a guide to find them a place to try sailing their replica Viking ship on a river encrusted with two inches of ice. This is a rather disappointing development since they set up their adventure to be a journey from the St. Lawrence to Duluth, only to have their experiment amount to a few yards on an icy stretch of a rather gentle Minnesota river. I’d have rather liked to see how they intended to have the ship travel across the Great Lakes and between them, across the most dangerous parts of the 1,600-mile route they laid out. What we got was a gentle little Sunday sail, albeit a cold one in “bone-chilling” 21° weather (to which: I laugh at your definition of cold weather), lasting perhaps 30 minutes. The men express their excitement that the boat performed well, though we already knew it would since the Vikings used similar ships to sail around European rivers.
 
Nelson claims to want to believe that the rune stone is authentic, but he remains unconvinced. Arbuthnot claims to believe that the Vikings had the technology to reach Minnesota and therefore might have. Neither proved anything and wasted a great deal of time in what was essentially a shrug of the shoulders and a big “I don’t know.” The relative equality between the two men and their views gives spurious support to the notion that believers in the authenticity of the stone are equal in number and in evidence to those who have concluded it is a hoax, as the scholarly consensus clearly favors. Thus, the show indirectly supports the minority claim that the stone is real if only by presenting this as a serious option of equal standing to the weight of scholarly opinion. 

Once again, the episode falls into the same pattern as its predecessors: Clearly, the producers and talent wanted to explore Viking sailing techniques on inland waterways and thrashed around for a “mystery” of dubious merit to fool the network and the audience into thinking they were investigating Vikings in the American interior rather than their real focus. The lack of interest in their putative subject is rather amazing, but the cynicism in assuming the American audiences are so xenophobic and America-centric that even a topic as exciting as the Vikings can’t be made interesting to them unless it connects to the United States is depressing.

320 Comments
Joe Scales
3/5/2019 10:10:02 am

I was glad that they at least focused on one of the fatal flaws of the KRS; the runes carved in calcite. I suppose they cherry-picked the spot with the neutral soil, though it would likely be more acidic in a grove of aspen trees. Still, they left out quite a bit of facts leading to concluding it was a hoax. Like Ohman having stone cutting tools, the problematic wording on the stone itself and the fact that the out of the ordinary runes (like that dreaded hooked X) were used as part of a code by 19th century Swedish tradesmen and can't be found prior to that time.

Reply
Jim
3/5/2019 11:04:25 am

Did they give a PH balance for the soil that Wolter claims to be 9-11 (yikes) ?

Reply
Jim
3/5/2019 03:23:26 pm

Watching the show, the pH meter showed about 6.5 or slightly acidic.(7 being neutral) Since the pH meter only goes to 8 tops on the alkaline side Wolters BS 9-11 pH would be completely off the charts.

Reply
Harold Edwards
3/6/2019 08:28:01 pm

Soils with a pH of 9-11 are found in salt lake areas in arid climates. They have no calcite since calcite acts as a pH buffer to keep the pH around 8.4.

Jim
3/7/2019 12:10:31 am

Herald, My comments and responses from Wolter:
Scroll about 2/3s of the way down the page. Starting with:

"AnonymousNovember 27, 2018 at 9:15 AM

Have at it! ,,,,, sure.
Scott, It would seem that a major part of your dating of the carving relies upon the complete weathering away of biotite on the carved surfaces of ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Wolter
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, The limey till on Rune Stone hill has a relatively high pH (9-11) and therefore actually preserved the carvings in the calcite.,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Me (anon)
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,As to the 9-11 PH balance of the soil, I find this rather incredible. That would be very rare soil indeed, would any plants at all grow in such conditions? The sloughs around there would have very visible white powder residues of alkali rimming their boundaries with probably nothing growing in them. Is this the case?,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Wolter:
You’re being a troll, stop it.

Wolter:
Strike Three, I knew you couldn't do it.

https://scottwolteranswers.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-lost-templar-journals-of-prince.html

Harold Edwards
3/7/2019 01:16:43 am

In Wolter's chapter in Nielsen and Wolter, The Kensington Rune Stone Compelling New Evidence, he noted on page 27 the pH at the find site was 7.5. This is a reasonable number for this soil depending where and how deep he conducted the test. He did not give his testing protocol.

I obtained a soil map and survey on line here:

https://websoilsurvey.sc.egov.usda.gov/App/WebSoilSurvey.aspx

You can make your own by using the interactive map and going to the spot on Runestone Hill.

My survey was more-or-less the same as was published in DeMarteleare's 1975 "Soil Survey of Douglas County, Minnesota," U.S. Department of Agriculture. The soil data for the site was for WlC2, Waukon-Langhei loams. Langhei loams form under grasslands. Waukon loams form under aspen trees. Therefore if Ohman was telling the truth about his find site, the soils were Waukon loams. The first 6 inches of these has a pH range of 6.1-7.3 with 0% calcite, the depth from 6-24 inches has a pH range of 6.1-8.4 with 0-10% calcite, the depth from 24-79 inches has a pH range of 7.4-8.4 with 5-15% calcite. This latter is essentially the unweathered C Horizon of the soil and is glacial till. The U.S.G.S. sampled a soil (US soil geochemical landscape site #10649, Douglas county, Minnesota) about 10 miles east of the find site in a Waukon Loam. This site is under a grove of trees. The mineral analysis is as follows: The C horizon (70-90 cm from the surface), which is unweathered glacial material, has 17.7% carbonates, 7.7% calcite and 10% dolomite. The A horizon (0-25 cm) has 0.5% carbonates, 0.2% calcite and 0.3% dolomite. The B horizon was not reported but has to change in composition from the C to the A horizon. As rainwater peculated through the soil it leached out the carbonates from the A horizon.

Also pedogenic carbonates do not form in Minnesota soils under current climate conditions. These are calcite layers in the soil or calcite coatings that form on buried rocks in the soil. They are characteristic of arid and semiarid climates.

Harold Edwards
3/7/2019 08:51:28 am

Soil pH does not tell us much more than the neutralizing power of the soil relative to calcite. What is important is the pH of the water percolating through the soil. Pure water has a pH of 7. Rainwater is a weak acid with a pH of 5.6. It has become so by absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Air has 400 parts per million carbon dioxide. In soil atmospheres the carbon dioxide levels are between 1000 and 10,000 parts per million. Under aspen trees it becomes as much as 30,000 parts per million. At 10,000 parts per million carbon dioxide, the pH of the water is 4.6, ten times as acidic as rainwater.

At the surface there are vivid examples of calcite weathering in the from of the marble tombstones in cemeteries. Marble is almost completely made of calcite. In the Minneapolis area the inscriptions in marble tombstones lose about a third of their depth after 150 years of weathering. Marble tombstones in the Kensington area lose surface material at the rate of 6 mm per thousand years. The calcite layer of the Kensington Stone is about 3 mm thick. After 536 years exposure at the surface its inscription should have been obliterated. Below the surface this would have happened at an even fewer years.

Jim
3/7/2019 10:56:36 am

This might be a good place to provide a link to Andy white's blog post where you talk more about this and would be enlightening to anyone who hasn't already read it.

https://www.andywhiteanthropology.com/blog/calcite-weathering-and-the-age-of-the-kensington-rune-stone-inscription-lightning-post

Your quote of Michlovic in said blog:

"Overall, the soils of Runestone Hill would have presented an aggressive leaching environment to calcite. The KRS could not have been buried in such a setting for hundreds of years and yet today preserve runes carved into that calcite. The fact that runes are still clearly visible in the calcite indicates the KRS cannot be very old.”

Joe Scales
3/7/2019 11:02:26 am

"Below the surface this would have happened at an even fewer years."

Which is what Winchell got wrong clinging to authenticity of the KRS by figuring that it had to be buried for some time to preserve the calcite. 18th century geology that Wolter also has to cling to; which of course is the complete opposite of the scientific method. You don't start with your conclusion and then work backwards to make it possible. So left with that obstacle, Wolter then resorts to falsifying data, which is his standard methodology. 9-11 pH.

A fraud. A liar. An Imbecilic poseur. That's Wolter.

Joe Scales
3/7/2019 11:06:12 am

Check that, before the pedantry sets in. That would be 19th century geology.

Jim
3/7/2019 11:17:01 am

Joe, that's fully on display when Wolter changes his data at will to support his conclusion.
Seriously ? First he claims the pH is 7.5 then, when he finds that actually does not support his theory he changes the pH to 9-11, wow, talk about faking the data.
And yet he has his followers,,,,hello Patrick,,, you still here ?

Harold Edwards
3/7/2019 11:19:14 am

Winchell did not base his belief that the Kensington Stone was genuine upon the weathering of the artifact. About that he concluded that the artifact was “either recent or the stone was so placed (or was overturned) as to protect the inscription from the weather.” Minnesota Historical Society's 1910 report, p. 248.

Today Winchell's views on weathering is obsolete geology. In 1930 William Morris Davis published his classic paper, “Origin of Limestone Caverns.” Since then and after the thousands of followup studies over the last 80 years confirming Davis, geologists have known that calcite-rich rocks such as limestones and marbles easily weather below the surface of the ground.

Joe Scales
3/7/2019 11:26:44 am

"Winchell did not base his belief that the Kensington Stone was genuine upon the weathering of the artifact."

Well, unlike Wolter, he left authenticity up to the Swedish linguists in his committee report. But his belief that it was buried face down was most likely inspired by his desire to believe it to be authentic; a belief he memorialized outside his committee report. Wolter always points to a letter he wrote in regard to believing it to be authentic, rather than the committee report which was more grounded in the appeal to the linguists for the final say.

Harold Edwards
3/7/2019 11:37:40 am

If you want to see calcite weathering in action, visit the National Cemetery at Ft. Snelling outside Minneapolis. This cemetery opened in 1960. The graves that were previously buried near Ft. Snelling itself were transferred to the new site at that time. There are more than 250,000 graves at this cemetery, over 90% have marble tablets. The policy of the VA is to replace tablets that become too decrepit due to weathering. The "star" of the cemetery is Captain George H. Mallon, a Congressional Medal of Honor winner from WWI who died in 1934. His tablet has been replaced twice since 1934. The new tablets were polished smooth. The first sign of weathering of the marble surface is called granular weathering. Over time--less than 50 years--the surface takes on a sandy appearance on both the face of the tablet and the inscription. This is called granular weathering and is characteristic of calcite rich rocks. The Kensington Stone shows granular weathering on the surface of the calcite layer but NOT on the surface of the runes. They were thus carved about 1898 and not in in 1362.

Harold Edwards
3/7/2019 12:06:07 pm

The Museum Committee of the Minnesota Historical Society which vetted the artifact in 1909-1911 had no linguistic experts on it. None of them spoke Swedish or Norwegian. Winchell, the Society's Archaeologist, did the linguistic analysis in his report himself using various dictionaries. The Committee reached out to experts in both the U.S. and Sweden. There were about half a dozen of them. To a man, they wrote back that the artifact was a fake. It had 19th runes then current in the Dalarna Province of Sweden. The only person opposing them was Hjalmar Holand. He was assisting the Committee and contributed to Winchell's report. At the sane time Holand was trying to sell the artifact to the Minnesota Historical Society for $5000, that is about $100,000 in today's money. Today this would be viewed as a serious conflict of interest, and there would be a scandal with possible legal consequences for both Holand and Winchell. At the very least, Holand would be sent packing and Winchell fired. The only person other than Holand who knew Swedish and Norwegian was Gisle Bothne, Professor of Scandinavian Languages at the University of Minnesota. He objected to the Committee's conclusion. In the summer of 1910 he went to Kensington to interview those involved in the discovery, i.e. Olof Ohman. Bothne wrote the Committee he did not believe their stories. Unfortunately when asked for specifics by Warren Upham, the Secretary of the Society, Bothne did not reply. I have read all of this in the Society's archives in St. Paul and have copies of most of it.

Jim
3/7/2019 01:01:32 pm

Hjalmar Holand was worse than Wolter. Among his many hi-jinks was his translations of the Swedish witnesses to English for reports on the KRS.
Numerous different eyewitness translations ended up with wording that was exactly or almost exactly the same to each other.
He "cooked the books" and inserted himself into investigations wherever he could in a dishonest attempt to prove the KRS was medieval.

Harold Edwards
3/7/2019 01:19:59 pm

In 1899 Olof Ohman was committing a crime by trying to sell his forgery to Northwestern University. He knew it was a fake because he sent them a tracing of the draft used to create the hoax. Then, as now, this would have been a felony. He also involved his two minor sons, 11 and 10 years old. Corrupting minors was a misdemeanor in 1899. The fact that he did not consummate his fraud would not have prevented his prosecution. He would have only received half the prison sentence if convicted. In 1909-1911 he continued his fraud. It is a mistake to assume because at that time he obtained little or nothing of value, that he could not be prosecuted. The element of the crime is not that the criminal gains anything of value, but that his victim loses something of value. Think about all the time, effort, and expense spent by experts worldwide along with the Minnesota Historical Society. Also he actually did receive value for his fraud. In 1911 the Minnesota Historical Society bought his interest in the artifact for $10.00--about $200 in today's money. These acts are rarely prosecuted. Organizations like Northwestern University and the Minnesota Historical Society do not want to be seen as schmucks. They keep silent and move on. That is why he evaded prison.

In 1909 he signed an affidavit about his discovery. Then and now it is a felony to lie in an affidavit. Twice in 1910-1911 he admitted to signing it but disavowed his gift of the artifact to Holand, a fact that he had sworn to in this affidavit. Disavowing an affidavit in itself constitutes an act of perjury.

In 1930 he sought legal advice on suing Hjalmar Holand. Ohman in his prior correspondence with Holand was trying to shake Holand down. Ohman wanted more money. The attorneys advised him to sue in Wisconsins where Holand lived. Did Ohman not inform his attorneys that he had sold his rights to the artifact in 1911? He had no legal standing to sue anyone over the Kensington Stone.

To the end of his days Olof Ohman was a liar and cheat. None of his acts were harmless pranks. We are still dealing with the fallout today.

Machala
3/5/2019 11:24:34 am

Next we'll be watching Blue Nelson and Mike Arbuthnot travel to Cardiff, New York to try to prove that the "petrified giant" found there in 1869 was really a "Viking" warrior, killed by Skrælings, buried by his fellow incursionistas, and pertified due to the unusal acid quality of the soil.
They will be interviewing decendents of George Hull and P.T.Barnum who will attest to the 10' giant's Viking heritage - although Fred Harding is interviewed and says that because the giant is circumcised, he must be Nephilim.
Stay tuned for this exciting episode !

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Jim
3/5/2019 11:44:03 am

Only to have the Welsh, in a burst of nationalistic pride claim that the giant is actually from Cardiff Wales.

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titus pullo
3/5/2019 08:52:02 pm

Ah..the Cardiff Giant is at the Famers museum in Cooperstown NY...

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Machala
3/6/2019 09:29:10 am

They're going to Cardiff, N.Y. to do soil testing on the site of the original discovery.

Jim
3/6/2019 10:25:27 am

We need Roger Spurr to do testing on this petrified giant.

Poodleshooter
3/6/2019 06:42:19 pm

No, he's clearly got a turtleneck.

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Shane Sullivan
3/5/2019 12:01:19 pm

"What we got was a gentle little Sunday sail, albeit a cold one in “bone-chilling” 21° weather (to which: I laugh at your definition of cold weather) ... "

As would any Minnesotan. When was this filmed, like, mid-September?

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Haggis MacBagpipe
3/10/2019 05:07:43 pm

21 degrees, oh my, how terrible. Here in Nova Scotia, an Arctic high pressure system has had the temperature in the minus numbers, even in Fahrenheit. Also, the winds have been blowing from north,and northwest, that adds to the cold by varying degrees, none of them pleasant.
What in hell has happened to people?.The other day, I saw a grown up Male human being protest to his female partner that he didn't want to buy the skin on chicken breast, because it was too "icky".. I try not to be an obnoxious, sexist jerk, but my mom could dispatch, pluck, draw, and then cook a chicke.n to perfection.We, her sons, were happy to do this for her, most of the time. When we weren't there , she took care of it. Often at 21 degrees.

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Paul
3/5/2019 12:40:29 pm

Was this show produced by 8th graders? One, would seriously doubt the results of a pH test in frozen soil. Then, who in their right mind would simulate a Viking river trip in the dead of winter in Minnesota? The stone was scanned in Hi Def but nothing was done with the scan. They lug around an iron cauldron and make believe camping, leaving the boat to be stolen or broken up by natives. Probably boil Dinty Moore stew. Carve one half assed letter and say my it must have taken a long time to carve the stone. Nothing about the style, the linguistics the numbering system, the futhark used in the text. This series deserves to rot in hell.

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Accumulated Wisdom
3/5/2019 02:29:36 pm

I have never watched this show. From reading the reviews, I picture Goober and Gomer Pyle running through the woods playing make believe. Happy, I missed them mutilating pork in the woods last week. Never been happier to be cable free.

My mind is still open regarding the KRS. The Trademarked Symbol is far older than anyone realizes. Before, I ever heard of Scott Wolter, a friend inherited a coin with the "Hooked X" on it. Decided to help him figure out the strange symbols. At the time, I was looking into a wild claim, allegedly made by my Great Grandmother. As it turned out, the two inquiries overlapped. This is what eventually lead me here.

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Paul
3/5/2019 03:37:49 pm

The deformed X, in the futhark used on the KRS, (not to infringe on Scottie) corresponds to the letter A in our alphabet, Nothing more, nothing less. Nothing to do with Templars, Vikings or any other manner of pseudo history.

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Accumulated Wisdom
3/5/2019 04:43:18 pm

Paul,

The "Hooked X" represents AE.
(Shekelton correspondence with Colavito)

This symbol also stands for 11.

https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2022702514472608&id=114338978642314&set=a.114955778580634&source=54&refid=13&__tn__=%2B%3E


I still have photos of the coin. Both sides.

I Don't Like Scott Wolter
3/6/2019 09:28:40 pm

The OK gesture can stand for the evil eye, the letter F, the number 9, the rising and setting of the sun, or to signal that a scuba diver is safe.

Kent
3/5/2019 08:17:18 pm

"The Trademarked Symbol is far older than anyone realizes."

Care to back that up by citing an actual source?

Hooked X Hooked X Hooked X Hooked X Hooked X
Coca-Cola Coca-Cola Coca-Cola Coca-Cola Coca-Cola

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Accumulated Wisdom
3/6/2019 12:06:34 am

Kent, dan, whomever,

Studty the quartz above the Lintel Stone at NewGrange. F.O.C.U.S. just above the last two Xs on right hand side, facing structure.

I am done with this conversation, and will leave it to those with a stake in the game.

Kent
3/6/2019 01:04:38 am

I see decorative X's. The gazebo in my neighbor's yard is made up of nothing but decorative X's. Not really making your case here Bubba. So far the photos you've recommended are all shot with a paraideolia lens. No closeup photography or telephoto lenses for you.

Paul
3/5/2019 05:13:00 pm

So, I will disagree with you on this. Look at the Edward Larsson notes, the rune row that matches the runes used on the KRS, the X is our A. There are no AE diphthongs in the common translations. There are some rune rows that may have the deformed X as the AE but not here. Believe as you will.Btw, there are only two locations where the KRS runes are reported, one in Edward Larsson's notes, where he happened to settle near where the KRS was found and in a small area of Sweden until modern times and coincidentally where Larsson was from. Other interesting tidbit, the numbering system used on the KRS matches Larsson's notes and the system used in that same area of Sweden. There are many rune rows, but this is more than a coincidence. You can make your coin out to be whatever you want it to be. The KRS is a modern carving.There are other issues with the KRS but I am done here.

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Accumulated Wisdom
3/5/2019 06:04:46 pm

Paul,

There are numerous examples to the contrary.

I am not making the coin out to be anything. Other than the Trademarked Symbol, I don't know what to make of it.

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Paul
3/5/2019 08:10:02 pm

Think you misunderstood. I am not disagreeing with you. There were a number of Runic alphabets, if you wish to call them that. At different times and different contexts, similar symbols may represent different things. No one size fits all. On th e KRS the hooked x is a in our alphabet, pure and simple. In other contexts it may well represent what you say or even different values. Find out the context of the coin to give it meaning. As for the KRS, do not fall for the Wolter route, he can not analyze himself out of a wet paper bag. The KRS is a modern day carving.

Which is worse?
3/5/2019 05:44:49 pm

Which is worse - the lunatic fringe or the churchgoer

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An Anonymous Nerd
3/5/2019 07:18:17 pm

No one should fall for stuff like the Kensington Rune Stone. Especially not anyone educated. And especially people who claim to be in the field that actively investigates stuff like that.

-An Anonymous Nerd

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Harold Edwards
3/5/2019 08:41:22 pm

I was approached by the researchers for this series last summer--not the two hosts. I never interacted with them. I gave the researchers everything I had, including data on the soils at Runestone Hill and the fact that calcite weathers faster underground than at the surface. That is how sinkholes and caves form in limestone terrains. It is called karst geology. What people fail to appreciate is is that the equilibrium pH of calcite is 8.4 and any pH lower than that will cause calcite to dissolve over time.

I have a Ph.D. in geology from the University of Minnesota, but I told them not to believe me. Instead they should contact the scientists in the soil science department at the University of Minnesota or the U.S.D.A. which helps farmers on these matters. Of course they used nothing of what I gave them or followed any of my advice.

I will share this with you. (I also gave this information to them.) On August 9, 1898 the Swedish language newspaper in Minneapolis, the Svenska Amerikanska Posten, republished a short story by the Swedish author Thure Sallberg. He wrote under the pen name Ture S., and his story was called En Runsten, A Rune Stone. It is about a farmer who carved a runestone and then stumped the archaeologists at the Royal Academy at Lund. In 1898 Olof Ohman the "discoverer" of the Kensington Stone had a subscription to this newspaper, so no doubt he saw it. Also he claimed to have found the artifact in August 1898 in affidavit he signed in 1909. What a coincidence! This newspaper is on line and you can find it here:

https://newspapers3.mnhs.org/jsp/viewer.jsp?doc_id=mnhi0013%2F1DFYI159%2F98080901&query1=&recoffset=0&collection_filter=All&collection_name=ec7bd053-c40e-4e6a-9b9c-a0649ee6181e&sort_col=relevance&cnt=0&CurSearchNum=2&recOffset=0

Better yet the story is in an illustrated 1902 anthology of Sallberg's stories. Here are the illustrations for this story:

http://runeberg.org/beratt/1/0007.html

http://runeberg.org/beratt/1/0009.html

They will give you a feel for what the story is about. To be sure we do not know if Ohman saw this anthology with its illustrations. However he owned two scrapbooks with other clippings from this paper in 1898.

You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink.

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Jim
3/5/2019 09:54:23 pm

"the equilibrium pH of calcite is 8.4 and any pH lower than that will cause calcite to dissolve over time."

Ha, I wondered why Wolter claimed such a ridiculously high pH value (9 - 11) for the soil at Runestone Park !

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Harold Edwards
3/6/2019 09:44:17 am

Pushing a probe into the ground to measure pH is not the accepted protocol for measuring soil pH. See:

https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb1244466.pdf

Garbage in, garbage out.

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Jim
3/6/2019 11:33:32 am

It does not matter what pH test you use, they are all useless for dating the stone.
You can't replicate the soil pH from 120 years ago.

However, the test these fellows did can be compared to Wolters (real or made up) contemporary test numbers

Joe Scales link
3/6/2019 09:46:02 am

Always great to see you here Harold. Did you get a load of this?

http://scottwolteranswers.blogspot.com/2018/12/a-qualified-geologists-peer-review-of.html

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Harold Edwards
3/6/2019 10:19:02 am

Here is a peer review of Wolter's work on the Kensington Stone:

https://websites.godaddy.com/blob/65151a46-8ee3-453c-83d3-7b1077c69c9e/downloads/1bjjqupnp_526838.pdf?edad613d

In 2003 Wolter presented a paper in Stockholm, Sweden where the artifact was sent to be displayed at the National Historical Museum. A panel of Swedish experts assembled by the Museum reviewed his paper in the above report. Wolter reprinted his paper with a few minor changes as Chapter 3 of Nielsen and Scott Wolter's 2006, The Kensington Rune Stone Compelling New Evidence,

Dr. Lofvendahl was the head geologist for the Swedish National Heritage Board, the Swedish equivalent of the United States National Park Service. He specialized in the weathering of runic and other monuments in Sweden. Others on the panel were also experts in their fields. For instance Dr. Maria Malmstrom was an expert in biotite weathering. Keep in mind the panel is merely reviewing Wolter's paper and was not doing an independent analysis of the artifact.

Harold Edwards
3/6/2019 11:48:42 am

I have you and most people at a disadvantage. I have copies of Wolter's SEM work on the KRS and the Maine slates. These are available from the Minnesota Historical Society. What is important is not what Wolter publishes but what he leaves out. I expect Wolter did not provide these to his peer reviewer!

Let me begin with something else on his blog. The photo of the scratches in the back of the artifact. These are not glacial striations at all but are man-made. This is starkly evident if you look at a laser scan image of the back. This strips away the camouflaging created by mottled coloration. You can get a copy of the laser scan done in Sweden in 2003 by contacting the Swedish National Heritage Board. The back has about 100 crisp, shallow percussion marks that are consistent with the edge of a square faced mason's hammer. A series of these marks are rastered along the bottoms of the large striations. Pieces of the back have spalled out. Holand stated when he found the artifact in 1907 it was being used as a stepping stone to Ohman's granary and from time to time used as an anvil to straighten nails. The appearance of the back is consistent with his description. I might add there are half a dozen or more other eyewitnesses who saw the artifact being used as a stepping stone to the granary. Given that, this back surface is not the oldest surface on the artifact but the youngest after the "H" Holand carved in the bottom of the side.

Now go down in the blog to the SEM image labeled KRS Puck Glacial. In Wolter's collection of SEM images is one of this same surface with an unweathered crystal embedded in the surface. It is consistent with pyrite. Wotler claimed that pyrite in the KRS easily weathered. Here is probably a pyrite crystal that is unweathered. This confirms that the back has not been weathering for thousands of years.

Now look at the SEM image labeled 1815 Lowel Fresh. This is from a slate tombstone in Maine. Wolter claims this is biotite. In the book he presents on page 41 an EDAX spectra showing a chemistry of this surface. It is consistent with biotite. However using chemistry alone to identifying minerals is poor practice. This EDAX spectra is also consistent with a mixture of muscovite and chlorite, the major minerals of Maine slates. Maine slates have little or no biotite in them. This is basic metamorphic petrology. Slates are low grade metamorphic rocks that are altered shales. Higher grades of metamorphism create schists. At higher temperatures and pressures biotite begins to form. Such rocks would be characterized as biotite schists. What Wolter leaves out of his publication is his EDAX spectra of the weathered Lowell slate tombstone. It is virtually the same as the unweathered EDAX spectra except it has a bigger sulfur peak. The important fact is the similarities of the potassium peaks in the two spectra. They are more-or-less- the same. When biotite weathers, it quickly loses potassium, so on the weathered surface there should be little or no potassium if biotite was originally present. The sulfur peak tells another story. This area of Maine was subjected to intense acid rain for the last 100 years. Acid rain is weak sulfuric acid. Hence the formation of sulfur compounds on the surface. The pH of rainwater in Maine is about 4.6. In Kensington where there was no acid rain, it is about 5.6. Maine rainwater is ten times more acidic. The weathering of biotite is even faster under acid rain conditions.

Garbage in, garbage out.

Dave
3/6/2019 02:36:58 pm

Mr. Edwards is there a way to contact you? I would like to interview you.

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Harold Edwards
3/6/2019 03:34:13 pm

No.

Dave
3/6/2019 04:57:55 pm

That's too bad but I understand. Do you think it is possible that someone else chose Ohman as a dupe? I have long thought it was all b.s. for many years now but always hoped that he wasn't involved directly. Thank you for exposing this information.

Harold Edwards
3/6/2019 07:09:06 pm

If you look at public documents including property records from 1898 and the newspaper accounts in early 1899, you will learn the following:

In Sweden Olof Ohman was born as Olof Olsson. Most Swedes did not have last names, so this meant Olof the son of Olof. He changed his name to Ohman after the name of the farmstead he was raised on: Ohn, The Island. Ohman means man of the island. This is important because in the inscription there are two symbols used for the letter "O." In most place the rune for the letter "O" is used but in three words, an umlauted Latin "O" with a rune "N" inside is used. This symbol is a monogram for Ohman. The words are Swede, Red, Island. Ohman was a Swede, he was a Red,i.e., interested in Socialism, and he was from an Island.

Even though he owned a small farm, he made his money as a general contractor. Ohman was trained as a carpenter in Sweden before he came to the U.S. In Douglas County he constructed houses, shops, barns, and other farm buildings. He trained both of his eldest sons as carpenters, and they helped him before they left home in 1907 and 1920. The buildings he made were of wood, but there was still some stone work used for basements, footings, chimneys, and fireplaces. He may have subcontracted this out, but it is simple enough that a man skilled in carpentry could easily learn to do it. Ohman was witnessed by others, using a plug drill to break boulders in the area. He had the tools and the know how to construct the artifact.

Olof must have been fairly successful in his business. He invested in real estate. He bought 158 acres in Section 28 just west of Kensington in addition to his 98 acre farm in Section 14 where he purported to find the artifact. In 1898 he began to have money problems. In early 1899 the newspapers reported he did not pay the property tax on his Section 28 holdings and later in December of that year he sold this property.

In late January of 1899 he wrote to Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois about a strange rock tablet he and his two sons, Olof and Edward, found the past November. They found it buried in the middle of a swamp six FEET under a tree. (He did not mention that the workmen helping him, his two sons, were merely 11 and 10 years old.) He thought the stone with its strange writing on it might be of some value. In an interview the president of Northwestern stated that the university planned to buy the Kensington Stone from him if it proved genuine.

Ohman enclosed a "tracing" of the runic text on the stone with his letter. Since he was in the construction business he would have used tracing paper to alter plans as needed for his building projects. Here he committed a serious blunder. Instead of copying the text on the stone, he traced the rune document he used as the rough draft for the inscription. There are wording and spelling differences between the two texts. For instance in the tracing the word Blood contains his monogram for the letter "O." On the stone it uses the rune "O." In late February, 1899 Ohman also sent the artifact to Northwestern University. Nonetheless the expert whom Northwestern assigned to evaluate the text, Professor George Curme, had decided it was a hoax. Therefore Northwestern did not buy it. The stone was returned to Ohman sometime in March, 1899. There was extensive coverage of all of this in the Chicago newspapers, much of it syndicated nationwide. Also the newspapers published facsimiles of Ohman's tracing, for instance on page 7 of the Chicago Tribune, February 21, 1899. After receiving the stone Ohman placed it in his farmyard as a stepping stone to his granary until he gave it to Hjalmar Rued Holand in 1907. In 1928 Holand sold the artifact to a group of businessmen in Alexandria, Minnesota, where it now resides at the Runestone Museum.

Olof Ohman was committing a crime. He was trying to steal money from Northwestern University but failed. When reporters tried to interview him in 1899, he went into hiding. After Holand obtained the artifact, Ohman and his son Edward continued to lie about the discovery. There is an interesting letter Edward wrote to Holand in 1950 trying to explain why he could not remember if the artifact was discovered in August of 1898 or November of 1898. He and his father both signed affidavits in 1909 giving the month as August. This letter was written six weeks before he died. What a sad end.

I have omitted all the documentary proof of these events.

Dave
3/6/2019 08:44:48 pm

Mr. Edwards, That is all very informative. I read an article the other day that exposed how the numbers on the stone match the PLSS legal description of the property that Mr. Ohman owned. Even the way Mr. Wolter explains these numbers matches the PLSS legal description of Solem Township in section 14. Of course Mr. Wolter attributes these numbers to some sort of Cryptic Freemasonry. So that is also quite a coincidence. The PLSS wasn't applied to Minnesota until about 1860.

Harold Edwards
3/6/2019 09:12:09 pm

https://aardvarchaeology.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/kensington-runestone-fakers-si/

Paul
3/7/2019 03:21:15 pm

Hi Dave, do you have or could you point to the website with the PLSS designation that matches farm to runestone? Just curious how they match section, township and range. Thanks.

Jim
3/7/2019 06:17:45 pm

Paul,
Hopefully this helps:

Solem Township ,,,,,,KRS= NE quarter Section 14

http://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/US/226715/Solem+Township++Kensington/Douglas+County+1950/Minnesota/

From this:

http://www.historicmapworks.com/Atlas/US/12137/

Jim
3/7/2019 06:37:31 pm

Also 1916 map here, rather than 1950 map in above post.

https://www.dchsmn.org/places/townships/

Dave
3/8/2019 01:06:18 pm

The very first Solem Township PLSS map is from 1861. T127N R40 E, (numbers total 14) Meridian 5. The stone was in Section 14 and was found very close to the SE corner of Ohman's property. His property is located in the NW and NE quarter sections of #14. The two land surveyors who collected data on this map are interesting characters in Minnesota and Masonic history as well. Land surveyors often mark property divisions using the PLSS with stone cairns or incised stones.

There was once a replica of the Washington Monument planned to be built at the discovery site of the Kensington Rune. The number of memorial "cornerstones" present in the real Washington Monument also relates to the numbers on the Kensington Rune and the possible Cryptic Rite associations. Of course all that could be a coincidence or part of the deceptive nature of the stone itself as it may have been planned to fool more than the "academics." Who ever put the stone there was trying to deceive Freemasons as well. In the end all of this serves as circumstantial evidence that the stone was put there in the mid to late nineteenth century.

Kent
3/5/2019 08:45:39 pm

"Arbuthnot scans it with a portable 3-D scanner and says it will be the highest-resolution computer model ever made of the stone."

I accept that he said it but I question what he said. "Portable" is always a red flag to me.

"HAROLD EDWARDS
12/4/2017 12:42:22 pm
There is no wear line on the Kensington Rune Stone. This can easily be observed by viewing the 3-D laser scan made in Sweden in 2003 by the Swedish National Heritage Board. This strips off the surface color which camouflages surface features. What is left is a relief map of the surface of the artifact in fractions of a millimeter. No line is apparent on the stone. Another nice feature of this scan is that it created a virtual artifact, and the back of the stone can be examined. The scratches in the back are not glacial and there are over 100 shallow, sharp percussion marks consistent with a mason's hammer. These are less than a millimeter deep and would have weathered away in a few years. The back is missing sections which is consistent with Holand's account of the stone being used as a stepping stone to Ohman's granary and as an anvil to straiten nails. The Kensington Stone is a hoax created circa 1898."

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Jim
3/8/2019 10:30:22 am

Here is an article about the KRS that I read after using google translate

https://www.nettavisen.no/nyheter/her-er-en-historisk-viking-bombe/2801416.html?fbclid=IwAR0lYJUNsEj1m2QJZF_oXxzEGNlcxJTTdjmv4fRS1to2YyXs6tjz0yUWCgY

"All geologists who have investigated the stone, on the other hand, believe that it is real," says author Tom Thowsen. Among other things, one can see that the minerals pyrite and mica have weathered the surface. It would not have happened if the stone was only 100 years old."

And the BS just keeps piling up.

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Joe Scales
3/8/2019 01:27:18 pm

Here's someone trying to bait Wolter on his blog:

"My question may seem abstract but I think it’s very important especially considering these topics. As we learn more together do you think that the many that are set in there [sic] speculation of the historical truth are going to be able to accept any information that does not go along with or in many cases totally discounts their said theories? Do you think it’s possible that anyone would have the courage to admit they were wrong after so much effort or do you think to the contrary that they would just simply continue to twist the truth to fit their work relying solely on the chance that many will not do the research it would take to utterly disprove their efforts? How do you feel about this and if it happened to you what would you do? "

Of course Wolter has never admitted to being wrong about his crackpot theories, even when exposed leaving absolutely no doubt whatsoever for his ineptitude. Didn't take the bait though, and ignored that last query accordingly.

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Jim
3/8/2019 01:52:43 pm

Doug:

"A rather moot point since there is zero credible evidence that 1.5 billion pounds of copper was ever produced in the prehistoric Great Lakes region let alone shipped to the Old World."

Wolter:

"You still haven't addressed the where the estimated 1.5 billion pounds of mined copper went."

Me: wack, (hits forehead with palm of hand)

His blog is a constant demonstration of some of the finest idiocy available in modern times.

Kent
3/8/2019 07:32:52 pm

I saw both of these excellent quotes. And it really does help to click the "Load more..." at the bottom as Jim pointed out. Mr. Wolter to use a buzzword *curates* his idiocy and this may be wishful thinking but it seems to get more idiotic with time.

"Eagle Feather February 17, 2019 at 11:15 AM
Key to Genetic Lines:
Canaanite = Thor
Hellas = Greece before Greccan times
Scottish = Greek plus Egyptian
Swedish = Scottish plus American Indian

Reply
Replies
Reply <--- This is a "reply" to the post above!

Anonymous February 27, 2019 at 1:58 PM
Scott,
Not complaining but curious about why posts like this get published. Is there something I'm missing?

Val Miller

Scott Wolter February 27, 2019 at 4:39 PM
Val,

What post are you referring to?"

I punched myself in my own face when I read this.

Harold Edwards
3/8/2019 02:56:40 pm

There is nothing you can say to Wolter and his followers that will change their minds. I present the facts so that people new to the issues can make up their minds.

Consider this: The side inscription of the Kensington Stone translated into English by Dr. Henrik Williams at Uppsala University in Sweden has the following "(There) is 10 men by the sea/lake to look after our ships 14 days journey from this island/peninsula. Year 1362.” Williams using the runic and linguistic evidence alone proves the artifact was carved in the 19th Century not 1362. Here is his paper for those who care:

http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:543322/FULLTEXT01.pdf

The closest place by sea to Kensington is the south shore of Hudson Bay. The distance between the two is about 900 miles. During the 18th and 19th Centuries the Hudson Bay Company routinely boated from its trading post at York Factory on the south shore of Hudson Bay up the Hayes River to Norway House at the northern tip of Lake Winnipeg, a distance of 300 miles. They could have used the Nelson River, but then the distance would become 400 miles. Both rivers have more than a dozen waterfalls and rapids that have to portaged around. On the Hayes, the Voyageur boatmen working for the Company constructed semi-permanent portages with log rollers to help them move along more quickly. In 1826 Amelius Simpson with a crew of Voyageurs paddled upstream from York Factory on Hudson Bay to Norway House in 16 days. That was the fastest trip I know about. They had taken too few provisions and had to eat their dogs. In 1819 John Franklin took 27 days to make a similar trip. If these Voyageurs could not do it any faster how could Norse explorers new to the area do even faster? The Norse would have had to make the trip in 4 or 5 days.

If for some reason some Norse explorers made it up the Hayes to Lake Winnipeg, they would have to cross the lake, another 450 miles, to reach the mouth of the Red River. Just south of the river's mouth are 15 foot high rapids. In 1899 a lock and dam was constructed there so boats can navigate from Lake Winnipeg and up the Red River. In 1362 any Norse boatmen would have had to stop at these rapids and portage around them. In 1362 at that site, now called Lockport for obvious reasons, was a large Native American settlement growing corn, beans and squash. This site has been extensively excavated and there were no Norse remains showing any contact whatsoever. There is no evidence of any trade or warfare with Europeans at this site from 1362. How much more evidence does one need to realize that the Kensington Stone is a fake? Here is the sad thing. Wolter and his followers never mention the people who really lived at Lockport, Manitoba, or along the Red River, or in Minnesota. The native peoples' stories have been crowded out by bullshit about Vikings and Knights Templars. Here is some real archaeology for those who care:

https://umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/anthropology/manarchnet/chronology/woodland/lockport.html

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Jim
3/8/2019 04:29:42 pm

Without even getting into the really short season that it is ice free in the Hudson Bay.
It's a fairly shallow bay with a lot of fresh water flowing into it, keeping the salinity low, freezing much earlier and thawing later than the northern Atlantic waters.
Toss in the Little Ice Age and a 3 month ice free window is about the best one could hope for.
Also we are looking at it in hind sight, already knowing the route they needed to take. There are a myriad of waterways from the Hudson Bay to the interior. How Many rivers flow into the Hudson Bay ?
The Hudson Bay route has never struck me as even plausible.

Jim
3/8/2019 04:49:37 pm

Going from L'Anse aux Meadows to the Hayes River via the Atlantic ocean is about 1900 miles.

William Smith
3/10/2019 02:04:40 pm

Good recap of another TV distortion of the facts. They did not investigate any new information that has been put forth. 1- The distance in one day in seaman terms is 72 miles. This is the average speed of ships of the period. They even standardized their maps so a tool like a cloth measure (spin wheel with 30 points) could be used to estimate the number of days (72 miles) they would need to travel from one point to another. The 900 miles north from Kensington by water (Red and Neilson) would be very close to 1000 miles.
Another point they missed is the large calcite area on the front left side actually has three areas of wear which are visible under microscope. The reason for these different patterns can only be addressed in the fact the KRS stood upright for about 300 years and this area represents above the ground, on the .022 in. mechanical wear line and below the ground.
Another point of interest is the word dead on the KRS has been confirmed by David Johnson (Rune researcher) to mean death. This is by plague or pneumonia. The native Americans helping the KRS crew had no immunity to the European sicknesses.
Another point of interest is the 22 hooked X's found on the stone. This same hook is on two other rune stones over 1000 miles from the KRS.
Another is the triangle stone mooring holes, they exist in all locations of the hooked X.
Another is the Portuguese translation of the 1494 treaty between Spain and Portugal. The treaty states a tower will be built to identify the east boundary AND A MARKER PLACED 370 LEAGUES (1110 miles) west of this tower on a pole line. (A pole line in 1362 and later is a line that reads the same magnetic declination.
Make it clear I am not a supporter of Scott Wolter and his many claims, however some of what he states should be tested before throwing an ax.
Additional supporting truth may be found in the voyage of The Great Peacemaker as he took a stone canoe across Lake Ontario west to east to inform the five nations of the new laws of the land. The first democracy in America.

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Harold Edwards
3/10/2019 04:13:14 pm

You need to present your source materials. You were not present in 1362, so how do you know any of this?

The 1494 treaty is irrelevant to events in 1362.

You postulate a distance measurement of a seaman's day, being 72 miles. How do you know this? What is any Old Norse source for this? If the 14 days on the inscription were a distance measurement then the Norse explorers would have had to know the actual distance they traveled from Hudson Bay to Kensington. How did they measure that? Given their possession of this exact distance why would they then impose hypothetical days of travel on that when in fact they knew how many actual days they had traveled?

I found no mechanical wear line on the stone. None is evident on the two laser scans I have access to.

The weathering rate for calcite in marble tombstones in the Kensington area is 6 mm per 1000 years:

Meierding, Thomas (1993), “Inscription Legibility Method for Estimating Rock Weathering Rates,” Geomorphology, vol. 6., pp. 273-286.

Given that rate, the inscription in the calcite layer of the Kensington Stone would have lost 1.8 mm from its surface after 300 years of exposure. Most of the runes would be missing and what remained would have been severally worn and rounded. They are not. Why have you not considered any of this? What evidence do you have to the contrary about calcite weathering rates in the Kensington area?

This is so damning that even if there were incontrovertible proof that Norse explorers had been present in Minnesota in 1362, the Kensington Stone would still be a fake.

Nowhere in the Norse world of 1362--Greenland, Iceland, Norway, etc.--was the symbol "X" used as a rune for the letter "A." There are no examples of such usage. None. However this was 19th Century practice in rural areas of Sweden where runes were still being used.

There are no such things as "mooring stones." They were a figment of Hjalmar Holand's imagination. The holes you refer to were made in the 19th Century to facility the emplacement of gunpowder or dynamite to blast rocks. The drilling technique which uses a steel rod or chisel is called plug drilling. It was invented in the early 17th Century in Central Europe. It was unknown to the Norse in 1362:

Drinker, Henry S. (1893), Tunneling, Explosive Compounds, and Rock Drills, John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1214 pages. See pages 42-43.

One of the most important books on mining technology was De Re Metallica by Agricola. It was published in 1556 and makes no mention of plug drilling.

You are confused about everything you mention. You can only confuse others. You need to go back to the beginning and learn the basics of history, geology, and archaeology before you do more damage.

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William Smith
3/10/2019 05:45:04 pm

You sure seem to have all the answers, it is a shame the TV crew did not use your information about your education in Geology and the 1898 Newspaper you claim makes the local farmer the carver.
1st - The pendiactic number 3 on the KRS has a scribe mark below the upper 3 marks that indicates the tracing made by the carver originally wanted this number to be a 4. He used the 3 because the king of Portugal and Denmark had mothers that were sisters and the 1362 voyage was a family history.
2nd. - The only rune stone dating 1362 is the Heavens Oklahoma stone. Established by soil core sample below carved letters and verifying amount of new soil above the cut chips. This process was also completed on the Kansas City Slater stone and is registered with the state. (This is the only rune stone registered in the USA)
3rd - The distance of 3 mph goes back to the Roman army marching speed. It is still one of the standard measurements for a man working at 100% used in Industrial Engineering to determine a fair days work for a fair days pay.
4th - The mechanical wear line exist and was measured using a straight edge and hand held micrometer. The two scans for refer to will not show the wear line because the standard zero points established by placing pads on the KRS and scanning between the pads to determine depth by colors does not include the wear line because this line is below the runic letters and The Neilson scan or the University scan did not cover this area. The last attempt to scan the stone was about 3 years ago by myself and Gerry and did not get completed because of museum politics.
5th. - The weather rate of 6mm per 1000 years of calcite will vary. Above the ground is a lot slower than below the ground. Between these two on the KRS is a smother surface called the wear line located in the large area on the face of the KRS.
6th. - The most distorted runic letters on the KRS are in the calcite area, One researcher has indicated a complete letter may be missing on the left side of the face letters in the calcite area.
7th - The hooked X only occurs in America on three rune stones. This is because the symbol for magnetic declination is an X representing true north and magnetic north. The Portuguese and Danish that marked the boundary's of Vinland in 1472 by building a tower and placing a marker 370 leagues west on a pole line were using a lodestone compass like the one found in N.Y. and New Hampshire. Note: they did not blast stones to get their magnetite needed for their compass, they drilled holes in rock with flat steel chisels in some cases leaving the metal tip in the hole. I have studied over 50 of these stones and assure you the deeper the hole the more iron in the stone. This powder clings to the tool and is loaded into a stone with a hole from top to bottom of two sizes.
The last I will say on this subject is that most of my research is hands on with the use of modern technology. My research started 41 years ago when my wife found a 500 lb stone on our farm that is a time stone left by the Portuguese to surface over time and show related artifacts left at the site. This site is exactly on a pole line in the center of Vinland. The difference between your research and mine is that I do not use books as facts or in most cases as references. I find hands on study has a lot more benefits.


Jim
3/10/2019 06:38:38 pm

William Smiths book.

https://www.amazon.com/Holy-Grail-America-Hunters-Cloutier-ebook/dp/B07BZWSZM4#reader_B07BZWSZM4

Harold Edwards
3/10/2019 06:42:01 pm

In 1362 the King of Denmark was Valdemar IV. His mother was Euphemia of Pomerania. Her father was Bogislaw IV, Duke of Pomerania, and her mother was Margarete of Rugen.

In 1362 the King of Portugal was Peter I. His mother was Beatrice of Castile. Her father was Sancho IV of Castile, and her mother was María de Molina.

Euphemia and Beatrice were not sisters. Given the distance between Pomerania and Castile they could not be illegitimate offspring of either Bogislaw or Sancho.

Poodleshooter
3/10/2019 09:08:40 pm

@Harold Edwards: William Smith is one of the crazy people who post here. He literally thinks toothpicks and credit cards are legitimate scientific measuring instruments and photographing something from different angles is a 3D photograph.

Jim
3/10/2019 05:28:58 pm

http://www.adventuresinpoortaste.com/2019/03/09/the-kensington-runestone-is-still-not-real-americas-lost-vikings-episode-4/?fbclid=IwAR3kTGKcKWs5V3NyoiWjp5dyM_ZmkwsKnIB2SHbAHTS_S50keMIZIbmGw6A

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William Smith
3/10/2019 07:25:16 pm

Thanks Jim, I am not promoting my book on this site, however it does address many points where Scott Wolter and the History Chanel are wrong. This attachment may get you access faster. The paper is being updated to include 3new sites that link the KRS to 1472. As for the kings being related in 1362, the paper will show how the mothers of the kings in 1472 were related as sisters from the house of Lancaster, England. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ELErx18O14_78FAtyx_V3c48pGfUdUiI

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Jim
3/10/2019 07:54:20 pm

Oh, don't thank me, I only put it up there to help demonstrate the pure nonsense you are pitching.
Thanks for the link though,,,, it's a heck of a giggle fest.

William Smith
3/10/2019 08:04:47 pm

Jim - It is good that it tickled your fancy.Did you view all 120 slides and open and look at all the 125 citations. It takes about a week to read all and view all the attachments. Tell me what tickles your fancy. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1_OqDFCFuQ2rxsslAatzUAZmEm2KbxgMR

Jim
3/10/2019 08:55:01 pm

No, I am not going to point out again, point by point all your nonsense.
This has been done by myself and others countless times on countless blog posts for years.

https://www.andywhiteanthropology.com/blog/calcite-weathering-and-the-age-of-the-kensington-rune-stone-inscription-lightning-post

I had proven to you a year or so ago that there was no Norse presence at Point Rosee, yet you still say:

"Point Rosee in southern Newfoundland is another potential Viking site being studied by Sarah Parcak 2016. Shows a bog iron operation and more."

Nope:

“Further testing of bog iron samples for evidence of human agency determined that they were likely natural deposits with no evidence of having been further processed,” reads the executive summary of the report Parcak and her team provided the Provincial Archaeology Office in November 2017."

https://www.thetelegram.com/news/local/archaeology-report-confirms-no-evidence-of-norse-presence-at-point-rosee-in-southwestern-newfoundland-214092/

Your study is all nonsense. ALL OF IT !

Harold Edwards
3/10/2019 08:57:22 pm

In 1472 the King of Denmark was Christian I. His mother was Helvig of Schauenburg. Her father was Gerhard VI of Holstein-Rendsburg, and her mother was Catherine Elisabeth of Brunswick-Lüneburg.

In 1472 the King of Portugal was Afonso V. His mother was Eleanor of Aragon. Her father was Ferdinand I of Aragon, and her mother was Eleanor of Alburquerque.

Helvig and Eleanor were not sisters.

Haven't we been here before William? Given all this deja vu, maybe they were French:

We seek him here, we seek him there,
Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven? — Is he in hell?
That damned, elusive Pimpernel.

Ha, Ha! the pimpernel is a red flower, and the rose is a red flower. Maybe there is some connection with the House of Lancaster after all!

Poodleshooter
3/10/2019 09:22:52 pm

@Wiliam Smith: You're right about one thing, you're NOT promoting your book.

William Smith
3/10/2019 09:33:47 pm

In 1472 the king of Portugal was not Alfonso V, it was Alfonso VI, The king of Denmark was Christian. At least you were half correct. As for the reference to the viking site with bog iron, studied for two years and found to be the works of Mother Nature. You will see my link which explains the mistake made by the academics and how they retracted their support for any man made evidence found at the site.

Harold Edwards
3/10/2019 09:38:36 pm

My source on Alfonso V was Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afonso_V_of_Portugal

It is not always the best of sources. For this, here, it will do. I showed you mine. Now show me yours.

Harold Edwards
3/10/2019 09:44:13 pm

Alfonso VI of Portugal reigned from 1656 to 1683.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afonso_VI_of_Portugal

You are off by two hundred years, or is it three? It all depends on how you stroke the monkey.

Jim
3/10/2019 10:02:49 pm

"You will see my link which explains the mistake made by the academics and how they retracted their support for any man made evidence found at the site. "

No, Sarah Parcak and her very qualified team studied all evidence and concluded the iron was raw bog iron and that there was no Norse activity at all on the site. Other "academics" agreed with this.
But go ahead and make a conspiracy theory.

Harold Edwards
3/11/2019 01:01:28 am

Graywacke is a variety of sandstone. The word is from the German for "dirty stone" because of the amount of mud entrained with the sand before these sediments became rock. The front of the Kensington stone has several steps in which layers have been broken off to make the front surface. A similar graywacke is found in New York state. It is called bluestone and was used to construct sidewalks in New York, and Minnesota as well, during the late 19th Century. Here are some bluestone sidewalks in front of the Brooklyn Borough Hall:

https://awalkintheparknyc.blogspot.com/2013/10/parks-department-refuses-to-fix.html

These were originally flat slabs making the paving but have fallen apart after about 100 years of wear. The area along the steps in the Kensington Stone would have suffered a similar fate after 536 years. Parts of the inscription along the upper portion of the steps should be missing.

A good resource to observe rock weathering is the NIST Stone Test Wall outside Washington, D.C. in

https://www.nist.gov/el/materials-and-structural-systems-division-73100/nist-stone-wall

During the 1880 U.S. Census quarries throughout the United States supplied samples of rocks to the government. In 1951 these specimens along with some additional samples were placed in a wall in Washington to see how they weathered when exposed to the elements. In 1977 the wall was moved to nearby Gaithersburg, Maryland.

Have a look at a 2018 set of photos:

https://www.nist.gov/el/materials-and-structural-systems-division-73100/nist-stone-wall/news-and-pictures

Originally the stones all had smooth faces. Look at them in 2018 after 67 years. Most of the stones including graywackes similar to the Kensington Stone show significant deterioration after exposure to the elements. You can explore the wall online and look at specific stones quarried from different parts of the country. Again here is more on the wall:

https://www.nist.gov/blogs/taking-measure/test-time-nists-wall-many-stones

The Kensington Stone should show much more deterioration than it does and was thus carved in 1898.

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Doc Rock
3/10/2019 08:09:27 pm

Oh for the good old days. Back when the Kensington Stone was either a clever hoax or proof that a small group of Norse managed to work their way into Minnesota as a one shot sort of deal.

Now it's proof that Vikings were traipsing all over North America for centuries,, Templars were leaving coded messages when they werent tagging Indian maidens to preserve the sacred bloodline, the Portugese were doing something or other, etc., etc.

One freaky trip and I ain't talking about one you take in a boat.

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William Smith
3/10/2019 08:22:06 pm

MASTER409

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Accumulated Wisdom
3/10/2019 10:43:04 pm

I had never heard of the Kansas City Slater Stone. After viewing a picture, I was shocked to see a symbol, which is also present on the Newport Tower. There are multiple Pentadic, Runic, and other expressions carved into the tower . INCLUDING the "HOOKED X".

Maybe, the guy from Phippsburg History Center will post some close ups to FACEBOOK for THE WHOLE WORLD TO SEE.

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Jim
3/10/2019 10:58:47 pm

https://www.shsu.edu/~pin_www/T%40S/sliders/2012/frankkirune.html

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Accumulated Wisdom
3/10/2019 11:42:11 pm

The 8s in the alleged 1888 sure do resemble latitude lozenges.

Thanks Jim!

William Smith
3/10/2019 11:42:50 pm

Harold - After checking the records the King of Portugal in 1472 was Alfonso V and the King of Denmark was Christian 1. Their mothers were Eleanor and Helvig.
When we first checked the mechanical wear line it was with a credit card, toothpick and hand held micrometers, we also used a flashlight to shine under the card as we moved it across the stone under the runic letters.
3D photography in most cases relates to a fixed camera and rotating the object on an index wheel allowing mutable photos to be placed in a computer program to provide a 3D image of the object. This is exactly what we did to make the 3D image which is available at the bottom of the Wikipedia web site as a reference material.

Poodleshooter - At least Harold is not afraid of using his name. As for calling me crazy, you are the second to do so. Scott Wolter used to call me crazy willie because he did not like corrections to his claims. He stated three times that their is no wear line on the KRS because he had measured the area with a microscope. The fact is a microscope will not measure depth of the wear line near as good as a credit card and toothpick. Scott said the Newport Tower was a church, when it is a smoke house for processing cod fish. Scott said the KRS was carved and then buried, when in fact it was carved and placed upright for about 300 years before it fell forward on its face for additional years under the soil. Any geologist will tell you the same stone that has different porosity holes at the lower 1/3 compared to the upper 2/3 is because the stone was 1/3 under ground and the exposure of the upper 2/3rds will show porosity because the soft spots in the stone are open due to rain, ice, snow and wind, Is your name Scotty?

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Accumulated Wisdom
3/11/2019 12:00:09 am

I have no skin in game but, you're way off on the Newport Tower. WAY OFF!

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William Smith
3/11/2019 10:39:11 am

ACCUMULATED WISDOM - Please explain what is way off on the Newport Tower????
Who - Portuguese and Danish
When - 1472
Why- Mark east boundary of Vinland
What - Living quarters and cod fish processing
Where - Built 32 feet below east ground level to conceal existence

POODLESHOOTER - The yard arm beam that exits the tower above the west window and extends north east to exit the tower above the charcoal pit had two functions. 1- Unload barrels of cod fish to the atrium and on to the ground where the soil was tested by Michigan State to show no salt because of the fish oil. 2 - Aid in stocking wood into the exterior fire pit which provided central heating to the Tower. (Their is no structural support for a windmill assembly) and 3 carbon dates of mortar date to late 1400s.

JOE SCALES - As always you let your humming bird ass get ahead of your alligator mouth.

Poodleshooter
3/11/2019 12:03:45 am

I rest my case. What you say is a smokehouse, its OWNER called a "mill".

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Joe Scales
3/11/2019 10:13:46 am

Let me be the third (if I haven't already). William, you are a blithering idiot, and you are absolutely batshit crazy if you feel you have anything of any importance to convey here on this blog. Why you even come here is beyond me. At least in Anthony's case, he peppers this blog with nonsense, but then goes back to Wolter for an "attaboy". So what purpose do you think you're serving here? You spout nonsense. Proof by assertion that on its face is erratic, deficient and asinine. But you don't realize this. Why? Because you are an imbecile. An ignoramus. A blithering idiot. A very stupid, stupid man.

I wouldn't hold my breath for more input from Harold in your regard. Let's just say you've made your case.

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William Smith
3/11/2019 10:14:24 am

Harold - In that you have a real name I will share some old information with you. In 2015 I posted this information (When researching the KRS be sure to weigh the facts against the theories. James Knirks study of the KRS was one hour compared to the many hours put in by other researchers. Also keep in mind that just going to the museum is not research by itself. You must find something that is academic proof such as a few listed as follows A- Their is tool marks on the stone made by man. B- One side of the stone was cut by man to allow additional carving.C- The man made runes are only on the upper 2/3 s of the front and side of the stone. D- Their is a line just below the runes on the stone that has been recognized by all researchers who layed hands on the stone, It was called a ground line until 2012 when it was measured and renaimed as a mechanical wear line. NOTE: Mr H Williams was made aware of this after his 2012 report and his opinion may lean more toward authinticity than before. E- The porosity holes in non carved areas on the back of the KRS are only present on the upper 2/3 of the stone. F- All the runic letters have been proven to have been in existance in the 1362 date period. G- The 1494 treaty between Spain and Portugal speek of a boundry stone in the KRS location. H- No facts have been put forth that indicate to beyond any dought the KRS is a fake. (WHY< WHEN< WHO< WHERE and WHAT FOR). The following link will allow a download program of the KRS which allows you to rotate, zoom and study the KRS from your computer. Note: This is the only 3D program that has been made public, even though their exist two photo depth scanning programs that focus on the runic letters only and do not address the other features of the stone. http://www.photospherix.com/3d-view/kensington-ruinstone/)
If the link does not open the 3D program you can go to Wikipedia and Kensington runestone and scroll to the bottom to External Links which has a link to the 3D 360 degree view of the stone.
When you view the H made by Holand over 100 years ago and compare it to the letters on the side of the rune stone it supports the stone as a fake, however when you compare the Holland H to the 1/4 in. tool marks on the edge of the KRS used to fracture the left side for additional 3 lines of letters you may feel the side was cleaned with a nail to explain the look a like, however when you compare the face runic letters to the Holland H you get a different view of aging. If the KRS was carved in 1898 all man made carvings would seem to have the same appearance.

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Joe Scales
3/11/2019 10:26:08 am

"The 1494 treaty between Spain and Portugal speek [sic] of a boundry [sic] stone in the KRS location."

The way I read that treaty it clearly shows that William Smith is a blithering idiot. His compulsion to display his innate ignorance is now pathological in nature by insisting again and again that what he wishes to believe is most certainly not documented. When shown this again and again, such reality cannot trigger his mind to accept what should be clearly recognized by any rational examination of his preposterous blunderings.

In other words, what little mind he had, he has now lost.

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Harold Edwards
3/11/2019 11:40:58 am

Mr. Smith is wrong about Knirk. Dr. Knirk also had extensive correspondence with the late Dr. Richard Nielsen. Dick and I were personal friends even though we held diametrically opposite views on the authenticity of the Kensington Stone.

The Kensington Stone was never mounted in the earth like a tombstone. There is not enough room at the bottom for it to be stable and at the same time leave the inscription visible above ground. Furthermore there should be a patina or color difference between the above ground portion and the below ground portion. The best example of this is the Kuli runestone in Norway:

https://www.ntnu.no/documents/10476/10701581/_DSF9886/1bfd5532-05a4-477f-ae4b-07e08d3e28de?t=1325759431518

This is one of the oldest runestones in Scandinavia. For more on Kuli:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulisteinen

The carving of monumental runestones ceased shortly after the Scandinavian chiefdoms adopted Christianity at the end of the Viking Age.

The inscriptions always have personal names. Usually they give the name of the person memorialized and the person who erected the stone in his honor. Sometimes they give the name of the person who painted the runes, the runemaster. Yes, painted. The runes were not only carved but painted over as well. In modern times the custom is to repaint the runes, hence the appearance of the Kuli runestone in the photograph. The Kensington Stone shows no sign of any painting. The most damning fact against the authenticity of the Kensington Stone's is the lack of any personal names in its text. It also could not have been a land grant, because it would have named the sovereign: King Haakon VI of both Norway and Sweden in 1362. The sole function of the text on the Kensington Stone is to convince 19th Century people that 14th Century Swedes and Norwegians were in the Kensington area.

14th Century Scandinavians were not obsessed with ethnicity. 19th Century Scandinavians were, especially those living in Minnesota. 1898 was an election year and John Lind, a Swedish immigrant was running for Governor on the Democratic ticket. November 8, 1898 was election day. Winchell claimed Olof Ohman discovered the artifact on this day. Minnesota was a Republican state. Lind was favored to get the vote of the Scandinavian against William Henry Eustis, mayor of Minneapolis. Eustis was notorious for being anti-Swede. To counter this the Republicans enlisted the aid of Knute Nelson, the U.S. Senator from Minnesota. Nelson was a Norwegian immigrant. Nelson lived in Alexandria, Minnesota about 20 miles from Kensington. Nelson failed and Lind became Governor of Minnesota. That is why the Kensington Stone inscription begins with the words "8 Goths (Swedes) and 22 Norwegians. . . " The Scandinavian language press made fun of Nelson over his failure in 1899 when the Kensington Stone discovery hit the newspapers. One of the issues between Swedes and Norwegians in 1898 was the independence of Norway which was then controlled by Sweden. Norway gained its independence in 1905. There was friction between the Swedish and Norwegian immigrants over this issue.

Reply
William Smith
3/11/2019 02:35:11 pm

Harold - I also was a good friend of Dick Neilson and I am well aware of some of his disputes between Wolter and himself. Especially the dotted R vs a natural porosity distortion in the stone. Dick shared with me some of the 3D scan he did not release to the museum when H Williams. Dick and other past researchers called the mechanical wear line a ground line. Dick did not have a scan of the wear line because of the placement of the standards used on the stone during the process were not located below the wear line. I am sure you have read Dicks opinion as well as other researchers about the existence of the wear line. Of course folks will find other reasons for this line, like book page fold, shipping strap. After Wolter screwed up the surface by making molds from the stone with no mold release made any additional naked eye hard to find the ground line. I like you also had disagreements with Dick and Williams. Their translation of the 8 runic letters on the Heavener Oklahoma stone was (GNOMESVALLY). The actual translation is (GNOMONDIAL). The words used to identify a mid-day sun dial in 1362. (A gnomon is the hand in a sun dial).
I find this site is full of folks that like to shoot the messenger rather than read the message. I do not mind the name calling, however if you wish to look up the ass of the KRS then count the porosity on the back side surface and you will count 13 holes above the wear line and none below. In that this post was on Vikings in America my interest is over.

Joe Scales
3/11/2019 04:51:23 pm

"I find this site is full of folks that like to shoot the messenger rather than read the message."

If by "shoot the messenger" you mean expose the fancies of imbeciles such as yourself for the moronic conjecture it truly is... well, guilty as charged. Your propensity for error is absolutely astounding as well. And being rather humorless... you're kinda boring. On top of it all, that is.

Whiskey Dick
3/11/2019 10:40:30 am

Well pardners one thing is clear from all this. That rune stone must have some kind of weird occult power to drive people bat shit crazy. A body need look no further than this blog for the proof is in the puddin' as they say. They even named a football team the Vikings because of this stone and they ain't about to let any of you varmits go around changin' peoples minds about them Vikings coming to Minnesota in the distant past.....in the days when the giants and nephilim had already passed before the Phoenicians and Hebrews ruled the land teaching the natives everything of value they ever knew. I'm going to mosey down to the saloon for a sasparilla with Ms. Josie.

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Paul
3/11/2019 01:16:47 pm

William Smith, I concur that you are bat shit crazy. There is no debating with folks as yourself since you all live in your own special place.

Between true science and erroneous doctrine, ignorance is in the middle - Thomas Hobbes

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Roxana
3/14/2019 04:33:44 pm

the fact that the KRS was discovered by Scandinavian immigrants with a knowledge of runic writing alone is enough to cast considerable doubt on its authenticity. Then there's the fact that the Viking age ended three hundred years before the date on the stone. And finally I am expected to believe somebody took the time to engrave a long account of his expedition's troubles on a large piece of stone as a message to who? Who the heck does that?

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William Smith
3/14/2019 06:00:50 pm

Roxana - The KRS has been tagged as Viking is wrong as you say at least 350 years after the Viking age ended. Yes somebody did take the time to engrave a long account of their expedition on a 200 lb stone. They even squared the stone to allow three additional lines on the left side. They did not carve on the bottom 1/3 of the stone except the clear tool marks to make it concave at the very bottom because they wanted it to stand upright on the hill side to advise future expeditions of the land accusation it was intended. NOTE: Early grave stones or many Scandinavian rune stones were supported by the ground alone by placing a portion of the stone below the surface. The carver did not know who was going to read his message, especially the many voices on this site that have no proof the KRS is modern. They must blame Olof and his six witnesses for the big hoax.

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Harold Edwards
3/14/2019 06:16:21 pm

Runes were used in rural areas of Sweden well into the 20th Century. The Kensington Stone inscription is more consistent with these than 14th Century usage in Greenland or Norway. There are hundreds of examples from Greenland and Norway from the 14th Century. A vast trove of them were found in Bergen, Norway. Here are some:

https://www.vikingrune.com/2008/12/runic-love-quotes/

Notice none of them use a "hooked X" for the letter "a."

Recently a runic text was found a few miles from Olof Ohman's boyhood home in Sweden scratched on a board in a farmhouse. The text is Swedish, but you can appreciate the photos:

http://www.k-blogg.se/2019/03/09/kensingtonrunor-i-halsingland/

These even have the "hooked X' like the Kensington Stone!

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Jim
3/14/2019 06:57:40 pm

Google translate does a fair job of translating.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.k-blogg.se%2F2019%2F03%2F09%2Fkensingtonrunor-i-halsingland%2F

Thanks, I was hoping we would hear more from this fellow.

William Smith
3/14/2019 06:58:01 pm

Harold - Thanks for the link and the photos show a hooked x on a board. Now all that needs to be done is prove Olof was doing his same dirty work in Maine on the Spirit pond stones and in Rhode Island on the Naragansant Bay stone. Is it posable that after Olof found the stone and a few years later Holland promoted it in the Kensington area and some of the folks wrote home to show their relatives what has been found and a few scratched these on boards in a building? Has the wood been dated? It sure looks good to the naked eye. Looks like knotty pine that went through a planner.

Harold Edwards
3/14/2019 07:34:46 pm

Wood planers were known in the Middle Ages and before. Here are some from 18th Century Williamsburg:

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/57211/57211-h/57211-h.htm

You should make sure of your facts before you make claims. Once again, you have not bothered to do your homework and acquire the basic facts about history, runes, archaeology, etc. You have not learned the craft of research.

The other stones you refer to copied the runes from the Kensington Stone. Spirit Pond was found in 1971:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_Pond_runestones

I recommend Einar Haugen's "The Rune Stones of Spirit Pond, Maine." He gives an excellent account how a runologist goes about decyphering a runic inscription.

The Naragansant Bay stone was found in 1984:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narragansett_Runestone

Here is a picture:

http://www.independentri.com/independents/ind/north_kingstown/article_59f859ac-dfa7-5a46-8072-1c4e1fc12a52.html

I am getting fed up with people who make stupid claims about fake objects. My duty is not prove they are fake. It is their duty to prove they are genuine.

Why do you think they stones are genuine? Any asshole can carve a runestone. These stones are found by laypeople in no archaeological context. There are no other artifacts or human remains associated with them.

It is a lot of scholarly work to show they are fake. Creating fakes is a form of historical vandalism. Finding them should be viewed with suspicion by the police just like any other crime. I think the people who find them need to be sent to prison unless their story holds up to legal scrutiny.

Kent
3/14/2019 08:09:35 pm

I understand your frustration with William Smith but since finding something is not even a crime jailtime seems a little harsh.

Jim
3/14/2019 08:28:00 pm

William:

" Looks like knotty pine that went through a planner."

Absolutely not ! Going through a planer will give you exactly uniform thickness of the boards.
Look at the first photo, far right side. multiple different thicknesses showing. at best a hand planer which were common in the 19th century.

Harold Edwards
3/14/2019 08:28:48 pm

If the finder actually made it and then lied about it, it then may be a crime. Here are elements of criminal fraud:

1. Misrepresentation of material facts.
2. By someone who knows the material fact is false.
3. With intent to defraud.
4. To a person or entity who justifiably relies on the misrepresentation.
5. Actual injury or damages results from the reliance.

Notice that the defendant does not have to benefit from the fraud himself. His victim has to be damaged. There is a lot to prove here, but in many instances there is considerable damage given the expert analysis needed to prove the fake.

Kent
3/14/2019 09:20:58 pm

If they made it then they didn't find it. But if they found it 1,2,3,4, and 5 go by the wayside.

Harold Edwards
3/14/2019 10:22:42 pm

If you find a dead body, the police start asking questions. I think if you find a runestone or other artifact, the police should start asking questions. I know I am raising the bar here. We are being overwhelmed with bullshit, and something needs to change.

Kent
3/14/2019 11:02:40 pm

Harold, you're all over the map here. You want the police to investigate a non-crime, the finding of a runestone (even the carving of a runestone is not a criime) yet you yourself wrote

"I am getting fed up with people who make stupid claims about fake objects. My duty is not prove they are fake. It is their duty to prove they are genuine."

Harold Edwards
3/14/2019 11:28:23 pm

I do not want the police to investigate a non-crime. I want the legislature to make it a crime. There is a spectrum of behaviors people engage in: 1. A person mistakenly believes in something that is false. 2. A person knowingly believes in something that is false. 3. A person knowingly manufactures evidence to prove something that he knows is false. Number 3 is a crime in certain circumstances. I think this concept should be extended to the manufacture of archaeological fakes. I am asking people to think about the pros and cons of enacting such a law. Think about a person who screams "fire" in a crowed theater. The people panic and then trample others in their efforts to flee the building. In one case the perpetrator is a practical joker. He merely wants to see how the people react and then laugh at the fools who believe him. In another, he is malicious and actually wants the people to harm themselves. Should these perpetrators be treated differently by the law? In the case of archaeological fakes they are.

Kent
3/14/2019 11:49:10 pm

You want to make carving a runestone illegal? That's a hyoooooge First Amendment problem. You still sound like you want to make the simple finding of a runestone a crime when finding a dead body is not. Sorry, I can't go along with that either.

"1. A person mistakenly believes in something that is false. 2. A person knowingly believes in something that is false."

Either person knowingly believes. In case 2 you can't believe in something that you know to be false.

Sorry, I can't join you in your desire to reform the legal system. In my college anthropology class we learned how to make stone tools. Should that be illegal too?

Harold Edwards
3/15/2019 01:05:27 am

Thanks for the correction. I will put aside the notion of self-delusion and concede the point: People may not knowingly believe in things that are false, but they do certainly pretend that things are true when they know them to be false.

I do not want the finding of an artifact to be a crime. I want the pretending to find an artifact when it was in fact manufactured and planted by the finder himself to be a crime. There is a distinction. I want an official inquiry made when such objects are found in the same manner as when a dead body is found. That is more to preserve the facts about the finding early on. There then should be consequences for the fraudster if the artifact is proven to be fake. As you may know, in most jurisdiction lying to an investigator is in itself a felony. Therefore when questioned by an official, the finder of the artifact should tell the truth or else. . .

I will put it another way. I think there should be more serious consequences for liars than we have in our society today. Lying is the entry level offense for virtually all bad behavior. We need to do more to discourage it.

Kent
3/15/2019 01:27:45 am

So many unforeseen consequences. A terrible idea.

A carves a runestone and puts it someplace where B can find it.
B finds the runestone.

Who should go to jail? If you say B you contradict yourself. If you say A you want writing to be a crime.

Harold Edwards
3/15/2019 01:48:55 am

Nobody should go to jail on this information if B is acting in good faith. A is supposedly a party unknown. In most actual fraud cases A is the finder or is found to conspire with B who of course then is not acting in good faith. The practical problem is that in most cases we know who the fraudster is, but there are no legal consequences unless the object is of great value and the victim complains. The fraudster can lie right and left without any consequences. He is under no duty to tell the truth. Compel him to tell the truth or face legal jeopardy.

Kent
3/15/2019 08:04:18 am

Sorry, I can't join you in that. Making writing illegal, compelling speech...

Jim
3/15/2019 09:53:19 am

Kent
Shooting a gun is not illegal.
Shooting a gun and killing someone is illegal.
Writing on a stone is not illegal.
Writing on a stone for the purpose of defrauding someone is, or should be illegal.
Enough with the game of silly buggers.

Kent
3/15/2019 10:20:16 am

Kent
Shooting a gun is not illegal.
- might want to google "ordnance limit"
Shooting a gun and killing someone is illegal.
- that's a rather sweeping statement
Writing on a stone is not illegal.
- depends on the stone
Writing on a stone for the purpose of defrauding someone is, or should be illegal.
- we all have our wishlists, this isn't on mine but I wish you all the luck in the world proving intent.
Enough with the game of silly buggers.
- I don't know what that means.

Joe Scales
3/15/2019 11:17:43 am

"Now all that needs to be done is prove Olof was doing his same dirty work in Maine on the Spirit pond stones and in Rhode Island on the Naragansant Bay stone."

Case in point as to why you're a complete imbecile William. That you could even imagine the above to be logical, or even clever, entitles you to a drool cup to catch the spittle from your crazed pronouncements. But you can't see it, can you? How absolutely mind-boggling stupid you are. How tremendously bereft of intellect this shows. That you have even managed to remain on this planet for the span of your days is a kick in the crotch to Darwin and is aghast to his principles. In that way you are an anomaly. A very, very, very stupid anomaly. A shining beacon of pure ignorance for all those devoid of their own faculties to hail.

Hail Stupid. Hail William, they chant in reverence. He who has no brain.

Jim
3/15/2019 11:21:19 am

"play silly buggers
UK slang:
to behave in a silly, stupid, or annoying way: "

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/play-silly-buggers

I am sure arguing for the sake of argument would be included.

But go ahead, carry on.

Harold Edwards
3/15/2019 11:25:49 am

Thanks for the discussion. I am thinking out loud on these issues, no doubt in my frustration with liars. Free speech is not absolute.
Consider that Minnesota and many other states have deceptive trade practices laws. Here the elements are same as fraud, but the element of intent has been removed. A plaintiff cannot sue under the law merely because he does not like what the defendant is saying. He must prove that the defendant's speech is false. The advantage of this law is that the plaintiff not only recovers any actual damages but also his legal fees and gets injunctive relief, i.e., the court forbids the defendant from repeating his actions and if he does can send him to jail. Another advantage of the law is that plaintiff need not be personally damaged by the defendant to have standing in a case, only that a reasonable person might be deceived by the speech. Thus these suits are often brought by competitors. The Supreme Court has allowed this type of restriction on free speech because it is commercial speech. Perhaps we can extend this notion to any speech that claims to be based on science. Science has the connotation that it is factually provable, so there should be a burden on a defendant making such a claim that he can prove it by a preponderance of the evidence. Of course this would have to survive a U.S. Supreme Court challenge. The Court has already ruled that people may lie under certain circumstances, for instance in falsely claiming that he has won the Congressional Medal of Honor:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Alvarez

Accumulated Wisdom
3/15/2019 12:22:41 pm

Whomever is responsible for the NT, NRS, SPRS, and KRS used knowledge of Ptolemy for their placements. Very complex and time consuming for a hoax.

From my view outside of these discussions, every point of hoax has been countered with historical facts. This now boils down to Geologists, and their ability to accurately date an inscription in stone.

Does high PH soil dissolve, or preserve?

Reply
William Smith
3/15/2019 12:54:46 pm

Accumulated Wisdom - I like your statement as to facts that end up in the end. I am not sure about knowledge of Ptolemy for placement of the NT, NRS, SPRS and KRS, however I am sure the lodestone compass was used in 2 of the 4. I am also sure a Russian TV station with over 1,000,000 viewers will present some of the facts in April. Unlike the USA History Chanel full of unproven speculation to support a Templar bull shit movement the Russians are using proper certified Archaeologist and other academics to make their presentation. I do not feel they have any University of Minn. Geoligest who act as if they had a law degree in their group. Their work will begin with the Mystery Stone of New Hampshire. It will show how it was used as a lodestone in a compass to measure magnetic declination for longitude, It will explain the function of each of the symbols carved on the stone, it will show how the white crystals in the dark granite stone left a signature where the fault line was located that created the stone before it was produced into its function. It will also help prove at least two of the claimed fakes in your group are 550 years old.

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Harold Edwards
3/15/2019 01:19:08 pm

Here is a review of pH and rainwater:

https://water.usgs.gov/edu/ph.html

The acidity of water is controlled by the amount of carbon dioxide dissolved in it. In the soil the carbon dioxide levels are greater than in the air, so rainwater absorbs more carbon dioxide as it passes through the soil and thereby becomes more acidic:

http://www.gly.uga.edu/railsback/Fundamentals/1121WeatheringCO207.pdf

The effect of this is to dissolve calcite rich rocks more quickly in the soil than at the surface:

http://caves.org/conservancy/mkc/about_karst.html

What soil pH tells us is the ability of a soil to neutralize the acid in rainwater. Calcite dissolves in water that has a pH less than 8,4, so the lower the soil pH, the faster the calcite in it will dissolve. Notice that 8.4 is a fairly high pH level for soils. Large amounts of calcite in soils will keep the soil pH at 8.4 until it is completely dissolved away. The glacial tills the underlie much of west central Minnesota contain 10-30% calcite, yet the soils that have developed on top of them contain little or no calcite. The upper level of soil is called the zone of leaching for this reason. Rainwater leaches calcite out of this zone and flows out of the system as ground water.

Reply
William Smith
3/15/2019 01:46:04 pm

Harold - Your laboratory ph and exposure may be good in a lab, however the mechanical evidence states the KRS stood upright for 300 years before the centerline of the stone moved at the top over 1/2 the stone thickness allowing the KRS to start its slow tilting until the face hit the ground. This indicates the KRS face located to the east was shielded somewhat from the rain which comes from the west in Kensington. It also would place the face of the KRS on the ground laying on surface soil that had a slower effect than soil not exposed to rain. It could be the only time your calcite was effected was when the KRS was a barn doorstep. Until you can reproduce the handling of the stone and its placement in different environments over time your calcite information is totally unproven.

Jim
3/15/2019 03:08:34 pm

" from the rain which comes from the west in Kensington."

Is there no end to your nonsense ?

Harold Edwards
3/15/2019 03:26:12 pm

I do not know where you live, but the cemeteries in most of the cities of the United States have marble tombstones. A walk through any cemetery older than 100 years will quickly demonstrate the weathering of calcite:

http://foresthill.williamcronon.net/stones/

I have a Ph.D. in geology and hold a P.G. license in Minnesota. I used to be an expert witness in asbestos litigation. My clients obtained tens of millions of dollars in damages, in part, based on my work I was through my passes by the opposing attorneys. They would not have allowed their clients to pay a dime if I failed in my work. The process for examining an expert witness is called voir dire.

You are glib and arrogant. Now for your voir dire:

When and where did first you see the KRS?

What mechanical evidence do you have that it stood upright for 300 years?

Where did you see that same evidence in other rocks that have known ages of exposure? In other words, how do you know that your supposed measurements have any relevance whatsoever?

How do you know the KRS face was located to the east or any other direction?

You have admitted on this blog that you do not read, so how did you come by all the wonderful knowledge you claim to have? Where and when did you go to school, and what level did you finish? How many geology courses did you take? How many chemistry courses did you take? How many Medieval history courses did you take? How many archaeology courses did you take?

If my memory serves me right, on one of the blogs you commented on, you claimed to have had some engineering training. Virtually all the concepts used in professional engineering were developed in the lab. Did any of that not stick in your brain?

I have cited numerous scientific studies in my comments on this blog. You have cited none. You have complete disdain for any scholarship.

William Smith
3/15/2019 05:03:01 pm

Harold and Jim - Jim - The dominant wind in Kensington Minn. is (http://www.usairnet.com/weather/maps/current/minnesota/wind-direction/).
Harold - You have credentials that make you an overeducated expert in your mind. For what it is worth - none of your bull shit is impressive to me or any one else who has measured and studied the KRS with the glass cover off. The many (60) tomb stone readings were taken at Elliot Cemetery in MO. in a like environment as the KRS. These 60 readings are recorded and show a natural mechanical wear rate of .003 in. per 50 years. The .022 in mechanical wear line on the KRS translates (.022/.003)=7.33 x 50 = 366.50 years before the KRS fell on its face. The soil in Elliot Cemetery according to the Agriculture department of MO. compared to the soil at the KRS site is almost the same with new soil of 1 cm per 100 years.
In simple terms - you have no facts at all that support the poor research of calcite on the KRS. Where is your lab work that simulates the surface calcite where you took a sample and tested it for age? What does your so called legal shit have to do with calcite? If you would spend more time with hands on inspecting the calcite on the KRS you wold have more credibility. Have you ever touched the KRS and if so I am sure you are registered in the museum book of records. I have and they were given my report supporting the authenticity of the KRS. As for my personal education and where I live has nothing to do with the facts of authinticy of the KRS.

Reply
Harold Edwards
3/15/2019 06:08:55 pm

What town or city in Missouri is Elliot Cemetery? There are several cemeteries with that name. It will take me about 15 minutes to get a soil analysis to check your claim that the soil is the same as in Kensington.

What rock type(s) were the tombstones you measured made of and how do you know those facts?

What exactly is a "mechanical wear line?"

How was it created in the tombstones in Elliot Cemetery? Does it occur in tombstones elsewhere?

What other experts use your method? Did they publish their results? Where?

What proof do you have that the KRS ever "fell on its face?" Were you present when that happened?

I personally inspected the KRS twice in 2003 when it was sent to Scott Wolter's lab in St. Paul, Minnesota. At that time I was employed as a geologist by his company, American Petrographic Services. Also at that time I examined his reports and his thin section under a petrographic microscope. I told him then, as I tell you now, the KRS is a fake. Obviously he did not then, and you do not now, believe me. I still have copies of his reports from 2000 and 2003.

I also possess copies of the 2003 and 2008 laser scans. These are virtual artifacts which allow me to view the surface of the KRS in some detail.

I have personally visited cemeteries in the Twin Cities and viewed the conditions of the marble tombstones in them. The Ft. Snelling National Cemetery outside Minneapolis has about 250,000 marble tombstones. Its first interment dates from 1939. It is the policy of the VA to replace the tombstones if they become too weathered. The tombstone for the Medal of Honor winner Captain Mallon who was buried there on July 5, 1939 has been replaced twice. Tombstones there that are only 50 years old show more weathering than the KRS. The Minneapolis Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery had its first interment in 1853. Marble tombstones there dating from the 1879's have half the inscription gone. Too bad I cannot post the photos on this blog!

As you well know, neither Wolter nor myself have confirmed your so-called "mechanical wear line." That is one of the few things about the KRS that Wolter and I are in agreement!

I leave it to others to judge my credibility vs your credibility.

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Jim
3/15/2019 06:51:17 pm

How about this Harold, from your earlier link.

https://i1.wp.com/foresthill.williamcronon.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/IMG_13341.jpg?fit=1199%2C1062

"The City of Madison purchased the 80 acres that would become the core of Forest Hill in January 1857 for $10,000 in bonds."

Madison Wisconsin

http://foresthill.williamcronon.net/history/

So, the tombstone in this photo is from later than 1857, and carvings on it are completely gone.

Harold Edwards
3/15/2019 10:52:03 pm

According to William Smith's book advertised on Amazon, he has a mechanical engineering degree from Perdue University and graduated in 1966.

From information I have in a post he made in 2016 on another blog, his cemetery data was obtained in 2010 at the Elliott Cemetery, one mile east of Dawn, Missouri in Livingston County. Here is a listing of the graves in this cemetery:

http://files.usgwarchives.net/mo/livingston/cemeteries/elliott.txt

Most of the names in his data match graves and dates on this list. Here is a photo of one of the tombstones:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/21339988/mary-anna_catherine-stagner

It is not one of his tombstones, but for a relative of one of his. There are no other photos from this cemetery. Given the coating, probably lichens, it is hard to tell what type of rock makes up this tombstone. What are rocks the other tablets are made from? That is the most import fact.

The soil map of this area can be found on:

https://websoilsurvey.sc.egov.usda.gov/App/WebSoilSurvey.aspx

You will have to plug in the Township-Range numbers for the cemetery from the cemetery website if you want to make your own soil map. The resultant map shows that the pH's for the soils at the surface range from 5.6-7.8. I could not see any cemetery on the satellite image. There is probably a smaller range of pH at the cemetery, but it will be within the above limits. For the Ohman Farm in Kensington these range from 6.1-8.4.

The soils in Missouri develop on areas of glacial till and a shale-limestone bedrock. The soils in Kensington develop on glacial till.

Unless a tombstone is buried, the soil pH has little relevance. Here is the climate data for Chilicothe, Missouri, the county seat: Average annual temperature is 53.9 degrees and average precipitation is 40.86 inches rain and 16 inches snow:

https://www.usclimatedata.com/climate/chillicothe/missouri/united-states/usmo0173

For Alexandria, Minnesota, the county seat of Douglas County which contains Kensington these values are for the temperature, 42.25 degrees and for precipitation 25.12 inches rain and 43 inches snow.

https://www.usclimatedata.com/climate/alexandria/minnesota/united-states/usmn0017

Typically there are about 12 inches of snow to an inch of rain so for Missouri the precipitation is about 42 inches. For Minnesota this is 28 inches. The more precipitation, the faster calcite weathers. On the other hand, the cooler the temperature, the faster calcite weathers. One would have to use a computer program to work it all out. I suspect the two effects more-or-less cancel out in the two areas.

Mr. Ohman's tombstone is made of granite. What does a wear line in granite have to do with one in calcite or graywacke? Do you think these stones all weather at the same rate? Where did you get that information?

Mr. Smith has still not answered my questions.

Jim
3/15/2019 06:24:38 pm

Excellent William, you cited a source,,,first time?
Unfortunately, citing the wind direction at one point in time proves nothing.
Did you know that in Minnesota at one in the morning it is dark, proving the sun never shines in Minnesota and it is always dark?
And when it is dark you cannot see a loadstone compass so no one has ever been able to figured out which direction the rain blows.

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Harold Edwards
3/15/2019 06:40:55 pm

Others have called your "mechanical wear line" a "ground line." Here is a discussion on its nonexistence:

http://www.kensingtonrunestone.us/html/_current_issues.html

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William Smith
3/15/2019 09:09:56 pm

Harold - I did not realize you were basing your facts on 2008 data. For your information I worked with Dick Neilson and have copies of all his papers and together after I confirmed the mechanical wear line existed and it reached a depth of .022 in. On the right side of the stone you can see the wear line gets wider at the back of the stone. If you understood math you could measure the angle of this taper and compare it to the angle of tilt needed to allow the stone to become top heavy on the down hill side and fall on its face. After Dick was aware that the confirmed measurement was physical evidence that proved Wolter theory wrong in that he stated the carver buried the stone after carving. The measurements you youse to indicate their is no wear line do not cover the area in question as I told you before the laser scan is only good between the zero pads placed on the stone. Their was never any zero pads placed below the wear line in your out of date references. Scott Wolter has stated three times to me their is no wear line. He is in the same boat you are because he did not show any gaging process to show how he measured it. He only stated he has viewed the stone under microscope to support his claim of no line. This also supports his theory that the carver buried the stone after it was cut. What disturbs me is you admit that you were involved with Wolter when he made mold castings of the KRS without using mold release to protect the surface of the stone. If I recall the experts in Europe refused to study the stone due to the surface condition. If you go to Olof cemetery and measure the wear line on his tomb stone (actually their is two) one on the tomb stone where it sits on the base and one at the ground level where it has rocked in the frozen ground for about 60 years now. The ground line is .003 in.
Jim - The link I sent you has a map that shows (THE PREDOMINATE WINDS) not a fix in time.
I suggest you both practice on updating your research rather than trying to apply 10 year old out of date material to support your case. Their may just be some people on this site that can understand the lodestone compass and magnetic declination used in 1362 and 1472 to place the west boundary of Vinland and record this placement in chapter 3 of the 1494 treaty between Spain and Portugal. The triangle stone holes around the KRS are not for securing boats, they are for gathering magnetite to load into the lodestone compass and confirm the placement of the KRS is located on the zero declination line when it was carved and placed at this hill near Kensington.

Jim
3/15/2019 09:30:58 pm

William:

"Jim - The link I sent you has a map that shows (THE PREDOMINATE WINDS) not a fix in time. "

No it does not !

http://www.usairnet.com/weather/maps/current/minnesota/wind-direction/

"Current Wind Direction Map for Minnesota"

You seem powerful confused, maybe take a nap or adjust your meds ?

William Smith
3/15/2019 09:52:46 pm

Jim - Their is a box to the left in the link which will change the time over the last 24 hours. This link will explain why the KRS site near the 45 degrees has a dominate west to east wind. All areas between the 30 degree north and 60 degree north have a dominate west to east wind. https://www.weather.gov/source/zhu/ZHU_Training_Page/winds/Wx_Terms/Flight_Environment.htm

Kent
3/15/2019 10:02:49 pm

Someone who writes on a rock is engaged in neither commerce nor science.
Someone who finds a rock and speaks about it is engaged in neither commerce nor science.

Again I fear that you are letting your heart overrule your head.

Kent
3/15/2019 10:11:14 pm

William,

I have read enough of your old posts to know that measured the 1/50" "wearline" with a credit card. What technology did you use to measure the 1/300" "wearline"?

Jim
3/15/2019 11:11:56 pm

William:

"Their is a box to the left in the link which will change the time over the last 24 hours."

Nope, sorry, wrong again. It is a forecast map, it does not say squat about the last 24 hours.

" This link will explain why the KRS site near the 45 degrees has a dominate west to east wind."

It does not say dominate (I can only hope you know the dif. between dominate and dominant) it says prevailing westerlies. There is a difference. It does not matter anyway, as this was your original claim

"This indicates the KRS face located to the east was shielded somewhat from the rain which comes from the west in Kensington."

You have basically stated that it only rains when there is a west wind in Mn., and that is pure bullshit !
At any rate I am done correcting your mistakes, I just can't keep up.

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William Smith
3/15/2019 11:35:37 pm

Kent - I will attempt to answer your question without showing the photos of the process. The technology to measure the 1/300 "wear line is a dial indicator that reads .0001 in. It has a I/8 inch diameter plunger with a rounded head. The gage is mounted to a foot plate that is 1/2 in. wide and 1 in long. The plunger tip penetrates the foot plate. The gage assembly is placed on a flat surface with the flat foot and plunger pressed against the surface to allow the dial to be set to zero.
After the assembly is mastered to zero it is placed over the area to be read with the longest length of the foot in a north south direction. The assembly is moved up or down to find the max. reading from zero. At this point the assembly is moved east west to follow the wear line. The wear line will show a depth reading in all east west measurements. The least reading is recorded for all areas measured on the stone. Note: many stones of different material (Granit or sandstone) have been measured with no correlation to type of stone. Before reading the wear line you will need to remove about 2 inches around the stone to assure you have vertical and horrozantal movement at the wear line. Of most important is to provide the care taker a letter of intent before disturbing the grave markers. Also confirm the grave stones are not trimmed with a grass trimmer which may distort or fabricate a false reading. The readings recorded are a- date of grave, b- type of stone, c- the smallest reading across the face of the stone as you move and observe the dial over the wear line.
The Datta from each stone is plotted onto a goes into sheet as a point with the vertical representing date marked on grave stone and measurement on the horizontal that is the reading of depth. After 60 readings are plotted, draw a line from the zero at the lower left to the upper right allowing 30 points below and 30 above. This will give you a standard to apply to wear line depth when a date is not available on the stone. Note: I do not feel the KRS was carved in 1362. I say this because the .022 in. represents 350 years max the stone stood upright, if it was buried in tree roots for 50 years and add 122 years to the date it was removed, you only get (350 stone standing+50stone in ground+122 stone out of ground= 522 years) This places the KRS carving at 1486. Very close to the carbon 3 motor dates from the Newport Tower. Very close to when the Kensington was on the zero magnetic declination pole line, The finding location of the KRS is supported by many triangle holes around the hill, 65 miles west of Kensington is another cluster of triangle holes and this western location was zero magnetic declination in 1362. The town in Mo. where Elliot Cemetery is located is Dawn Mo. It is an abandon cemetery, however permission to measure stones and locate the location on private land can be obtained at the county seat. The land owner will take you across two fields and into a woods where it is located. You will see a grave with wrought iron and a small flat red stone that has J.S. (that is John Smith my great grandfathers grave site) where he was buried in 1870.

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Harold Edwards
3/16/2019 12:19:56 am

What are "carbon 3 motor" dates? I didn't have any of those dates when I was in high school. Sorry, I can no longer keep a straight face. Let's see now. , , You have changed the date of the KRS from 1362 as presented in its inscription to 1462. It's magic! And the Newport Tower. It was constructed in the 1600's! There is historical and archaeological proof of that. The mortar has been dated to the 1600's using Carbon-14 dating. I am waiting for Conan the Barbarian to show us the real truth. I know it is late Friday night, and you have sucking on too many Jack Daniel's, but give us a break. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, Good night, William.

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Accumulated Wisdom
3/16/2019 05:06:02 am

Harold Edwards,

Thank you for explaining PH. I believe, I have gained a better understanding of both sides of the argument.

I think, I had a "carbon 3 motor date". When she arrived, she asked why, I lived with my Mom, not the dorms. When, I told her, I was 16...She floored it! She asked me out at a college party. My age had never come up.
Funny now, devastating at the time.

Kent
3/16/2019 01:20:35 am

William,

What role does the credit card play in this process, or is the credit card story no longer operational?

What is the name of this device?

What are the effects of a surface that is not flat to a tolerance of 1/1000" on the accuracy of its measurement?

Where can I buy one?

Are you saying you "remove[d] about 2 inches around" the KRS?

Absent any written record how do you know the magnetic declination of *any* location in 1362?

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William Smith
3/16/2019 09:56:48 am

Kent - When we were making a 3D computer program for the museum the KRS was removed from its table and placed on an indexing table. Mr Dick Neilson ask me to look at the ground line to see if it had any discolor like photos before molding replicas were made in Scott Wolter lab. The first flat edge was a clear plastic protractor, however this did not work for two reasons. 1- the flat was about 6 inches long and the clear plastic did not allow clear vision of light under the edge. Matt Smith a coworker and owner of the 3D photo business indicated a credit card would likely work better than the protractor. The short straight edge of the credit card was about 3 times the width of the wear line band and allowed light from a flash light to show the wear line as the card was moved from one side of the stone to the other. The only accurate measuring tool we had to measure the light shown between the stone face and the credit card edge was a hand held OD micrometer that measures to a .0001 in. scale. This tool would only measure diameters and in order to get a measurement we placed a round tampered toothpick between the stone and the flat edge of the card allowing the toothpick to be inserted to a point where the tooth pick made contact with the card and stone. This point of contact on the toothpick was measured with the micrometer to establish the diameter of the toothpick at that point which is also the distance between the card and stone. This process is fine, however it has variables that must be controlled (1- card flatness, 2- toothpick wear and 3 - using a OD micrometer to measure the tapper point on a toothpick.) These variables can be eliminated by using a standard depth micrometer with a scale of 1/1000 or using a dial indicator depth micrometer with a round plunger.
A wear line on a non flat surface can be measured and confirmed by taking multiple readings on that wear line across the stone which will measure the wear at different locations without showing any reading on that line as zero. ! reading or 100 on the wear line will provide an average which can be used as a standard to date any stone that was placed into the ground by man. Their is even a wear line on the foundation of your home if you have a stone foundation.
No I did not say about 2 inches of soil around the KRS was removed. I stated that about 2 inches of soil would require removal around any grave stone to insure the lower portion of the flatness gage whether it be a credit card and toothpick or other would allow proper position of the tool. This should be included and approved in your letter of intent.
The magnetic declination isometric lines have an average drift at the 46 degree latitude of about 50 miles to the east every 100 years. Note: I said average because the magnetic line is isometric and can have dramatic changes at any time, however over long time periods they tend to show more consistent movement. The zero magnetic declination line that was in Kensington 500 years ago is now near Nashville Tennessee. In 500 years it will be another 250 miles east of its current position.
I did not say the KRS was carved in 1362, I stated it was carved in 1472 because of other supporting information that identifies the location of the west boundary of Vinland. This does not exclude a 1362 expedition to a location 65 miles west of Kensington and a stone circle in Northern Minn. as well as the Heavens Oklahoma rune stone which all are on the 1362 zero magnetic declination line.

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William Smith
3/16/2019 10:21:44 am

Harold - Your credibility is judged by the name calling and old resources you state are factual. You refer to the 2 3D scanning process made that did not cover the area of the wear line on the KRS.
Your reference to calcite and ph does not apply to the KRS as you have not replicated the environment of the KRS and its changing over time. The H that Holland made is almost as bright as it was 100 years ago as well as the surfaces cleaned with a nail at the same time, however the sides of the carved runes is dark as pointed out by SW.
In the 1st History Chanel show when SW was ask why the green cast on the KRS. He stated on TV that that was surface compound only from the process in his lab when castings were made of the stone and a core sample removed from the back.
At least SW stated the surface texture will go away over time admitting this change which has and will effect any future testing of surface patina for accurate dating. The Europeans recognized this and were reluctant to make any prediction.
Now that you admit being part of this activity in SW's lab it is very hard to see who is at fault. The museum, you or SW. In my opinion all were at fault. The museum because they trusted you and SW to protect the stone. I would expect them to have a letter of intent that explains you are going to make castings and leave a film on the stone as well as take a core sample from the back.
SW because he did not use mold release which may have protected the stone surface. At least he admitted the cause of the surface change>
You - because you were trusted to assure the stone was not contaminated. In my opinion you are the only one today that has a motive to call the KRS a fake, however I am not convinced by your outdated information you call research.

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Kent
3/16/2019 10:46:25 am

William,

Please repost your two posts above in a readable format.

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Joe Scales
3/16/2019 10:55:28 am

Yeah, this is too painful. Seeing William get his ass handed to him over and over again, yet he still goes on with the same nonsense. He's simply too stupid to realize it. Hence a whole lotta wasted bandwidth here.

In a way I feel sorry for poor William. He's old. And he's wasted his life on propagating sheer poppycock. That's why he's here basically arguing with himself. His last stand, so to speak, before he sheds his mortal coil.

Do not go gently in the night William. Mechanical Wear Line!

Reply
Harold Edwards
3/16/2019 02:29:51 pm

What evidence do you have that I was ever involved in any making of any casts of the KRS in 2003? As best I know that was done before the artifact was delivered to the American Petrographic Service's lab. I have no personal knowledge about how, when, why, or what Mr. Wolter told the Runestone Museum Foundation. Here is a copy of Dr. Weiblen's 2008 report to the Runestone Museum Foundation on what happened:

https://websites.godaddy.com/blob/65151a46-8ee3-453c-83d3-7b1077c69c9e/downloads/1bjjqskll_883107.pdf?fb4c336b

The Runestone Museum Foundation could have taken legal action on this back in 2003 when it first happened. For whatever reason, it did not. Perhaps there was no wrong doing. There is a six year statute of limitations on torts in Minnesota so in 2008 the Foundation could have still taken legal action after it receive Dr. Weiblen's report. It did not. The KRS was insured for $1,000,000 in 2003 when it was sent to Sweden. Mr. Wolter was an employee of American Petrographic Services then, and the company had liability insurance. It had the deep pockets to pay for any damage if Wolter was responsible. Yet the Foundation took no action. Maybe there was no wrong doing. You do not have your facts straight.

In 2003 I did no testing on the artifact itself. I had no permission to do so. All I did was photograph it on my lunch hour. My duties for American Petrographic Services did not involve the KRS. I had no duty then, now, or ever to the Runestone Museum Foundation over anything including the KRS. Any letter of intent possessed by the Foundation was never signed by me or even mentions me. If you have proof to the contrary put up or shut up.

I did have discussions with Mr. Wolter and Dr. Nielsen about Mr. Wolter's pending paper that he eventually read in Stockholm in 2003. I did observe the calcite layer in its pristine unweathered condition. I did a calculation on the weathering rate of calcite using solubility data from the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics. This indicated that the inscription would weather away in about 200 years. I told Mr. Wolter about this at the time. I have better calculations today, but they have not changed my opinion. The weathering rate of calcite is extensively studied, especially given the intense interest in the rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. The more carbon dioxide in the air, the faster calcite weathers. There are thousands of papers on this issue. You might try to read one or two. This artifact is a fake.

You obviously know nothing about the 3-D scans. They cover the whole artifact including the area you claim to have measured in 2010. The horizontal resolution on the 2008 scan is 55 micrometers and the vertical resolution is plus or minus 12 micrometers. The vertical resolution you claim for your measurements are 0.0001 inches--25 micrometers. This is not as good as the 3-D scan. Once again you do not have your facts straight. There is no "mechanical wear line" on the KRS.

There is no evidence of any cleaning with a nail on the KRS. This was a story fabricated by Hjalmar Holand in 1910 to explain the fresh appearance of the runes. Winchell the Society's archaeologist found no scratches on the KRS in 1910. He discussed this issue on page 234 of his “The Kensington Rune Stone Preliminary Report.” He found white powder and iron fragments in some of the runes on the side. This is consistent with stone stunning or bruising with an steel chisel. Stunning happens when strong hammer blows are delivered to a vertically held chisel. It indicates that the carver was not an expert. Experts avoid stunning the stone since it disfigures the area around the letters. Fresh iron fragments indicate that the carving was done in 1898. If it was done in 1362, they would have rusted away. The KRS is a fake.

How you get a date of 1472 is beyond understanding. You must have read it on the slip from a Chinese fortune cookie.

Reply
William Smith
3/16/2019 03:27:53 pm

Harold - Your statement on 3/15/2019 (I personally inspected the KRS twice in 2003 when it was sent to Scott Wolter's lab in St. Paul, Minnesota. At that time I was employed as a geologist by his company, American Petrographic Services. Also at that time I examined his reports and his thin section under a petrographic microscope. I told him then, as I tell you now, the KRS is a fake. Obviously he did not then, and you do not now, believe me. I still have copies of his reports from 2000 and 2003.)
Your last statement on 3/16/2019 (What evidence do you have that I was ever involved in any making of any casts of the KRS in 2003? As best I know that was done before the artifact was delivered to the American Petrographic Service's lab. I have no personal knowledge about how, when, why, or what Mr. Wolter told the Runestone Museum Foundation. Here is a copy of Dr. Weiblen's 2008 report to the Runestone Museum Foundation on what happened:)

If you did not study the KRS until after the film was introduced by making a cast before it came to your office of employment, how did you work through the thin dark layer to study the calcite and state the KRS is fake because of your study. I read Weiblens 2008 report and in summary he stated no proof of the stones age can be determined with technology of today because of the damage to the surface.

I am done with correspondence between you and I on this subject because as I stated before, your research is out of date and the 3D scanning processes you say measured the wear line did not.

Harold Edwards
3/16/2019 04:21:46 pm

How would any film change my opinion? I had and have access to color photos of the KRS prior to the staining.

Calcite weathers in three stages: The first stage is the development of a sandy appearance on the surface. This is called granular weathering and is a well-known phenomenon. Marble tombstones less than 50 years old show this on previously polished surfaces. Granular weathering appears all over the calcite layer of the KRS but not on the surface of the runes. These then are less than 50 years old. The second stage is the rounding of the edges and bottoms of the letters. On the KRS there is no rounding of these features. They are as sharp as the day they were carved. The third stage is the loss of material from the surface as the edges and bottoms become more and more rounded until all that is left are shallow depressions shaped like the bowl of a spoon. At this point the letters are no longer legible. This should happen in about 200 years in the Kensington area. Obviously the KRS has not weathered to this extent.

Here is what Dr. Weiblen wrote in his letter: "I am of the same mind as Winchell who concluded that study of physical aspects of the KRS will probably not contribute much to establishing the authenticity of the runes. That is not to say that the ever-increasing sophistication of modern analytical techniques might someday
definitively establish the time and manner in which the runes were carved, but from my experience and perspective that time is not now and may never be reached. This hinges on the fact that the rock weathering process involves such a wide variety of parameters that
experimental data on rates of weathering from experiments cannot readily constrain interpretations of natural weathering processes."

With all due respect, I do not agree. I stand by my work. Furthermore the above analysis of calcite weathering is not based on experiments but on the direct observation and measurement of a large number of weathered calcite-rich rocks such as marble tombstones, not just by myself, but by dozens of other scientists. I have cited one of the most important of these studies: Thomas Meierding's 1993, “Inscription Legibility Method for Estimating Rock Weathering Rates,” Geomorphology, vol 6., pp. 273-286. You obviously did not bother to read it. It is easily found on line. Use Google Scholar. Meierding in turn cites a number of other studies. In fact the first paper that mentions the rate of the weathering of calcite is Archibald Geikie's 1880 “Rock-Weathering as Illustrated in Edinburgh Churchyards,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol X, pp. 518-532 and Plate X following page 781. This is the first extensive review of rock weathering in the English language and still stands up to scrutiny today. You can download a copy on the web. In his paper on page 518, Geikie referred to the experiments of a Professor Pfaff of Erlangen, Germany, who found that Solenhofen limestone weathered at a rate of 0.04mm in three years. This is a rate of 13.3 mm / 1000 years. Pfaff published his work in 1873. Pfaff’s results are amazingly consistent with modern work. Not only does Geikie discuss the weathering of marble, but he describes the weathering of sandstones which are especially vulnerable to splitting apart when their bedding planes are vertical to the ground as the KRS would be if it were erected like a tombstone. Graywackes are a variety of sandstone. The KRS shows none of that. It should have lost part of its inscription along the diagonal step that is on the front face.

Let me point out that your work also was done after the stone was stained. You made your measurements in 2010 and the KRS was stained in 2003. Based on that, you claim the stone is 300 years old. You also do not agree with Dr. Weiblen.

Harold Edwards
3/16/2019 04:36:27 pm

Let me point out to the others that the front surface of the KRS has a fibrous undulating appearance:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kensington-runestone_flom-1910.jpg

This feature is called parting or current lineations:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parting_lineation

These are common in river and beach sands and are often preserved in sandstones.

What the hell did Mr. Smith measure in 2010? He would have had to take into account this irregular surface.

Jim
3/16/2019 05:48:17 pm

"What the hell did Mr. Smith measure in 2010?"

I think it was a toothpick.

Doc Rock
3/16/2019 03:20:07 pm

The claim that the Kensington Stone stood for 300+ years after it was erected sounds fishy. As its narrative seems to indicate there was a violent confrontation with Native Americans at the time. That area was historically the stomping grounds of folks like the Sioux and Chippewa. I think the French were poking around that area by the late 17th century.

If the stone was placed to be a highly visible claim or boundary marker then anybody wandering thru the area would have seen it and likely word about it would have spread. Seems like somebody would have knocked it over much sooner than 300+ years after erection and/or people passing thru the area or living right there would have repeatedly marked it up with some of their own versions of graffiti.

Just the kind of activities that one might expect to find in association with the stone that one doesn't.

Reply
William Smith
3/16/2019 03:52:19 pm

DOC ROCK - I agree with your statement that it does seem odd a stone made to stand on a hill could do this for enough time to establish a wear line that indicates it would take 300 years to form. You would think a deer on Bison would rub against it.
The first realization that the stone was cut to stand upright is the concave bottom which has what seems to be rough tool marks. The second is the lack of letters on the front and side when additional surface was available on the face.
A support for its standing over time and slowly tilting may be on the wear line on the sides of the stone.You can see the dark tapper line on the right side that is wider at the back of the stone than at the front.
The big unknown is at what angle was the stone placed in reference to the slope of the hill. I only say this because when setting wooden fence post it was common to tilt the top into the wind so it would aid in the life of the standing fence.
In summary your guess is good as mine how the KRS could stand the work of time. I do not feel any stone carver would construct the KRS to be buried when completed.
I also note from earlier discussion on this subject that the story on the stone gives a lot of detail but does not specifically indicate the author or what name he was working for.

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Billy Smithereens
3/16/2019 04:01:21 pm

" I only say this because when setting wooden fence post it was common to tilt the top into the wind so it would aid in the life of the standing fence. "

In really windy areas they just lay the fence on the ground.

Accumulated Wisdom
3/16/2019 04:59:16 pm

I am surprised LaVerendrye party hasn't been accused of urinating on the stone before toppling it over.

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Doc Rock
3/16/2019 05:23:28 pm

If the stone had actually been put up in 1362 I suspect that the Lakota or some such group would have beat La Verendryre to the punch by about 350 years. If you have just kicked the enemy's ass then I doubt you are inclined to let them leave a standing monument on your own home turf. More likely you piss on it, hack on it quite a bit, and then knock it over (although not necessarily in that order) about two minutes after they are out of sight.

William Smith
3/17/2019 07:49:54 am

Harold - For a person that states the KRS is a fake because of your study of the calcite as an expert on the KRS is based on your lunch hour photos is amazing.
The first question ask would be (Was their glass between your camera and the stone when you took your photos?)
The second question ask would be did your close up photos use the camera zoom and are these the real mcCoy?
It is obvious you do your research on opinions of others that make reports by cherrypicking what you want. You even admit you have no knowledge of the five W's. so you pick Olof Oman. as The Who. I may disagree with SW, however his research shows he is a lot closer to the subject than you are.

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Jim
3/17/2019 10:29:23 am

William:
Most of that seems like the incoherent mutterings of someone who just had their ass handed to them.

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Joe Scales
3/17/2019 11:38:00 am

And here it was Jim that I thought William was trying his hand at comedy. I mean... Scott Wolter's "research"??? Scott Wolter lies. Scott Wolter willfully takes source material out of context. Scott Wolter falsifies data. That's his "research", and if you believe him... ya gotta be pretty stupid. Really, really stupid. His very language is non sequitur.

Jim
3/17/2019 01:23:35 pm

Scotty sends forth his imbecilic sycophants to argue his case knowing full well they well they will be completely embarrassed.
The man-coward will not face his critics. He hides in his personal propaganda blog, never daring to engage in a fair discussion.
Now that his fraudulent expertise in geology has been exposed he has zero backing from any competent scientist or academic.
He had a chance to argue his case in Andy Whites class, but didn't have the stones to face even a handful of students.
Not that William is a Wolter sycophant, fact of the matter is Wolter's idiocies almost seems halfway reasonable when compared to Williams nonsense.

Harold Edwards
3/17/2019 10:47:32 am

The KRS was placed on a table with casters. It was photographed with the face up, it was flipped over, and it was then photographed with the back up. I could walk around it and photograph all the sides. I could touch the artifact and use a plastic ruler to make measurements.

The inscription was meticulously laid out. The long strokes of the runes are one standard U.S. inch in length. Scandianvian standard inches were shorter and not adopted until 1541 for Denmark and Norway and 1665 for Sweden. What is the likelihood that Norse in 1362 would use a U.S. standard inch? The Kensington Stone is a fake.

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Jim
3/17/2019 11:36:44 am

"The first question ask would be (Was their glass between your camera and the stone when you took your photos?)"

All cameras shoot through multiple layers of glass, it's called a lens. Often one adds a uv or skylight glass filter as a measure to protect the delicate coatings on the lens which can be damaged by even the acid left in a fingerprint.
Taking a photo through a pane of glass is not a problem if one knows what one is about and the glass is of reasonably quality.

" The second question ask would be did your close up photos use the camera zoom "

Only cheap cameras have "camera zoom" , this is merely a digital enlargement feature that has zero bearing on the quality of the photo.
Optical zoom involves movement of the various glass components of the lens. It also has little effect on the quality of the photo. With some possible barrel distortion mostly in the extreme corners of the photo. These distortions can be removed with a small amount of cropping.
If bellows are used, they are not actually zooming the lens but used to create a macro focus on the subject

Your questions, and your use of the term "camera zoom" tell me you are not knowledgeable at all about any aspect of photography and use only cheap crappy equipment.

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Harold Edwards
3/17/2019 01:23:33 pm

Here are three papers in English on the the language and runes used in the KRS. They are at different times by academic experts in the language and runes. All declare that the text is a fake.

In 1910 George Flom Professor of Scandinavian Languages at the University of Illinois published his study. He went to Kensington and interviewed Mr. Ohman and others:

https://archive.org/details/kensingtonrunest00flom/page/n4

In 1952 Erik Moltke, runologist at the Danish National Museum published his study after the Hedberg letter resurfaced:

https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1050&context=bmas

In 2012 Henrik Williams at Uppsala University published his study after the Larsson brothers 19th Century letters were discovered. These had the same style of runes as used in the KRS:

http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:543322/FULLTEXT01.pdf

I will leave you with one final thought: I am not God's gift to geology, but if your child's life depended on a geology matter, who would you trust? Mr. Smith or me? It is now in your hands. You decide.

Harold Edwards
3/17/2019 12:25:28 pm

In late 1898 Olof Ohman visited John Hedberg at Hedberg's office in Kensington. Hedberg was the Chaiirman of the Kensington Village Council, effectively the mayor of Kensington. He was a real estate agent, a money lender and sold hardware and lumber. His office was in the hardware story just north of the Soo Line railroad tracks that cut through the town. Hedberg was also an agent for the Swedish language newspaper, the Svenska Amerikanska Posten, published in Minneapolis. He was a friend of the newspaper's editor Swan Turnblad. Mr. Ohman made much of his living from his construction business, building houses, shops, barns, etc. around the area. He had been trained as a carpenter in Sweden before he immigrated to the U.S. He invested in real estate and he was a subscriber to the Svenska Amerikanska Posten. Therefore there would be several good reasons for him to visit Hedberg.

Mr. Ohman told Hedberg that he had dug up a stone with strange writing on it. Hedberg told him to bring it in to Kensington which is about 3 miles from Ohman's farm. Instead Ohman brought Hedberg a piece of paper with what he purported was the text on the stone. On January 1, 1899 wrote Swan Turnblad about all this and enclosed a pencil copy he had made of the text, Here is Hedberg's letter:

http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00513/pdf/00513-00005.pdf

Here is his pencil copy:

http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00513/pdf/00513-00006.pdf

The Svenksa Amerikanska Posten published an account of some of this on February 28, 1899. Here is a copy:

https://newspapers3.mnhs.org/jsp/viewer.jsp?doc_id=mnhi0013%2F1DFYI159%2F99022801&query1=&recoffset=0&collection_filter=All&collection_name=ec7bd053-c40e-4e6a-9b9c-a0649ee6181e&sort_col=relevance&cnt=2&CurSearchNum=4&recOffset=0

Later in January of 1899 Olof Ohman wrote Northwestern University about his discovery which he claimed was during that past November. He enclosed a tracing he made of the document he had shown Hedberg. Engravings of the tracing Ohman sent to Northwestern were published in the Chicago newspapers in late February of 1899. (These engravings are not the same as the one published in the Svenska Amerikanska Posten.) The runes and text on the Chicago engravings are identical to Hedberg's copy. However they differ from those on the Kensington Stone itself. The document that Ohman showed Hedberg and also made a tracing from was the rough draft that he had used to carve the runestone. Here is an analysis of this by Dr. Birgitta Wallace using Hedberg's copy:

https://www.wastekeep.org/documents/Viking%20Heritage%20Magazine/2003%20-%2004%20Magazine.pdf

The fact that Ohman possessed a rough draft to the text on the stone is independent proof that the Kensington Stone is a fake.

Dr. Wallace, now retired, was the archaeologist in charge of the site at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland. That site was the subject of the first episode of the America's Lost Vikings series.

I told the researchers for this series to get in touch with Dr. Wallace, especially since she had written several papers on the Kensington Stone. Evidently they did not take my advice.

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Harold Edwards
3/17/2019 01:46:57 pm

Let me mention the Gran tapes: Walter Gran a boyhood friend of Ohman's sons was taped in 1967 by his nephew. His sister Josephine was present. Gran gave an account that his father had helped carve the Kensington Stone. His sister who was 18 years old in 1898. She corroborated Walter's account. Here is a partial transcript:

http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/45/v45i04p152-156.pdf

Erik Wahlgren was researching the Kensington Stone in 1953 and one of the residents told him that one of Ohman's sons got drunk at a picnic and complained about how hard it was to turn the grinding stone to sharpen the chisels when he helped his father. Oman's oldest sons were Olof Jr 11, Edward 10, and Arthur 7 in 1898. Here is Wahlgren's account:

http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/45/v45i05p195-199.pdf

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William Smith
3/17/2019 03:31:09 pm

Harold - Thanks for the link to the tapes. The tapes are 60 years after the carving and consist of conversation about 27 years after. Of the material used to make statements about something remembered years in the past is way above my ability, however a few points of interest. Any son of a carpenter would turn the grinding wheel to keep wood chisels sharp. A son of a stone cutter would sharpen a pointed rod to make a mark in stone.
Because a left handed carpenter and a right handed one worked together they are the stone culprits? Who and how did the factual proof a left handed and right handed person carved the stone?
My process for evaluating the different hands statement on the carving of the KRS is as follows.
1 - Print the word (FOX)
2 - Determine which line in the X was made 1st.
Results - If the left line in the X was the first line then you are right handed, if the right line is first you are left handed.
The KRS has 22 hooked X's, all indicate the carver was right handed. It will take a microscope to look at the intersection of the X to see the right line is cutting the left line.
For what it is worth all other rune stones in America with a hooked X were carved by a right handed carver.

Jim
3/17/2019 03:49:36 pm

"A son of a stone cutter would sharpen a pointed rod to make a mark in stone."

This sounds rather silly, are you saying that your alleged Norse carvers used only a pointed chisel/rod ?

Kent
3/17/2019 04:29:46 pm

"The tapes are 60 years after the carving"

Yes, that is true. You got something right.

It bears mentioning that Birgitta Wallace is on the outs with Wolter because she disagreed with some of his nonsense.

Jim
3/17/2019 05:30:13 pm

Birgitta Wallace or Alice Kehoe ? Maybe both,lol.
I know he had Alice Kehoe bamboozled early on, but she became wise to his lies soon enough.

Kent
3/17/2019 06:24:16 pm

Wallace too. It reflects well on her.

Kent
3/17/2019 07:47:22 pm

"Scott Wolter November 25, 2018 at 6:58 AM
Cindy,

Birgitta may have been playing the point up a bit as she has always had angst toward me with regard to my work on the Kensington Rune Stone. She tipped her hand during the trip when I bought a copy of her latest book and asked her to sign it. The inscription reads, "To Scott, now you can read about a REAL Viking site."

Oh well..."

Doc Rock
3/19/2019 01:25:25 pm

Kent,

Wallace is a legitimate pro and a good reputation in the relevant field so naturally she is going to be on the outs with Wolter.

Very few pros agree with the authenticity of the Kensington Stone as just an OOPA and none that I know of buy into the whole Templar spin that Wolter puts on it.

The more accurate description would be that Wolter is on the outs with archaeologists in general because the vast majority of them see him as pond scum.



William Smith
3/17/2019 02:35:32 pm

In that you all seem to post your support for Harold and his expert research showing the KRS is fake and Scott Wolter or anyone else has no information or equal knowledge of the subject. I will leave you with this summary which may show my position on the subject.
First - My filming of the KRS was to establish a process the stone could be studied by students that in many cases would not have the $500 to remove the glass and handle the stone. To do this a professional photographer who makes 3D photo images for classroom work was hired for the filming.
Second - Harold - your resources you shared with the group of the Olman drawing and the letter opened just fine, however does not prove anything that the Ohman tracing was before the stone was cut. The additional reference opens a St Cloud Journal dating 1872. I can not connect the dates, however I will give you the benefit of the resource because the second two lines will not open. From what I can open of your link indicates Ohman must of told the newspaper of his plan 25 years before he carved the stone.

The facts that exist on the 12 Rune Stones in the Americas are as follows.
1- Kensington Rune Stone (FAKE by Harold)
2- La Verendrye !730s Lake of the woods area Can. Lost by the French in France.
3,4,5 &6 - 3,4 &5 Spirit Pond stones In Maine (Under Review for translation) Stone 6 translated (5 months to Vinland 1010)
7 Naragansett Bay Rune stone (Under review for translation and saved from rising tide water in Atlantic which supports older date of stone due to water rise in the area of 1 foot / 100 years)
8 - Roseo Rune Stone - Found in Lake of the Woods area (Planned for review) was lost for many years and reported as destroyed by acid cleaning at the University of Minn. Found and recovered with no sign of destruction by acid in a box of material left at the University of Minn.
9, 10 &11 Stone 9&10 (Not translated in a museum in northern Oklahoma. Stone 11 The Heavener Oklahoma stone, translated and dated using approved technology (1362). Data and information submitted to Parks department to record with state.
12 - Kansas City Slater rune stone - Dated after 1888 and recorded with the state as a early industrial artifact on file.

Of the 12 rune stones in America, the only fake has been identified and seems to excite many of the want to bees on this site that over the last few days have called me names and pissed on Scott Wolter.
Of the 12 rune stones in America, The only one registered and confirmed by the state is number 12. This was completed by a group of qualified people that joined my team to make it happen. Some people on this team were Dick Neilson, Henrick Williams, James Frankee (runic experts), Others were a private citizen concerned about the protection of the stone, a retired professor in archaeology and a professional photographer as well as the property owner.
Of the 12 rune stones in America, The only one in process of being state registered is the Heavener Stone (GNOMONDIAL).
Stones 13 and 14 are under study to confirm they fit the category of the others are The Ohio Rock and Whale Rock on Nomans Land.

In summary you non believers the KRS fake rune stone have a hell of job proving the other 13.

Harold you are correct - You do not know the 5 W's of the KRS or any other rune stones. The only conclusion I can make is that you were brainwashed at college in thinking a PH is the same as PHD.

Personally I think you are a nice guy who just spends to much time defending your credentials and should spend more time in the field with hands on research.

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Joe Scales
3/18/2019 03:24:25 pm

William, you are simply too stupid to engage in rational discourse. And now you are defending your nonsense with even more nonsense. Looney Toon Logic.

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Jim
3/18/2019 05:02:24 pm

I don't know how a person can sanely twist his arguments around the way William does.
In a nutshell, Harold says the Ohman boy tired of turning the sharpening stone to sharpen chisels and William says, no he didn't, he tired of turning the sharpening stone to sharpen chisels.
I mean, what the hell kind of argument is that ?
He cannot read a source material without completely altering it's written words to promote his fantasies.

William Smith
3/17/2019 06:23:37 pm

Jim, Kent and All - A flat chisel has two points, each with a 90 degree angle which would produce a dot in stone with 90 degree angle (45 on each side) The depth of the hole could not exceed the diameter which is not the case on the KRS. In addition the hammer force on the flat chisel would be at a 45 degree angle, thus making the hole very hard to make round like the 3D scanning has shown.
I am not familiar with Birgeetta Wallace, however I do know Alice Kehoe and her father. I am also aware of her disagreement with Wolter when he led her to believe and follow a runic stone which he may have known it was a prank made by school boys. If I recall she was very upset because of this snipe hunt. It would be like following the calcite trail to claim the KRS is fake and then finding new research blows the calcite bull shit out of the water.
Olof and his carpenter helper who had a son did not say he was cranking a sharpening stone to grind stone cutting tools. He stated they were chisel's.
Do not change the wording on others work to make it fit your fake story. I find their is a fool born every day and two to take him. I also find Wolter making many claims that have no academic support. I also feel if Wolter did not exist you would have nothing to do. I have never listened to the tapes and can not comment on their content, however I can comment on what exist on the KRS.

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Jim
3/17/2019 07:52:54 pm

" however I do know Alice Kehoe and her father."

Alice Kehoe is 85, her father died in 1992.

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William Smith
3/17/2019 08:35:10 pm

Jim - I met Alice in 2008 when she gave a talk at the Kensington farm house barn at a conference organized by Steve Hilgren. I was told the older fellow with her was her father. It may have been her boyfriend, All I can remember he had white hair just like Alice. Most of their talk was in reference to the Newport Tower and their research of the site which both were involved.

PoodleShooter
3/17/2019 09:20:02 pm

I met Tony Bennett at one of his gallery showings but I don't go around saying I "know" him. Saying you know her father is icing on the funny cake.

Kent
3/17/2019 09:47:27 pm

"Olof and his carpenter helper who had a son did not say he was cranking a sharpening stone to grind stone cutting tools. He stated they were chisel's."

"Chisel's" like you'd use to carve a runestone?

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Jim
3/17/2019 11:28:34 pm

Harold said:

"one of Ohman's sons got drunk at a picnic and complained about how hard it was to turn the grinding stone to sharpen the chisels when he helped his father."

William called BS and said:

"Olof and his carpenter helper who had a son did not say he was cranking a sharpening stone to grind stone cutting tools. He stated they were chisel's."

William then chastised Harold saying:

"Do not change the wording on others work to make it fit your fake story."

What was said:

"Walter: He didn't know nothing about it. The only guys that knew something about it was Dad and Ohman. And I guess Olof. He always used to tell you how he had to turn the grindstone and got so tired of sharpen-ing them chisels. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,,Nephew: Was this one of the Ohman boys?
Walter: Yes. . . He worked for us, you know, there on the old farm"

http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/45/v45i04p152-156.pdf

So, William would you like to explain yourself ?
Sounds to me that you are in fact the one changing the wording on others work to make it fit your fake story.

Jim
3/17/2019 11:40:54 pm

Collaborated by Eric Wahlgren's account:

"A sixty-five-year-old farmer named Bjorklund told me he had heard one of Ohman's sons say at a picnic that he had grown tired of turning the grindstone when that rune stone was being carved. "

Roxana
3/18/2019 06:56:40 pm

Who takes the time to write a long account of a raid that killed nearly half their company while the enemy is still lurking out there and might strike again at any time? Who was expected to find and read the stone? NOBODY DOES THIS!

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Harold Edwards
3/18/2019 07:38:00 pm

Here is what the inscription states: "We had a camp by 2 shelters one day's journey north from this stone. We was fishing one day. After we came home we found 10 men red from blood and death." It mentions nothing about any native people. Probably they got into a brawl over whose mother cooked the best lutefisk.

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William Smith
3/18/2019 07:54:51 pm

Two points of interest need to be addressed about who were the 10 dead men.
1 - The stone also states the ships are north 14 days on the inland sea. The KRS was south of the camp where the 10 men dead were located. Not only were the KRS carvers 1 day south of there camp carving a stone, they had to go back to this hostile tribe to return to their ships.
2 - The other consideration is the word death (not dead) has been confirmed by David Johnson to be a rune word representing death by plaque and not dead as many have wrongly translated without considering the alternate that the 10 dead were native Americans that had no immunity to pneumonia.

Joe Scales
3/18/2019 08:09:43 pm

Two more points of interest:


1) William is a complete imbecile.
2) Did you know William is a complete imbecile?

Jim
3/18/2019 08:36:21 pm

William Smith:

"1 - The stone also states the ships are north 14 days on the inland sea."

No, no, no, no, why don't you just try to get one thing right !
For Pete's sake, everything, and I mean everything you say is wrong !!!!!!!

" There are 10 men by the inland sea to look after our ships fourteen days journey from this peninsula (or island). Year 1362"

Just where in the frack do you see the word north there ???

Harold Edwards
3/18/2019 09:22:14 pm

Mr. Smith, I have some questions about your 2010 data from the Elliott Cemetery in Missouri. Here is what I found on line:

http://www.migration-diffusion.info/article.php?id=536

Page 32 has an image of your notes of your measurements. The copy here is not very good. I have a better image from 2016 from somewhere else, maybe Facebook or another website. Here is what it says:

Name Date Wear

JS 1870 0.011
Snare 1923 0.003
Park 1906 0.004
Bohleher 1900 0.009
Barry 1901 0.008
Stagner 1876 0.011
Shriner 1875 0.010
Garner 1871 0.005
Gaather 1872 0.006
James 1868 0.005
Jones 1871 0.010
Shriner 1935 0.003

I will put in the test year data, since it should be the zero point. Any tombstone erected in 2010 should show zero wear.

test year 2010 0.000

The year is I suspect the death date on the tombstone and the wear is in inches. You took this data on August 23, 2010 and found an average wear of 0.003 inches per 50 years. You then compared this with your measurement of the KRS in May of 2010. You found the wear on it as 0.022 inches.

I put your data into an Excel spreadsheet and found the average annual wear as 0.0000575 inches. My average times 50 is 0.002873 which is not far from your 0.003 inches. However, the standard deviation is 0.0000207 inches. This is about half the value of the average and indicates a large amount of scatter in the data. This is especially noticeable if your data is plotted on a graph. Tombstones older than 110 years show considerable deviation--about 100% up and down over a 50 year period. I could not plot any reasonable trend line. I suspect this difference is because these tombstones are from different rock types, but there can be other reasons. My questions to you.

Is the data I present above accurate? I do not want to misstate it.

What is the composition of each tombstone?

If the KRS is 536 years old, according to your Elliott data it should show 0.031 inches of wear over that time, yet you measured 0.022 inches. This is about 2/3 of what it should be. How do you account for the discrepancy?

William Smith
3/18/2019 11:02:58 pm

Harold - I will address your questions on the 2010 tomb stone study theist I can.
1 - I would be carful of using only 60 readings in that statistically this sample size will not produce a six sigma confidence level. Also keep in mind that the .022 read on the KRS was not a consistent reading in that the tools were toothpick and hand held mic. with credit card as straight edge. We did measure wear line on both sides as well as face, however did not find any on back side for two reasons, hard to get to with holding stand and back did not show readings as were across front and sides. The .022 on the KRS may vary as you gage across the stone, however all measurements of depth of the wear line exist in all gaged positions. We even used a light behind the credit card and moved the card observing light in the entire width of the KRS.
The date used for zero is 8/23/2010 when the measurements were taken. The simple plot has years in ground on bottom starting at zero years on the left bottom corner. The vertical column is in thousands of inches and starts with zero at the same bottom left corner and increases from this corner toward the top. As for the difference in the spread sheet average you have of .002873 and my .003 is because I established my average by drawing a line on the Graf with 30 readings above and 30 below the line. The .003 per 50 can be can be read by using any point on the plotted line by locating the year and drawing a vertical line to the average line then reading the .003 from the horizontal line to the left in. column. By plotting the .022 KRS measurement on the center line or average line you can read the 350 years on the bottom line in years. Your numbers would generate about 325 years to produce a wear line.
The stone type is not my bag, however we did mark the 6 tomb stones that were smooth and hard like granet with a circle (stones 1,2,5,11 and 12), The other stones looked like sand stone and were not marked with a circle. NOTE: The wear did not show any signifent difference in the type of stone which was not expected. When we completed this the question was ask to a geologist why the sand stone showed the same long time wear as the granite? The only answer was that he felt long time wear of the two types of stone may be the same on the stone however the chips or dust may be different. He also stated it is a possibility the porosity in the sand stone would collect and hold water which acted as a shield of sort on the surface compared to the hard smooth stone surface.
My age for wear (350 years) on the KRS is only when the stone stood upright allowing natural forces to make the wear line. To this you must add the (120 years) we know the stone has been out of the ground and no additional conditions were exclusively exposed to the wear line. The only other time that is an estimated time is based on the years the stone played on its face to be locked in the tree roots. This could be 25 to unknown years, My estimate was 50 years for a poplar tree to hold the stone. I think the new soil build up in the Kensington area in a wooded environment according the the agriculture dept is 1 cm per 100 years. The wear line is about 3 cm wide which supports the movement of the stone through vibration or freezing, sleet, rain, dust and wind. The build up of new soil during the 350 years standing would be more on the uphill side of the stone and likely nothing on the down hill or face side of the stone. This is mostly caused by rain washing some of the new soil down hill.
If you take 350 years standing and 120 years from its removal from the ground and believe it was carved in 1362 this places the stone in the ground for 188 years. I do not feel the stone in the ground would have readable runes and 50 years would be better supported which places the stone close to the 1472 expedition by Denmark and Portugal. Other sites where the hooked X supports the 1472 date as well as the1494 treaty between Spain and Portugal.
My work and study using soil core samples and sea water level change at other locations where the hooked x exist support a 1472 date. The 6 C-14 carbon dates taken by Jan Barstad dates show 3 of these dates in the late 1400s and 3 during the time of the powder explosion at the tower. The 1472 expedition also shows the builders mark on the tower placed 17 degrees west of true north, corresponding to the magnetic declination at that location 1472. The KRS in 1472 was located on the zero magnetic declination line which was called the pole line when declination was used for determining longitude. Other supporting information will be released in the near future including petroglyphs in Michigan that show a small boat (fishing boat tender holding 6 men) took the Great Lake rout back to Newport with the aid of The Great Peacemaker who explained the new laws of the land to the 5 nations. You and I may disagree on many things just as I disagree with Wolter claims in part. However a blind hog wi

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Harold Edwards
3/18/2019 11:40:08 pm

Thank you. I understand you took 60 measurements on 12 tombstones, 5 on each tombstone, and listed the average value of the 5 measurements for each tombstone to get the data in your chart. Let me rearrange your data in decreasing age along with the rock type you gave me:

Date Age Type Wear

1868 142 0.005
1870 140 granite 0.011
1871 139 0.005
1871 139 granite 0.010
1872 138 0.006
1875 135 0.010
1876 134 0.011
1900 110 0.009
1901 109 granite 0.008
1906 104 0.004
1923 87 granite 0.003
1935 75 granite 0.003
2010 0 0.000

Notice the scatter in values for the wears with no strong relationship to age.

Now for some more questions:

I take it you consider ground lines the same as mechanical wear lines since you use both terms at different times.

Why did you decide to measure this feature?

Have you seen this phenomenon in rocks or other material elsewhere?

Why did you select the Elliott Cemetery to do this study?

How do you know if and where on the tombstone there is a ground line present so you can measure it? What does it look like and where is it on the tombstone? For instance, is there a color difference?

Did you try to make these measurements on areas on a tombstone that does not show any ground line to see if there was any difference in depth elsewhere on the tombstone?

Did you photograph this feature on tombstones at the Elliott Cemetery?

What was the brand and model number for your depth gauge?

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Kentr
3/19/2019 12:10:46 am

William, why do you refuse to put space between paragraphs? This approach makes your stuff unreadable.

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Kent
3/19/2019 01:59:00 am

2nd attempt:

William,

How do you know what the magnetic declination at a given locations was at a time far in the past, absent any written record?

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Harold Edwards
3/19/2019 10:15:39 am

Magnetic declination in North America has moved to the WEST over the past few centuries:

https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jgg1949/19/2/19_2_103/_pdf

Joe Scales
3/19/2019 10:18:57 am

"... as well as the1494 treaty between Spain and Portugal."

Jesus Christ William... you are an imbecile. So I'll just cut to the chase here. William seeks only evidence to back his fantasies, pretends to do "science" and then falls back on erroneous interpretations of things having absolutely nothing to do with what he's trying to prove. Though I salute Harold's methodology in sorting through this, any appropriate criticism will be lost on William... who still clings to the above mentioned treaty as if it supports anything other than his incompetence.

William. Go home. Go back to dazzling dimwits and others who lack the mental acuity to sort through your nonsense. Seriously man. It don't play well here.

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William Smith
3/19/2019 11:39:08 am

Joe - The information in the 1494 treaty is in chapter 3, You must understand magnetic declination to follow and trace and locate the KRS as the stone marker 370 leagues wes on a pole line from the tower on the east coast. I will be on the largest Russian TV station next month addressing their 100 million audience to explain the Mystery Stone of New Hampshire and how it is connected to the KRS. This is their version of the History Chanel. I have heard your shit for years and by your own use of profanity with (Jesus Christ) is enough for me to read your colors. I will not respond to a person that uses gods name in vain. GOODBY

Joe Scales
3/19/2019 03:03:20 pm

Uh... William, you blithering idiot... if you spent any time at all here on this site, you'd have realized that being on television does not make you right. In fact, it is those who appear on television, pose as historians and spout pure nonsense that garners quite a bit of ire 'round these parts. As you've already gotten the pure nonsense part down, as well as attracting quite a bit of ire, going on television seems only natural for you at this point. Congratulations. You are set to become a poisoner of the well of knowledge. Jesus hates that, by the way. Well-poisoner.

Jim
3/19/2019 10:10:59 am

Harold,
Here is a link to Elliott Cemetery Memorials.

https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/2131374/memorial-search?page=1#sr-10189844

This is a different cemetery than Williams however it gives some excellent photographic examples of the weathering and degradation of tombstones.
Click on a photo, new window opens, click on photo again, new window opens again, click on view original, new window opens again, click again to supersize photo.

Check out this one, Phoebe Bain Elliott died 1886:
Will give you a 2592 x 3872 pixel photo

https://images.findagrave.com/photos/2017/345/10189852_bf168e6b-b325-478c-9b67-e43b7451b9a8.jpeg

Also shouldn't there be a weathering step rather than a wear groove on William's tombstones, a longer straight edge should show a less material (a thinner tombstone) on the buried part due to more acidity in the soil than the air.
Using a longer straightedge, the edge would probably not come in contact with with the buried portion of the stone at all.

It boggles my mind that William can measure all these tombstones and not notice the overt wearing away of the lettering. Willfully blind ?

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Harold Edwards
3/19/2019 10:26:52 am

Here is a marble tombstone for Simon Benson who died in 1885 at the Solem Lutheran Cemetery in Kensington. Olof Ohman is buried in this cemetery. However his tombstone is of granite.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/130712393/simon-b_-benson#view-photo=102670164

This type of marble tombstone was popular for children's burials in the 19th Century. There was a recumbent lamb on the top of the stone. It is now missing its head. Notice the rounding of the letters.

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William Smith
3/19/2019 11:08:46 am

Harold - I am familiar with the cemetery you are addressing. I and a local in your area got permission to use the new dial indicator tool to measure tomb stones in the area. Olof Ohmans stone sits on a base stone also made of granite. The wear line is at ground level in this case on the base stone. It measured .003 in. when I measured it in 2010. Close to 50 years after his death. Other stones measured in this cemetery were not recorded because the environment is not comparable to the KRS even though you could establish a standard for wear in a flat area where no trees and most of the stones are on a base stone. Did you measure or observe the wear line on any with a red card? Older cemetery which are in forest areas would eliminate weed eaters and provide a better simulation to the subject stone being studied.
I would like to point out another point of interest on the KRS that has not been addressed. On the right side of the face at the wear line is small porosity holes in the KRS. These holes can be viewed on the 3D photo image and seem to be in line with the bottom of the wear line showing support to a slow work of freezing and thawing at this line compared to other areas on the KRS.

Jim
3/19/2019 11:27:57 am

William, in all your time examining tombstones in graveyards did you not notice the degradation of the lettering on the stones ?
How do you explain the complete lack of degradation on the KRS calcite portion which you claim stood upright for hundreds of years ?

Harold Edwards
3/19/2019 11:35:14 am

William, I would really like to focus on your investigations at the Elliott Cemetery so I can understand your method.

Why did you decide to measure ground lines? Have you seen this phenomenon in rocks or other material elsewhere prior to your work at the Elliott Cemetery?

Why did you select the Elliott Cemetery to do this study? I think you may have answered that as to eliminate the use of "weed eaters" that might cause these ground lines. These devices use a spinning nylon line to cut plant material. How much wear to a rock surface would you expect from a nylon line?

Where exactly on a tombstone is this ground line? Is it at ground level such as the stone above is in the air and the stone below is in the ground?

How do you know if and where on the tombstone there is a ground line present so you can measure it? What does it look like and where is it on the tombstone? For instance, is there a color difference?

Did you try to make these measurements on areas on a tombstone that do not show any ground line to see if there was any difference in depth elsewhere on the tombstone?

What measurement would you get if you made measurements on a brand new tombstone? One would expect zero, but that may not be the case. That is why one makes these measurements on blanks.

Did you photograph this feature on tombstones at the Elliott Cemetery? Anywhere else?

Did you make a map of the cemetery with your samples noted on the map?

What was the brand and model number for your depth gauge?

Here is a listing of graves at the Elliott Cemetery:

http://files.usgwarchives.net/mo/livingston/cemeteries/elliott.txt

Half your samples do not appear on this list, i.e., JS 1870, Snare 1923, Park 1906, Garner 1871, Gaather 1872, Shriner 1935. How do you account for this discrepancy?

For each ground line you give data, you made 5 measurements. What was the scatter in these measurements?

William Smith
3/19/2019 11:27:53 am

Jim - I find your responses are directed more at the messenger than at the message. It is a shame you do not have any facts that support the KRS is fake. As for weathering and wear line, you need to start in class 101 using a fence post to explain the three areas of weathering and the one of wear. All wood above the ground is weathering, all wood below the ground is weathering in a different environment than that above ground, if below the ground the post can be detected in some cases for hundreds of years as Jan Barstad proved at the Newport Tower in 2008. The wood at the location where the ground meets the air is where the post gets weathering and additional wear due to freezing and other elements not exposed in the other areas. It is also where the fence post of wood first breaks.
I can understand why your mind is boggled because you can not distinguish between weathering and wearing. At least Harold can show where acid rain has an effect above ground on tomb stones and soil ph has an effect on tomb stones below ground. He likely also understands the carbon in acid rain was very low during the standing time of the KRS. The logical reason is because we were not polluting the air as we are today with the gas engine.

Reply
Harold Edwards
3/19/2019 11:45:25 am

Today the carbon dioxide level in air is about 400 parts per million. From 1362 to 1898, the average carbon dioxide level in air was 281 parts per million. We know that from ice core data from Antarctica and Greenland. At 281 parts per million the average pH of rainwater is 5.625 in the Kensington area. Calcite dissolves at a rate of 15 mm per 1000 years. The calcite layer on the Kensington stone is about 3 mm thick with an inscription of less than 2 mm deep. There is 536 years from 1362 to 1898. Marble tombstones in the Kensington area weather at a rate of about 6 mm per thousand years. This difference is because the surface with the inscription is vertical and thus does not get all of the precipitation.

Jim
3/19/2019 11:59:40 am

William:
Mostly I criticize your complete and obvious misinterpretation of data and purposeful misreading of historical documents.
Such as:

" if below the ground the post can be detected in some cases for hundreds of years as Jan Barstad proved at the Newport Tower in 2008"

FFS, Jan Barstad is a botanst has no expertise in archeology and is full of BS.
She hired archeologists to do work at the Newport tower and then buried their report when it didn't jive with her pseudo beliefs. She apparently also refused to pay them for their work.
Jan Barstad proved nothing regarding posts at the Newport Tower.
She found 2 stains in the ground and declared the stains remains of post because that is what she wanted to find.

The fact that you buy into Barstad's crap is just another example of you believing anything no matter how nonsensical that supports your silly conclusions.

William Smith
3/19/2019 12:26:02 pm

Jim - Post holes have been found to date to the time of Stonehenge. The location of the two holes found by qualified archaeologist were located 4 EL (12 feet and 5 inches) from two of the 8 columns in the tower. All other measurements in the tower confirmed by past engineers indicate the Dutch and Portuguese El of 1 yard = 37.25 inches. She also found a charcoal pit at the north east outside the tower which indicates a form of central heating was in place like the Basques fisherman used in Europe. Also in one of these holes was found a highly magnetic round stone that showed surface work by man. This stone will not make sense to you because you do not understand the lodestone compass. Your statement that Jan is full of bull shit and buried all of her reports because she did not pay her helpers is your false opinion and is what makes you in the same category as others on this site that have an alligator mouth and a humming bird ass. Jan's detail report is on the web in public view and I was there when she did the first dig at the tower. Funny they had her back for the second dig.
I will not reply to your questions that include your opinion and degrading of other people who has opinions on their research from field work. I frankly don't give a dam what her degree is in as long as she seeks the answers and facts on the subject. She supports strongly that the tower dates to late 1400's.

Harold Edwards
3/19/2019 12:44:25 pm

The mortar in the Old Mill at Newport, Rhode Island, a.k.a. the Newport Tower has been dated to the late 1600's using carbon-14 dating methods:

http://phys.au.dk/fileadmin/site_files/forskning/ams/hale-jh-2003_jan17_datingancientmortar@.pdf

Lime mortars are made by heating calcite rich rocks like limestone above 800 degrees Celsius to drive off the carbon dioxide to create lime. Water is mixed with this lime to make a slaked lime putty that is then used as a mortar for stone or brick work. This mortar hardens over a few days and weeks by absorbing carbon dioxide from the air and transforming the slaked lime back to calcite. The carbon-14 can thus be measure to date the mortar.

Jim
3/19/2019 12:48:33 pm

More BS

"The Dutch or Flemish ell is 27 inches."

https://www.sizes.com/units/ell.htm

Jim
3/19/2019 01:43:23 pm

Wasn't Jan Barstad a no-show at her own dig in 2008 ?
I believe she left Charlene Rich and Steve Voluckas in charge.

Charlene Rich runs the Newport Doll repair Hospital.

http://miniatureoccasions.com/?personnel=josh-wink

Steve Voluckas:,,,,,Milk and cheese,,,,hahaha

"Steve Voluckas has done a great deal of research on the Norse expeditions and believes that the Norse came here, encountered the Mi’kmaq, traded milk and cheese for furs and then left when something went wrong."

https://www.facebook.com/WhereWasVinland/posts/the-following-story-about-the-symposium-appeared-in-the-online-version-of-the-in/456418607735136/

By the way William, whatever happened to the test results from the 2008 dig ? It appears Barstad won't release those either,,,,hmmmm, I wonder why ? 11 years and counting.

" Arrangements were made with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to have samples processed and dated by its National Ocean Sciences Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (NOSAMS) facility. Samples were prepared and submitted in accordance with their guidelines. Results of those tests are pending."

http://www.chronognostic.org/pdf/2008_ext/nte_2008_voluckas-3x.pdf

Jim
3/19/2019 03:08:03 pm

Yet more BS:

William:

"The location of the two holes found by qualified archaeologist were located 4 EL (12 feet and 5 inches) from two of the 8 columns in the tower."

Report:

", a similar red discolored feature was found. This feature was 4.0m from the base of the northeast pillar,"

4m = 13 feet 11/2 inches

http://www.chronognostic.org/pdf/2008_ext/nte_2008_voluckas-3x.pdf

Have you ever gotten anything right William ?

Joe Scales
3/19/2019 03:08:51 pm

"... and is what makes you in the same category as others on this site that have an alligator mouth and a humming bird ass."

Better to have a humming bird's than a humming bird's brain, William, you complete imbecile. How long will you keep this up? I mean really... until everyone stops? You want the last word?

Well, you don't get it. Imbecile. And yeah, Jesus hates you William. He really, really hates you.

William Smith
3/19/2019 12:52:34 pm

Harold - I will attempt to answer your questions in the last two post even though some answers may have been given before.
1- Your information on calcite weathering if I read it correct is 15 mm /1000 years. This states the life of calcite on the KRS at 3 mm thick is 200 years.

Question 1 - is the base of 15/1000 based on todays exposure and include the acid rain increase over time?

Question 2 - how was the 3 mm measured on the KRS?

Question 3 - is the 3 mm thickness uniform on all areas of the KRS. (What is the max. and the min. measured)

Question 4 - If the 3 mm was 6 mm would the life double in time to dissolve?

Question 5 - Would you expect the H at the bottom to have about 100 years left before turning green?

Question 6 - Did the oil used in the early years as mold release or the cow shit when the stone was a barn step or when it was turned free in 2003 by poor use of mold release have any effect on the life of the calcium?

Question 7 - In a wooded area where most of the top 1 cm of soil is (grass, dust, leaves, wood) in the process of decomposing into soil have the same ph as deeper soil?

Question 8 - Would the top 1 cm of soil provide a protective surface for the face of the KRS during its time in the ground?

NOTE: I am not asking these questions to challenge your knowledge or fabricate a support to a hidden agenda thats fits my belief the KRS is authentic.

Reply
Harold Edwards
3/19/2019 01:52:41 pm

1. Even today there is virtually no acid rain in the Kensington area. The pH is about 5.4. Carbon dioxide levels from 1362 to about 1800 are about 280 ppm. From 1800 on they begin to rise. Here is a paper that describes some of the concepts:

Bogen, Robert A.J. et al (2009), “Changes in Rainwater pH Associated with Increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide after the Industrial Revolution,” Water Air Soil Pollution, vol 196, pp. 263–271.

It covers the period from 1800 to 2007. Sorry, you will have to go to a library to see it. I could not locate a free copy online.

2. The three mm was estimated by using a ruler and measurements from 3-D imaging. I don't think this is that critical given the fact that the inscription should show much more weathering after 50-100 years of exposure. That gives an enormous amount of wiggle room!

3. The thickness does vary. 3 mm is a rough estimate. The surface of the graywacke underneath is irregular as well. The calcite layer has the appearance of a coating. In 1899 the Chicago newspapers identified it as a mortar or cement coating. On the other hand it could be naturally occurring. Such coatings are called tufa when formed at normal temperatures and travertine when formed by hot springs. The best way to confirm a mortar ca. 1898 is a carbon-14 test. I suggested that to the producers of the documentary this post is all about. They made a formal request, but the Runestone Museum Foundation refused to let them sample the calcite layer or even the patches of calcite that are on the bottom of the KRS.

4. This is a good question. If the calcite layer were originally 6 mm thick and weathered down to 3 mm, this would easily be evident from the rounding of the edges and bottom of the inscription. In fact the inscription would still probably be missing leaving blank calcite. More to the point, the surfaces of the runes show no granular weathering. This inscription is relatively fresh from around 1898. Another factor is the differential weathering between the calcite layer and the graywacke. Calcite dissolves about 10 times faster. The inscription depths and sharpness are about the same in both areas. This indicates there has been very little weathering of either.

5. Since Holand carved his "H" the artifact has been kept indoors. The green coating found on rocks is caused by algae.

6. I would expect they have a negligible effect. That is evident by examining photographs from 1899, 1910, 2000, 2003, etc. There is little change in the inscriptions or the margins of the calcite layer.

7. It was alleged that the artifact was buried under an aspen tree. Aspen leaf mulch has a pH of 5.4. It is as acidic as rainwater. Furthermore in addition to pH, the tannins in aspen leaves have a chelating effect on calcium and should accelerate the weathering of calcite.

8. There is no natural way the artifact could fall over and be subsequently covered by leaves. It was alleged to have been found on side of a hill, 3/4 of the way from the bottom. This hill is a convex slope and any material covering the stone would be blown by wind or washed by rain away and down the side of the hill to the marsh below. If buried in the root zone of an aspen, calcite would dissolve at a faster rate than at the surface. There several lines of evidence for this. One is the carbon dioxide levels in the root zone of an aspen range from 1000 to 30,000 parts per million depending on the time of the year. Compare this with 281 parts per million above ground. The below ground weathering also has been experimentally verified by geomorphologists using limestone tablets shaped like miniature hockey pucks. These were buried beneath the soil at different levels and left in place for several years. They were then dug up and weighed to estimate the material loss. They weather faster in the subsoil than at the surface. Here is one such study:

Day, Michael (1984), “Carbonate Erosion Rates in Southwestern Wisconsin,” Physical Geography, vol. 5, pp. 142-149.

Interestingly, Day taught at the same University as Alice Kehoe. She could have walked across the hall and learned the Scott Wolter was scamming her!

I hope I have answered your questions.

Reply
Harold Edwards
3/19/2019 02:01:48 pm

One other point. If a stone were left on the surface of a hill near the top, it would flow downhill a few centimeters a year. This process is called mass wasting. It is a well known phenomenon. Winchell made the observation in 1910 that glacial boulders in the area were found either on the top of a hill or at the bottom. The KRS was found 3/4 of the way from the bottom. It probably could not have been in that place for 536 years. The KRS is a fake.

Doc Rock
3/19/2019 02:08:09 pm

Harold,

I don't know much of Kehoe's involvement in the Kensington Stone affair other than she seems to have bought into the notion of it as likely an authentic 14th century artifact but then distanced herself from Wolter when he really started to twist off with all the Templar nonsense. Do you have any insights into how Wolter was able to sell her on his position when most people involved as legitimate archaeologists, linguists, historians, etc. were calling BS?

Harold Edwards
3/19/2019 02:34:45 pm

I have never met Dr. Kehoe. You have to ask her. Maybe you can run into her at a WFA meeting--a Wolters Fans Anonymous meeting.

Doc Rock
3/19/2019 02:52:44 pm

OK, but thought it was worth a shot since you seem to have a wide range of knowledge about the whole affair and spend a lot of time sharing it.

Never heard of the WFA. If I ran into her, if she is still out and about, it would be at the American Society for Ethnohistory or the Society for American Archaeology meetings.

Harold Edwards
3/19/2019 02:58:10 pm

WFA is a joke. Sorry, the devil made me do it.

Doc Rock
3/19/2019 03:04:48 pm

I was pretty sure that it was a joke. But in a world where a disturbing number of people see Wolter as an inspirational persecuted figure, it's just hard to tell any more.

William Smith
3/19/2019 04:12:38 pm

Harold - Thanks for your answers. I could ask additional questions or challenge your responses, however I will not. I must say I have learned a lot on this pro and con talk about the KRS, however most of it was on how people that sit on their ass and talk like they were in a bar looking for a fight. It is obvious they are not qualified to judge actual work supported by approved processes. I respect your opinion and thank you for it. On the other hand The KRS is not a fake. I will always share info with you as I find it via private email. wmsmithrock1@yahoo.com

Joe Scales
3/19/2019 09:00:20 pm

"I must say I have learned a lot..."

You've learned absolutely nothing William. Not one damned thing.

William Smith
3/19/2019 01:25:14 pm

Harold - C14 dates of mortar at the Newport tower are a lot newer than your 2003 reference. I will not go into the Tower discussion because of some information I will be sharing with the Newport Historical Society this spring. Are you aware that it is reported that the lime film for making the tower mortar has been found in the construction foundation of one of the basements in a home closer to the ocean? I think it was Gunnar Thompson who made the first report of this, however I am sure Jim Egan of the Newport museum can correct me if needed?

Reply
Harold Edwards
3/19/2019 02:10:42 pm

That gets you nothing. This mill has been well studied and found to date from the late 1600's: "The Archaeology of the Old Stone Mill in Newport, Rhode Island" by William S. Godfrey, Jr.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/277246?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

Again you will have to get library access.

The architecture is styled on mills found in England from the same time period.

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g187063-d8398512-Reviews-Chesterton_Windmill-Leamington_Spa_Warwickshire_England.html

Form follows function. These structures can not be fortifications since they are open from all sides. What else would this structure be used for in 1400?

Reply
William Smith
3/19/2019 02:42:42 pm

Harold - I will try to answer your questions in an earlier post.

William, I would really like to focus on your investigations at the Elliott Cemetery so I can understand your method.

Why did you decide to measure ground lines? Have you seen this phenomenon in rocks or other material elsewhere prior to your work at the Elliott Cemetery?

Answer - The first wear line I found was on the KRS when my group went to film the stone. I worked with the late Dick Neilson who shared a lot of information with me including 3D scanning that did not cover what he called the ground line. He ask if I had a chance to look at this dark line during my visit to do so. At the time Julie Blank was the museum curator I worked with and she was on site during the hour we filmed the stone. My group included about 6 people to man handle the stone from its table and place it onto the indexing table. After we had the photos needed I used a credit card as the photographer took a few photos of the ground line by holding a light on the back side as I moved the card from side to side. The one photo on the cut side of the stone is of most important in that it had to be formed at the time of the runes and after the side of the stone was removed. I have that photo posted in my latest work. We decided the only way we could measure the band of light under the card was to place a tampered toothpick in the gap and measure the diameter with a standard hand held micrometer. Our measurement indicated the depth of this line was .022 in. Most of the readings were if I recall from the right side of the face. Keep in mind it is not so important that the depth supports 350 years as much as it supports any time of standing before 1898. If the line measures .006 would place it standing for 100 years before it fell on its face. After I told Dick about the measurement of the ground line we decided to change its name to a ground wear line from that point on.

Why did you select the Elliott Cemetery to do this study? I think you may have answered that as to eliminate the use of "weed eaters" that might cause these ground lines. These devices use a spinning nylon line to cut plant material. How much wear to a rock surface would you expect from a nylon line?

Answer - Elliott Cemetery was chosen because it was where my great grandfather was placed in 1870 and from family records on old post cards the Cemetery was deserted and on private property near Dawn Mo. I was given by my father some old post cards indicating a automobile trip that took a week in 1922 to go from Indiana to Mo. and search for John Smiths grave. The best they found was Dawn Mo. where he owned a farm and was killed over a land dispute by being stabbed 11 times by a southern ex soldier over the dispute resolvmant. Four of my THOR group including myself (names on field report) went to Dawn MO. to seek the grave yard and grave of John as well as gather information on tomb stones to see if they had wear lines. We found the grave by going into the local coffee shop and getting the name of the elderly lady that was working to identify lost grave sites in the county. We went to her home in Dawn Mo. and she gave us the name of the local farmer that owned the woods where the grave was located. After contacting the local land owner and explaining our intent which I gave him that in addition to locating my great grandfathers grave site we would like to measure standing grave stones which had not fallen and the date was clear on the stone. The land owner led us to the woods in his truck and indicated the grave yard. It has over 100 grave stones in all conditions you could imagine. All were in a wooded area and the newest stone was in the 1930s. This environment seemed to match the KRS site as recorded. The process was a little modified from the KRS readings that we used a feeler gage set in .001 increments to measure the wear line. In all measurements the variance within the 5 readings was less than .001. It took 4 of us almost all of the day to take the measurements and at the end of the day we found Johns Gravestone. After returning home only one other trip was made to the Cemetery to place 4 sections of wrought iron fence around Johns grave and place a bronze plaque on the fence to explain our only missing family grave site that came from Scotland has been found. AVM


Where exactly on a tombstone is this ground line? Is it at ground level such as the stone above is in the air and the stone below is in the ground?

Answer - 1/2 is below ground and 1/2 above ground . push down the grass with hand to get close to where the frozen ground would hold the stone. This area will grow deeper and wider over time, the KRS is about 3/4 in. wide and deepest in center of the band.

How do you know if and where on the tombstone there is a ground line present so you can measure it? What does it look like and where is it on the tombstone? For instance, is there a color difference?

Answer: On stones newer than 50 yea

Reply
Joe Scales
3/19/2019 03:17:12 pm

Oh great. More nonsense from William, the imbecile. To be continued...

Reply
William Smith
3/19/2019 03:38:25 pm

Harold - As I stated earlier that I would see if their is an explanation for the missing 6 names in the Elliott Cemetery. The link you gave showed a list presented to the Gann H.S. by Marie Dryden. Their is no date on this list, however the list was what was on file with the county register in the mid 1990s. In 2008 all the names except JS was confirmed by the local lady who had traced all names found on stones in the Cemetery. We found the JS stone in the ground in a family plot dating 1870 time of his death and provided it to her.
In summary, I take it you do not trust my research. In that case I will not answer questions that are not related to the KRS. I do not like your calcite story as well as your lack of hands on study of the KRS. If it is your job to hold the facts whether new or old or true or false to protect your position that the KRS is a fake and if I can not address the facts on the stone I will chastise the researcher that states his findings. Their were 12 standing tomb stones measured for a mechanical wear line and all produced evidence of their age by the depth of the wear line. All of these stones were confirmed by the 4 THOR members and recorded. The one added to the local lady list was the one that was red in color and granite in look which was only about 4 in. by 4 in. square with about 1 foot into the ground. The 1/2 in. at the top is all that stood above the 2008 ground level. The ground line measured supported the 1870 date of John Smith's death and was confirmed at a 99% confidence level when she added John to the list of markers in the Cemetery.
I have tried to answer all your questions, however you seem to ignore the ones I ask. Until you answer do not ask me more.

Reply
Harold Edwards
3/19/2019 04:03:30 pm

Thanks for responding. I thought I answered your questions. Refresh this webpage and they should show up just under your questions. If I left something out, please let me know. I will try to answer them.

I think I understand what you were doing.

Do you have any photographs of the tombstones in the Elliott Cemetery?

Now to the KRS: I found your PowerPoint on the link you gave above. On page 38 it presents 3 images. The front of the KRS with the position of the ground line marked on it on the upper left. Your data sheet from the Elliott Cemetery on the right. An image of someone's hand holding a plastic protractor with a white line marking the ground line on the side of the KRS. It seems to be just at the right margin of the runic symbol for the number "2" in "1362." Is that right?

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William Smith
3/19/2019 07:07:02 pm

Harold - Your observation of page 38 is correct. The importance of the ground line on the left side is it had to be made after the stone was cut.
Note: I feel any depth or presents of a wear line that exist on the KRS is proof it existed before the time of the Ohmans.
I will look for some photos taken in the Elliott Cemetery, I am sure they exist in old files.

Harold Edwards
3/19/2019 07:41:35 pm

Thanks for confirming this. Let me draw your attention to Winchell's 1910 report. Here is a downloadable copy:

https://archive.org/details/kensingtonrunest00minnrich/page/n5

The photograph in the front of the report has a crease in it since it covers two pages. That crease is along the line you refer to in the bottom left hand photo in your figure 38. Notice it does not register with the line you show on the front of the KRS in the upper left hand photo in your figure 38. It is about an inch or so above it and cuts across the bottoms of the runes on the last line of text on the front.

I examined old photographs, new photographs, and both the high resolution and low resolution scans from the 2008 3-D laser scans. I have found no line in either position.

On page 236 Winchell noted that the side face was bush hammered:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_hammer

A bush hammer has teeth on its face similar to a meat tenderizer. It used by stone masons to quickly give a pleasing texture to the surface of a stone when they do not wish to polish it. The fact that this side was bush hammered is independent proof that the Kensington Stone is a fake. No Norse explorer would carry a bush hammer, let alone take the time to texture a face of the stone before inscribing it.

More to the point, this bush hammered surface would have enough relief in it that you would have measured gaps in the surface in 2010.

I am not saying you are lying, but I want to emphasize the fact that others need to be able to find this line on the KRS. I am not the only person who has not found it. An important part of science is the replication of information by other workers. Perhaps I do not have adequate skill. Then you need to find those who do to go and replicate your work. They need to document it with a series of photographs. Good luck!

Joe Scales
3/19/2019 09:13:10 pm

William has a penchant for seeing things that don't exist. Whether on stones or in treaties.

William Smith
3/19/2019 08:47:52 pm

Harold - Winchell's 1910 report has a lot of information which you can use. I would ask him few questions. Did Ohman have a bush hammer? Would it not be easier to bush hammer the right side of the stone or just add more lines to the face? Why is their punch marks about 1/4 in. deep and 1/4 in. spread on all surfaces around the left side? Is this a common practice to split stone to make one side flat? Why would the left side be completely bush hammered to the lower section of the stone where no runes exist? Why does the 3 lines on the left side stop at the same as the face lines? Is this just to make the stone to bury under the ground or is it because only 1/3 of the stone was to be in the ground to hold the 2/3 rd's of the stone upright so the runes can be read? Why would I spend $500 dollars to remeasure something I have already measured? I have suggested to others to ask Chris Dunn go and gage the wear line if you want a tooling expert to do so. He is the person who measured the flatness in the Great pyramids and reported the flatness of the incline would be hard pressed to replicate today.

Reply
Joe Scales
3/19/2019 09:10:20 pm

"Did Ohman have a bush hammer?"

Well, he had worked with stone before... but I suppose unless we can put a bush hammer in Ohman's hands that's proof the KRS is legit, right? I mean, if I get your logic correctly; or lack thereof.

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Harold Edwards
3/19/2019 09:45:30 pm

Artifacts by definition are man-made objects. In this case a human or humans selected a raw material, stone, and fashioned it into a tabular shape and carved an inscription on two sides. Therefore every feature on this object must be viewed asking the question: Is it natural or man-made?

Where did the raw material, the graywacke piece, come from? The glacial material that covers the Kensington area came from Manitoba. These sediments are from the Riding Mountain Provenance in southwestern Manitoba. There are graywackes in this till but they do not match the Kensington Stone material. The graywackes in the till are called Omars, from the Omarolluk Formation of the Belcher Group, exposed in the Belcher Islands of eastern Hudson Bay.

Therefore the raw material had to have been brought into Kensington from elsewhere. This fact alone indicates the KRS is a fake. Norse explorers would not be carrying around 200 pound graywacke slabs, especially since boulders of various sorts were abundant in the Kensington area.

During the second half of the 19th Century there was an extensive trade in graywackes throughout the eastern United States including Minnesota. Most of these came from the border area of New York and Pennsylvania. They are called bluestones and match the Kensington stone in color and mineralogy. Like the Kensington Stone they are flagstones that can be easily split into layers. They were used as sidewalk slabbing, so they were cheap and ubiquitous.

In 1883 the Minnesota Stone Company of Minneapolis was incorporated. One of its owners was N.H. Winchell, the State Geologist. He was moonlighting. He became the archaeologist for the Minnesota Historical Society in 1905 and wrote the report on the Kensington Stone. The Minnesota Stone Company advertised itself in the Twin Ciites newspapers as a local agent for bluestone sidewalk materials from New York and Pennsylvania. It also touted their superiority for that function. Bluestone is the most likely candidate as the raw material for the Kensington Stone.

Here is information on the techniques of rock splitting:

http://www.stonestructures.org/html/quarry_methods.html

This site has excellent material on 19th Century stone fabrication methods.

The side of the Kensington Stone bears scars consistent with wedging along its bottom margin. This is the technique used to split rock "against the grain." Top layers of the Kensington Stone were pried off as flags. This is splitting a rock "with the grain."

Olof Ohman made much of his living as a construction contractor building houses, shops, barns, and other buildings in the Kensington area. He was trained as a carpenter back in Sweden. Although the buildings he made were of wood, some stone work was required--foundations, basements, chimneys, and fireplaces. He could have subcontracted that to a stone mason or done it himself. Given his access to tools and skills as a carpenter, the simple masonry techniques would have been easy to learn. He was witnessed splitting rocks by using a plug drill and gun powder. One of the rocks in the basement of his farmhouse shows the scars of plug drilling. I suspect the Kensington Stone started out as a bluestone slab fragment, probably construction salvage, that he took home to use as a stepping stone to his granary. He then used it to make the Kensington Stone and tried to sell it to Northwestern University. When that did not pan out, he used it as a stepping stone to his granary until he gave it to Hjalmar Rued Holand in August of 1907.

The rest is pseudo history.

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Jim
3/19/2019 10:22:07 pm

My best guess for the origin of the stone would be surplus from sidewalk construction or replacing flagstones with cement in a nearby town.
But I have no idea when that happened.

Jim
3/19/2019 09:49:00 pm

OMG !!!! hahahaha,,,,Chris Dunn,,,,hahahahaha,,

https://www.amazon.ca/Giza-Power-Plant-Technologies-Ancient/dp/1879181509

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Harold Edwards
3/19/2019 10:00:53 pm

You should read Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. See the frontispiece:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Connecticut_Yankee_in_King_Arthur%27s_Court#/media/File:Connecticut_Yankee4_new.jpg

It's a Knight (Templar) trying to run down a 19th Century tinker. Good fun!

Jim
3/19/2019 10:14:58 pm

Still and all, I would have Mark twain measure the KRS rather than Chris Dunn ! Much more credibility.

William:

" I have suggested to others to ask Chris Dunn go and gage the wear line if you want a tooling expert to do so. He is the person who measured the flatness in the Great pyramids and reported the flatness of the incline would be hard pressed to replicate today."

Harold Edwards
3/19/2019 10:42:01 pm

On August 25, 1898 the Alexandria Post News reporting on Kensington noted: “They are now putting in new sidewalks here and it is a great improvement to the town. Now you can take a walk with your best girl without stumbling or falling between the cracks.” What the sidewalks were made of is unknown, but they probably replaced the wooden sidewalks that many towns used.

Kent
3/20/2019 03:36:13 am

"[Chris Dunn] is the person who measured the flatness in the Great pyramids and reported the flatness of the incline would be hard pressed to replicate today."

You might want to look at the Washington Monument, completed in 1888.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/that-time-climbing-great-pyramid-of-giza_b_9130430.html?utm_hp_ref=cairo

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William Smith
3/19/2019 09:29:25 pm

Harold - Thanks for the photos of the stones in the Kensington area. From the photos my input as to a wear line would be as follows.
a- The newer stone would only generate a good wear line where the base meets the ground. I see marks on the base which may indicate trimming tools could effect the wear line area.
b- The Simon Benson 1885 stone is laying on the ground and likely a base is below the soft looking soil. I would not use this stone because it is unknown how long the stone has been on its back.
c- The Benson stone 1873 with the broken head is sitting on the ground in front of the likely base it was placed upon at one time. The head may have broken when the stone fell, however if the base stone behind the stone fits, it will have a measurable wear line at the solid ground surface of .009 in.

Thanks for the photos.

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Joe Scales
3/20/2019 10:24:23 am

Wear line, eh William? We're back to that now? You know you really ought to pay attention to Harold. I mean, considering how many obvious strikes go against the notion of authenticity for the KRS, very few knowledgeable folks would even take the time to do more in depth research exposing the hoax for what it was. Enter Harold. Someone who was there when Wolter began his bungling campaign for authenticity and saw first hand the discrepancies and poor methodology in its examination. He also did the research. Searched the archives and cited notable scientific articles pertinent to any discussion in regard to the flaws and mistakes made by its creator(s). He's spent hours now trying to educate you William. Hours wasted in my view; at least in your regard. But for the rest of us, Harold's efforts have not been wasted. His evidence and arguments presented are the most damning ever when taken as a whole. And you know what William? He hasn't even touched upon the language of the runes themselves, which have long been a red flag for every qualified linguist familiar with the advanced study of such runes.

But here you go again William. Wear lines. And that treaty, I suppose you'll never let go of. It can't be far off. Electromagnetic demarcation... or whatever. That's your arsenal. Your pretend arsenal, that is. As like a child, you play with toys and make up fantasy. An imbecilic child, that is.

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Harold Edwards
3/20/2019 11:54:18 am

I cannot emphasize this fact too much: Vetting archaeological artifacts like the Kensington Stone is a very difficult problem. The study of lithic artifacts is not the subject of geology. It is the subject of archaeology. Frequently geologists screw it up. Objects like the Kensington Stone have no reliable provenance other than the claims of the finder. These artifacts are one-of-a-kind objects that have no association with any archaeological setting. Usually when found the finder takes no notes, drawings, or photographs, certainly nothing of any scientific precision. Often the finder is a person with an agenda, often fraud of some sort. Geologists frequently make fools of themselves when working on these problems.

The first geologist to examine the Kensington Stone was John F. Steward in March of 1899. He was also the first person to photograph it. Steward in his younger days had been a field geologist with the 1871 Powell Expedition to the Colorado River in Utah. (His field notes from that time are with the Utah Historical Society.) Here is a photograph of him when he was working for Powell and the United States Geological Survey:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/Glen_Canyon._John_F._Steward_with_his_gun%2C_pick_and_shoulder_bag_%28map_case%5E%29_and_wearing_the_usual_wide_brim_felt..._-_NARA_-_517872.jpg

He had met Powell at the siege of Vicksburg when both served in the Union Army during the Civil War. They were hunting for fossils at the base of the cliff at Vicksburg.

Later he became the patent expert for the International Harvester Company in Chicago. He also became interested in art photography and antiquities. His interest in these no doubt led him to photograph the artifact when it was in the library of George Curme in Evanston, Illinois, Curme was Professor of German Philology at Northwestern University and was vetting the inscription which he eventually found to be a hoax.

In a letter to the Danish runologist Ludwig Wimmer dated October 18, 1899, which Steward sent along with his photographs, he classified the Kensington Stone a "trap." Theordore Blegen in his "The Kensington Rune Stone: New Light on an Old Riddle" published copies of the photographs on pages 44-45 and the letter to Wimmer on pages 136-137. Trap rocks are igneous rocks related to basalts. Graywackes are sandstones, sedimentary rocks. Therefore, Steward’s classification was a blunder. His geology may have been a bit rusty in 1899, but even a first year geology student would not make that error. In Steward’s defense, artifacts like the Kensington Stone are usually considered valuable objects and as such prevent much physical testing.

In 2003 when I could examine the Kensington Stone up close, my first instinct was to smack it with a hammer and examine the fresh surface of a piece with a 10x hand lens. That is how every geologist begins examining a rock. Think of it as our ritual to the memory of James Hutton, the great Scottish geologist! Of course I could not damage the artifact, so all I could do is stare at it in frustration.

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William Smith
3/20/2019 03:38:19 pm

Harold - Your history of peoples opinion on the authenticity of the KRS is great. It is good to hear that Kensington got new sidewalks in late 1800,s and the flat graywack stones had to go. The story that Olof went to town to get his rocks off does make a lot of sense when you look at the quality of skills in research of your buddies on this site that help you with proving your points. What I miss is why the hell did Ohman only get 1 200 lb. sidewalk stone when his wagon would have held many more. OH did he walk and carry it home without any body seeing him. He is likely the first immigrant to carry rocks to his farm when he had all he needed to make a forgery as you claim.
A 1900 photographer who uses black powder for flash took photos of the stone or was he just a civil war buddy who liked the smell of gunpowder at the age of 60.
If you continue to use your resources from folks on this site that do not understand (Magnetic declination) or even the proper spelling I am sure when it gets to the runic letters on the KRS they will be the experts. I bet they can use porosity holes to come up with a theory that on Easter Sunday in 1898 the Masons replacing the sidewalk carved a code on the KRS for Olman. ( I guess they beat the side off the stone with a meat tenderizer to get it into the wagon.
Archaeologist will tell you that the most important item on a discovered artifact is LOCATION, LOCATION and if that is not available look for LOCATION.

The finding reported location is on a hillside where Aspin tree stumps were being grubbed on Olof Ohmans farm.

Was this hillside an island during Olof's time?

How many foundation stones in the Ohman house are Graywack from the sidewalk?

Why is their so many triangle holes surrounding the KRS?

It has been reported that triangle stone holes are in the Ohman basement construction.

Their is a cluster of triangle stone holes 65 miles west of KRS.

The drift east of the magnetic declination on the 46 degree north latitude is about 50 miles/100 years. (1362 - 1472)?



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Joe Scales
3/20/2019 04:10:39 pm

William, you blithering idiot, you do know that in his scrapbook Ohman had cut out an article that predated his find in regard to a carved stone found within tree roots back in the old country.

Getting suspicious yet William? No? Oh... that's right. It's because you're an imbecile. A moron. A rube. A dummy. An idiot. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer. A dim bulb. A very, very stupid, stupid man. Dumb as dirt. Rocks for brains. An empty suit. Diminished faculties. A bumbling bumpkin. Etc.... etc... etc...

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Kent
3/20/2019 06:27:22 pm

William,

They were putting greywacke INTO the sidewalks, not taking it out. It's bad enough that you change your own stories, don't try it with other peoples'.

I notice in a much older post here that you say you are Certified in Archaeology, but then you make clear that you are Certified to help Boy Scouts get their Archaeology merit badge.

Third attempt:

How do you know the magnetic declination of a specific location in the distant past absent any written records? You seem to have a real problem answering this question. Everyone knows the answer but I for one want to hear it from you.

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Joe Scales
3/20/2019 04:01:23 pm

William, you imbecile, each and every one of your arguments assumes that the KRS is authentic. You begin with that and work backwards only accepting things to keep you believing. You can't see it of course... because you're an imbecile... but it's very, very clear to those here you wish to impress.

For the love of god man... give it up. With each and every successive post you prove your familiarity only with non sequitur and now you're getting angry and a bit perverse. Rocks off, and all. Jesus DOES NOT like that William. Not at all.

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Jim
3/20/2019 04:42:54 pm

William Smith comment in this blog:

"The many (60) tomb stone readings were taken at Elliot Cemetery in MO. in a like environment as the KRS. These 60 readings are recorded and show a natural mechanical wear rate of .003 in. per 50 years."

William Smith comment in 2013:

"After we found these facts we went to a grave site in Dawn MO. and took measurement on 60 stones with known standing dates. We then determined the projected wear on stone in a like environment that indicated .005 in. wear every 100 years."

William,,, Can you explain why your wear measurements changed from 2013 to 2019 ?
You took 1 set of measurements, and now have altered the results to support your crackpot theory.
Why should we trust any data you give us ?

William 2013:

"we took detail measurements of the Mechanical wear line by using a measuring process APPROVED by ENGINEERING STANDARDS on flat surfaces."

Now he tells he used a credit card and a toothpick, approved by engineering standards my derriere !

You are dishonest and full of crap.

http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/new-book-claims-kensington-rune-stone-is-part-of-an-elaborate-freemason-numerological-code-and-hoax

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Jim
3/20/2019 05:32:08 pm

Two photos from Ohman's basement foundation snowing rocks and stoneholes.

https://www.andywhiteanthropology.com/uploads/2/6/5/2/26529082/three-chisel-profiles-stone_orig.jpg

Photo caption (Judi Rudebusch)
"A quarried rock in a basement on the Ohman farm. Two bisected stone holes are clearly visible (Rudebusch says there are three but I can only discern two in the photo). These holes would have presumably been employed in the "plug and feather" method of splitting rock"

https://www.andywhiteanthropology.com/uploads/2/6/5/2/26529082/stone-hole-basement-1-robin-pic_orig.jpg

Photo caption (Judi Rudebusch)
Another bisected stone hole preserved in a foundation rock on the Ohman farm.

Above from this blog post

https://www.andywhiteanthropology.com/blog/molds-of-minnesota-stone-holes-lightning-post

"Judi Rudebusch
9/25/2016 04:33:02 pm

Andy, just sent you pics of worked stone in Ohman basement. One can see many chisel marks on the stone for working the rock- I call them bevels- you are seeing what a hole in the stone looks like after it is broken open- like a sandwich. One hole is very rounded."

https://www.andywhiteanthropology.com/blog/minnesota-stone-holes-and-the-boulder-field-quarry-hypothesis-i-dare-you-to-prove-it-wrong

Reply
Jim
3/20/2019 05:41:15 pm

Harold, Would you say Ohman had a drill bit specifically for drilling rock, judging from the hole in the second photo ?

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Harold Edwards
3/20/2019 06:36:01 pm

A plug drill is basically a steel rod. Usually it has a wedged tip like a chisel. If the rock is softer than steel, say limestone or marble, the tip gradually cuts through the stone. If the rock is harder than steel, say granite, the percussion of the steel against the rock shatters the mineral grains since they are brittle. If you strike a diamond with a hammer the diamond may shatter even though it is much harder than the steel in the hammer. This type of drilling was invented in the early 1600's to place gun powder in rocks for blasting. Later wedges and shims called plugs and feathers were designed to break the rock without blasting. Blasting shatters the rock and may render it useless in masonry. This method was used extensively in the United States throughout the 19th Century. Farmers in Minnesota used it to break up the glacial boulders on their land.

If one man did the drilling it is called single Jack drilling. It takes about 15 minutes for one man to drill holes like the ones you see in Ohman's basement. If two men did it, it is called double Jack drilling. Today there are drilling contests in the West. Here is a Youtube video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZXyKWa8XNE

Here is another video using plugs and feathers to split a rock along a line:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBMcMGBhUVk

These tools were readily available. Also chisels and hammers for blacksmithing could be substituted. Most farmers possessed a simple shop and did some basic blacksmithing.

There are scars on the bottom of the side face of the KRS consistent with the placing of wedges. If plugs and feathers were used the half cylinder holes had to have been hammered off. The scars are conchoidal which reflects a round hammer face.

Harold Edwards
3/20/2019 07:36:33 pm

Here is a paper on stone holes in Minnesota by Tom Trow and published by the Minnesota Historical Society. It contains part of an interview with Emil Mattson who grew up on a farm near Olof Ohman's in Kensington. As a boy Mattson sharpened chisels for his father and Ohman. The men were drilling holes in boulders in order to blast them. A more extensive interview with Mattsom is in the Society's archives. In it, he talks about Ohman building the barn for his father's farm.

http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/56/v56i03p120-128.pdf

Many holes for blasting were abandoned since safe practice is to drill the holes and then do the blasting later. That in part is why they are ubiquitous in rural Minnesota and elsewhere.

Harold Edwards
3/20/2019 07:49:56 pm

Triangular holes are a function of tip geometry and not whether the hole was hand drilled or machine drilled. Here is company, Deltagon, that advertises a bit geometry that avoids triangular holes:
http://miyanagaamerica.com/products/deltagon_bit/pdf/DeltagonBit_SDS_max.pdf

Kent
3/20/2019 08:27:47 pm

"Many holes for blasting were abandoned since safe practice is to drill the holes and then do the blasting later. That in part is why they are ubiquitous in rural Minnesota and elsewhere."

This makes no sense. The only possible practice would be "to drill the holes and then do the blasting later." What are you trying to say here?

Harold Edwards
3/20/2019 08:46:05 pm

What happens is drilling is either done on different days or it is done too late in the day to switch to blasting. When the crew comes back to blast the holes they overlook some of them or for some reason or other do not return to the area. Sorry for the confusion.

William Smith
3/20/2019 07:28:31 pm

Harold - Thanks for your research on rock drilling. The round holes in stones in the basement of Ohmans home are smaller and different than the triangle stone holes. Why would Ohman use different process when NO stone hole on the hill is round or shows evidence of powder explosive.
To find declination in a given area at a given time is to use a declination calculator. Most on the web do not show 1362 or 1472, however you can predict the eastward drift over time by using the calculator in 50 year checks. It is so variable you can get reverse readings, however it (THE North Pole LINE) as identified by explorers in the 14th and 15th century.
When the translation on the KRS seems to indicate the hill was an island, how did Olof know this?
I have spent a lot of time on this site trying to share some information, I have been told in post that the wear line was double stated. If I told you or you read it in any of my field notes please advise. I stated it averages to .003 in. per 50 years.
My archaeology certificate was for doing work with the Boy Scouts for the Historical Society in Union Township Oh. This was after I was trained by Joe Shoemaker (Native American) of all the new laws passed in the 1990s. I have chaired many local digs and trained over 100 scouts in obtaining their merit badge in the subject area.
I will not post anymore, however if you wish to be updated on the authenticity of the KRS you have my email.

Reply
Harold Edwards
3/20/2019 08:09:51 pm

Here is another brochure for Deltagon bits that has a better explanation of triangular holes.

http://miyanagaamerica.com/products/deltagon_bit/pdf/DeltagonBit_SDS_plus.pdf

In September of 2016 I wrote Dr. Adolf Fridriksson the head of the Institute of Archaeology in Iceland and asked if he knew of triangular holes in the rocks in Iceland that dated from the Medieval period. He wrote back: "As far as I know we have never found drill holes in rocks in Iceland from the medieval period."

If the Norse were drilling these holes in 1362 in Minnesota, they should be found in Iceland and elsewhere in Europe inhabited by the Norse. They are not. I repeat: This method of drilling was invented in the early 17th Century.

The hill on Ohman's farm is not today and was not in 1362 an island. Water levels then were about the same as today. Read the Trow paper I referenced above.

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Kent
3/20/2019 08:48:02 pm

"To find declination in a given area at a given time is to use a declination calculator. Most on the web do not show 1362 or 1472, however you can predict the eastward drift over time by using the calculator in 50 year checks."

Sounds like there's a problem with the logic, a problem that keeps it from rejecting nonsense dates. There's no way to extrapolate the declination of a location in 1362 or 1472 that hadn't even been visited yet. You need written records; the wandering of the North magnetic pole is not predictable. You may have heard that it has recently started to move again.

"It is so variable you can get reverse readings, however it (THE North Pole LINE) as identified by explorers in the 14th and 15th century."

This throws an NAS (Not a Sentence) error. You need to rewrite it.
Objection Your Honor. Assumes explorers not in evidence.

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Jim
3/20/2019 09:27:56 pm

Kent,
I can tell you where this is going.
William took a bearing (his alleged 1472 declination bearing) from a window in the Newport Tower, when it led him to a random rock in the tower wall. He has declared this rock a "builders mark" that was put precisly in that spot by the stone mason to date the tower via that years declination.
I know right ?,,,,lol, and then he thinks this and his declination calculations prove each other and that he has precisely pegged the building date of the Newport Tower.
It's like Monty Python on acid.

Harold Edwards
3/20/2019 09:57:00 pm

Mr. Smith spent the better part of two decades solving an elaborate "crossword puzzle." You are asking him to give it up with mere facts. He cannot do that and look himself in the mirror in the morning. Read this:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont-change-our-minds

My goal is not to get Mr. Smith to change his mind but to put out the evidence as best I know it and let others decide. I can be wrong. Others will have to decide.

Him
3/20/2019 10:32:39 pm

You have certainly made one heck of a compelling+ case. I for one will be saving a link to this right above the one with all of Richard Nielsen's files.

Harold Edwards
3/20/2019 09:34:58 pm

The name Ohman means "man from the Island." The Island was the name of the farm that Olof Ohman grew up on in Sweden. His birth name was Olof Olsson, i.e., Olof the son of Olof. Most Swedes did not have surnames during the 19th Century. Mats Larsson who wrote a book about the Kensington Stone in Swedish and who researched Ohman's background in Sweden, wrote me that Olof and his father both used the name "Ohman" when they did their military service since there were many men with the name Olsson and they did not want to be confused with them. Olof Olsson came to the U.S. in 1879. We know that from steamship manifests. He left the U.S. in 1883 and returned to Sweden. He returned to the U.S. as Olof Ohman in 1886. Karin Danielsdotter, his fiance, followed him from Sweden and they were married on November 27, 1886 at Alexandria, Minnesota.

The word for island used on the Kensington Stone is "Oh." The symbol for the "O" is an umlauted "O" with a runic "n" inside. It is not the runic letter "o." It is a monogram for Ohman. The runic letter "o" is used elsewhere in the inscription again and again.

Mr. Ohman is still sticking his tongue out at you!

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William Smith
3/21/2019 07:34:13 am

HIM - This is only round 1, be sure and stay tuned for round 2. In my opinion it will be a knock out, however people need to get their moneys worth. It will include 3 stone carvings that support the KRS 1472 carving date. When you look at the modern day research you will see the big picture. One of the three stones is (The Ohio Rock)

Reply
I will not post anymore
3/21/2019 08:14:23 am

WILLIAM SMITH
3/20/2019 07:28:31 pm

"...I will not post anymore..."

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Joe Scales
3/21/2019 12:05:15 pm

Yes, not only is William an imbecile, somewhat crazed and a tad bit perverted... but now he's shown he's not a man of his word. Surprise, surprise.

One thing is for sure however. If there's a way to get something completely wrong, William is the man for the job.

Poodle Shooter
3/21/2019 04:04:28 pm

The poster child for "Jesus wept."

Jim
3/21/2019 10:11:55 am

More nutbars coming out of the woodwork,,, or should I say, stonework

https://www.newportri.com/article/20141004/NEWS/310049939

The story gives a short but somewhat interesting rundown of all the people and their preposterous claims of the origins of the Newport Tower.
Who is conspicuous by his absence is Wolter, they completely ignore him as insignificant.

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Harold Edwards
3/21/2019 10:25:28 am

Here is a video of a man using a tool called a stone ax to split rock:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP68zFwwhDk

Notice that if the blow does not split the rock it leaves a long scar that is consistent with the "runes" in the rocks at the Old Mill at Newport.

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Accumulated Wisdom
3/21/2019 01:30:26 pm

Harold Edwards,

I appreciate the Geology lesson regarding PH levels, and the KRS.
You have helped make sense of points others have made.

You are WRONG about the Runes on the Newport Tower. Way wrong!

I have absolutely no idea when New Evidence will be revealed. Someone else's work. I can assure you, there is more.

Again, I appreciate all of the points made by Yourself, Jim, and William.


William Smith,

I believe this is round two. Round one was on Andy White's blog, 3 years ago.

Harold Edwards
3/21/2019 02:50:33 pm

There are no runes at the Old Mill:

http://thenewportblast.com/are-there-viking-runes-on-the-newport-tower-video/

Dr. Henrik Williams said so. I know Dr. Williams personally and can vouch for his integrity and knowledge. He is Professor of Scandinavian languages at Uppsala University in Sweden. He is an expert in runes and is the co-editor of Futhark: International Journal of Runic Studies I often ask him questions about these matters and defer to his opinions. Note that he also said the style of the "tower" is not that of the Norse in Scandinavia.

Jim
3/21/2019 03:26:01 pm

Heck, maybe Rhode Island is Atlantis, the Greeks covered their windmills in plaster, perhaps they picked this up from the Atlantians.
Excuse me while I go self publish a book.

Accumulated Wisdom
3/21/2019 04:38:21 pm

Harold Edwards,

Dr. Williams dropped the ball. There are Runes Dr. Williams is NOT aware of. William Smith is also blissfully unaware of the NEW evidence.

I have no stake in the game. I am not promoting a book, blog, ideology, myself, or seeking financial gain.

I just happened to be paying attention at the right time.

Kent
3/21/2019 05:00:07 pm

Sorry Anthony, but you see runes where other people see visual noise. You're pulling a Classic Wolter™, thinking you know better than someone who can actually read the language.

Accumulated Wisdom
3/21/2019 05:17:16 pm

Kent,

The only thing true from your statement is your "sorry".

Obviously, you couldn't make out the Pentadic number 14. Nor, could you see the Religious Expression carved just below. ON THE SAME STONE!!!
There are 11 carvings/inscriptions visible in that photo alone! NONE of which, Dr. Williams knows about.



Accumulated Wisdom
3/21/2019 05:20:35 pm

"you're"

I HATE this phone!

Kent
3/21/2019 05:35:14 pm

Anthony, you're basically saying "I see it! You should see it too!"

Background on this can be viewed on this page by searching for the March 5th and 6th posts.

A case in point: You just edited your post to *introduce* a mistake.

Harold Edwards
3/21/2019 05:36:41 pm

ACCUMULATED WISDOM

Let us see what you are claiming. "There are Runes Dr. Williams is NOT aware of." Well, it was not up to Dr. Williams to find the runes in question. It was up to others to point them out to him when he came over from Sweden to examine the Old Mill. Obviously they did not. In the 178 years since this Old Mill has been accused of being a Norse Tower, either no one else has found them, or they concealed their presence from Dr. Williams.

Furthermore you claim to have knowledge of some "NEW evidence" that "will be revealed." There is no such thing as secret science. Others have to be able to replicate the data--in this case, others have to be able to examine these supposed "runes." Until then, they do not exist. Stop wasting our time.

Accumulated Wisdom
3/21/2019 06:12:25 pm

Like, I stated. This is someone else's work. It does not belong to me. When targeted examinations are done, I am hoping these people show it to the world. Especially, Dr. Williams. I will not cite sources. They are already posted to Facebook. Links to this information have been posted to this blog. If that's secret, so be it.

I am still learning about Runes and Pentadic numbers. Some of the complex Pentadic symbols, often labeled as "magic" appear to be Geometric Proofs. Expressed differently than today. There are also similarities between some Runes and symbols found on Soapstone Seals from the Indus Valley Civilization. This is cool stuff!

Kent
3/21/2019 06:23:47 pm

Stop wasting our time.

Jim
3/21/2019 06:49:10 pm

This is all Patrick Shekleton's nonsense, he's running neck to neck with William for most bizarre and ridiculous.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pqIroHwFSsyfO2TSkiqxDhLYAwj3f_r5/view?fbclid=IwAR3mIHN4degrpsH4AHzWpLWDFA9gCxyDBYzKf-A75bBSfkluthiQv21COpE

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1966857766723750&id=114338978642314&__tn__=K-R

https://www.facebook.com/114338978642314/photos/a.114955778580634/2011644728911720/?type=3&theater

Accumulated Wisdom
3/21/2019 11:52:00 pm

A waste of time was effectively rereading Andy White's blog comments on this blog. If, alerting educated people of talking out their backside's is a waste of time...By all means, carry on. My professional reputation isn't on the line.

Your closemindedness is going to come back to bite. I won't say, "I told you so!"

Until then...Carry on!

Harold Edwards
3/22/2019 12:11:31 am

Andy White posted on this blog? Where? Sorry I missed him. I wanted to say hello.

Doc Rock
3/22/2019 12:17:07 am

AW brings to mind a common theme in the discourse of the fringe. That is, any day now they are going to come up with dead bang proof for whatever it is they are pushing and all the doubters are going to be forced to admit that they are wrong and eat humble pie. But in 40+ years of following topics like bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, UFOs, Egyptians/Minoans/Phoenicians, etc. in ancient America, Templar codes on rocks in North America, tribes of 8 feet tall Indians, etc., etc., etc., it hasn't happened yet. Not in a single case.

A decade from now the same people will still be making the same claims and making the same threats of "we're gonna have the last laugh" and it just ain't gonna happen.

Reply
Accumulated Wisdom
3/22/2019 03:58:02 am

Doc Rock,

I have been reading about the same things as yourself, for exactly 40 years. I too have noticed grandiose claims amounting to nothing.

In the case of the Newport Tower, I have noticed symbols appearing in one photo, and disappearing in the next. This is apparently due to age/weathering and certain angles of light casting shadow. Possibly by design as well. Until recently, I had no clue as to what, I was seeing. Hopefully, before my life cycle ends, these carvings/inscriptions will be brought to the full Light of everyone. No grandiose claims on my part.

There are also apparently unknown inscriptions on the white quartz at NewGrange! Anyone know who's in charge. I would like to alert the appropriate people.

Someone should explain where Ohman received his Kabbalah training.
Attabash Cipher
Key 8 and 22
There's a reason behind the perceived "mistakes".

Surely, one of y'all knows how this code works.
I would be SheShoked otherwise.

Carry on.

Reply
William Smith
3/22/2019 12:39:08 am

Keep taking your cheap shots at Ohman. It has been going on for 120 years and will continue, however the information recorded does not include a wear line, magnetic declination, triangle holes. the 1494 treaty, and 3 other stones connected to the KRS. These new research finds will be added to the list in round 2, however it is unlikely round 2 will be in this arena.

http://www.kensingtonrunestone.us/html/history.html

Reply
Harold Edwards
3/22/2019 12:50:21 am

http://runeberg.org/beratt/1/0009.html

Reply
Accumulated Wisdom
3/22/2019 04:53:19 am

Harold Edwards,

"The Copts recount that the spirit attached to the pyramid of the North is a naked yellow devil whose mouth is filled with long teeth. That of the Southern pyramid is a naked woman who reveals her natural parts; she is beautiful but her mouth is filled with long teeth. She charms men who look at her, smiles at them, draws them in, and makes them lose their reason. The spirit of the Colored pyramid is an old man holding a church censer wherein burn perfumes. Many people have seen these spirits on numerous occasions around the pyramids in the middle of the day and at sunset."

Not Spirits... Inscriptions only visible at certain times. EXACTLY as the inscriptions on the Newport Tower.

Hopefully soon, Y'all will have something new to argue over, and call each other names. There's more to that Tower than you realize, which includes the Trademarked Symbol. Yes! It's on the Tower too.

Deity... Don't take me yet! I've got explanations to hear!




Kent
3/22/2019 09:51:39 am

"Inscriptions only visible at certain times. EXACTLY as the inscriptions on the Newport Tower."

So now magic? That could get you out of a lot of tedious work.

It should be "Inscriptions only visible to certain observers. EXACTLY as the inscriptions on the Newport Tower."

Jim
3/22/2019 10:27:08 am

" Inscriptions only visible at certain times. EXACTLY as the inscriptions on the Newport Tower."

No wonder no one can read them, this sounds like the Elvish language to me. I recommend hiring Gandolf to translate these to English

https://i0.wp.com/24.media.tumblr.com/985d08de00da3206cf143ba185637466/tumblr_mmx6guqmcO1s2e2ypo1_1280.jpg

Joe Scales
3/22/2019 10:33:33 am

Jesus Christ William, you are a pathetic, lying, stupid, stupid man. Thought you were done? Didn't you say you've had enough? Liar. Now with Anthony you two have formed a moronic tag team to spout even more nonsense. Stone holes to go along with your treaty, and the magnetic demarcation... all proving what exactly?

That you are an absolute imbecile.

You know William, it would actually be funny if you were just trolling here intentionally setting forth your ridiculous pronouncements, faulty logic, misreading of unrelated documents and an innate ability to get everything wrong. Yeah, it would be funny. Heck, I'd salute you. But no William. You actually believe what you say. Unbelievably you think you are winning an argument here when you lack the mental acuity to realize just how incredibly ignorant you actually are. And I mean on a grand scale. Like a newborn baby given a seat at a chessboard. It's actually that pathetic William. And you can't see it. You never will. You're that stupid. You're that ignorant. You're that moronic. You're that dumb. Really, really, really dummmmmmmmmb.

Reply
Harold Edwards
3/22/2019 11:43:46 am

I think it is a mistake to insult these people. What happens is the discussion degenerates into an exchange of ad hominems. It is like mud wrestling a pig. Everyone gets soiled. Don't insult them. Just call them out when they insult others and ask them to stop.

The fact that proponents of pseudo history will hurl insults at any expert who confronts them with facts is a turnoff to most experts. You should note that no archaeologist has posted on this blog. That is why. They do not want to be dragged into the mud. I know they read this blog because they email me about it. You are all cheated out of the views of the real experts.

You have to develop a more effective strategy for confronting junk archaeology and history. I suggest two things:

First, one of the main issues is epistemology. That is the branch of philosophy that deals with how humans gain knowledge. What are the techniques used by physical scientists to validate physical artifacts? What are the techniques used by historians to validate historical facts? What are the techniques used by linguists to demonstrate relationships between ancient texts and the languages spoken by earlier peoples? Pseudo historians like to pepper the reader with unsupported conclusions. Ask them detailed questions on how they came to these conclusions. They are not going to change their minds, but others are going to see how they think.

Second: The subject of this blog is the fourth episode of America's Lost Vikings. Since the show discussed the Kensington Stone that is a fair topic for discussion. Again and again we are drawn off topic to discuss other artifacts and places that have nothing to do with the subject of the blog. Again and again this blog is highjacked to move the subject to other topics of fake history. That is also a turn off. I think a better strategy is to call the proponents of junk archaeology out and ask them to stop. Do not refute their fake history on other matters. I have made this mistake myself. Be relentless and keep the discussion on topic.

My advice to archaeologists is that they fund a documentary about what really happened in Minnesota in 1362. Who lived here and what did they do? The lay audience hungers for this information. All this crap about Norse explorers sucks the oxygen out of the air. The Native Peoples never get to tell their stories. Once again they are cheated of their heritage. We need to see the real stories.

Doc Rock
3/22/2019 12:47:02 pm

Harold,

My Ph.D. Is in cultural/historical anthropology, but I had four-field training with a heavy emphasis on archaeology at the BA and MA levels. Helped to work my way thru grad school doing CRM work and even did some Phase I archaeology field work after completing my PHD. So whether or not I qualify as an archaeologist may be a matter for debate.

But I do agree that most professionals have little desire to get caught up in debates with the fringe. Most have better things to do than get into extended arguments with people who personify concepts like Hitchen's Razor, Fractal Wrongness, and the Gish Gallop. I have a bit more time to dabble in such matters since I am semi-retired and gave a lifelong interest in fringe topics. But I also recognize that one quickly reaches a point of diminishing return with such things.

Harold Edwards
3/22/2019 01:25:18 pm

I started my college career as a history major with an English minor. I also had a geology minor, so I later switched to it for my degrees. However I had enough hours in history to take a degree in it, but never did. Hence my interest in the subject. In 1980's as a graduate student I was managing an electron microscope research facility at the University of Minnesota. At that time I met some archaeologists and became interested in the petrography of pottery from the Laurel and Blackduck cultures in Minnesota. I was also interested in trace element fingerprinting as a method of determining the provenance of artifacts. I wrote some computer programs on this method and then applied them to the provenance of asbestos containing fire proofing and acoustical plasters. I had a consulting business as an expert witness. This is a roundabout way of showing how problem solving in one field can be extended to others. I am not an archaeologist either.

Joe Scales
3/22/2019 02:36:15 pm

"I think it is a mistake to insult these people."

Point taken, and I generally ignore folks here that I either do not respect or don't get along with. I've even advised others not to argue with the idiots here as the longer you do so, the harder it is to tell the difference. But William is a special case; and when there is absolutely no possibility of having him retract his flow of falsehoods, shaming him for his utter stupidity is all that is left as I will not argue with him in any intellectual sense. As you see, that is fruitless His insistence on continuing to spout the same nonsense on and on and over and over again, along with his misplace smugness has me believe that my ire is the best response accordingly.

You will never get anywhere with him Harold. Nor with mental patient Anthony. The former is too stupid to get it and the latter is solely here to disrupt discourse to go back to Wolter for an "attaboy"; and he's batshit crazy. Still I enjoy your very helpful contributions, and do not wish to make your experiences here unpleasant. So just allow me this one last time on this thread... to express just how freakin' ignorant William is. Really, really, really ignorant. Like off the charts ignorant. To the stratosphere ignorant. And beyond.

Harold Edwards
3/22/2019 04:02:35 pm

I was not trying to reprimand you or anybody else. I lost it a time or two myself. The illogical argumentation and the lack of facts is taxing to say the least. I am thinking of the best strategy. There are two types of people who come to this blog, those with strong views one way or another and those who come to learn more. I try to address the latter. Also, I understand best practice for dealing with delusional people is to calmly reinforce reality. They live in their heads and have a poor ability to reality test the world. You have to do it for them and keep your fingers crossed.

Doc Rock
3/22/2019 04:31:39 pm

It never hurts to try to keep ones's cool, at least to some extent, and let the other guy go into full meltdown mode. Works quite well on folks outside of the fringe as well at times. That is, if one has a goal of trying educate the people you referenced who are here to learn. They probably aren't giving big points for credibility to those who flip out even worse than the fringe folks they are supposed to be criticizing.

William Smith
3/22/2019 11:35:10 am

Harold - I have a different view of the history of the KRS which I attempted to apply your aging of the calcite on the subject which may bridge some gap between our differences. My research supports the following environment the KRS has been exposed.
1472 - KRS carved and placed upright in an acid rain air which produces calcite wear of 1/2 of todays carbon content in the atmosphere. Stood in this environment 350 years for a wear of .012 in.
1822 - Fell on its face on live grass and fresh fallen leaves which would have died and dried into a paper like condition in one month, at which time the ph would be about the same as paper 1.0 ph. This exposure would last another 76 years until the face of the stone was exposed to the acid rain of 1898.
1898 - New surfaces were made with a nail that are still plain today, however many surfaces in the runes escaped the nail.
1910 - Holland made an H at the bottom of the stone exposing calcite or at least a lighter color which has stood for 109 years without change in color.

Question - what lab test indicate the calcium wear would be over .015 in. in any area on the KRS.

Question - your measurement using 3D scanning states the calcium layer on the stone is only .003 in. thick. I can see this under the nail or the H, however do not see this in the face surface below the runic letters which seams to be a lot thicker than .003 in.

I would like your reference to the 3D measurement of the .003 in. thickness of calcium on the KRS if available and how it was used to prove Olof Ohman carved the stone. It is my understanding the only 3D scans of the KRS was during the 2003 time frame and did not include the area below the runic letters which would also include the H on the left side. If that is the case then the .003 in. likely came from the transition area made at the bottom of the runic letters with a nail. A true measurement or test may be possible by determining the length of probe required to make a surface scratch on the KRS. (results may be .003 in.)

Reply
Jim
3/22/2019 11:54:57 am

William,,,,,,Wow !

" Fell on its face on live grass and fresh fallen leaves which would have died and dried into a paper like condition in one month, at which time the ph would be about the same as paper 1.0 ph."

All this information from Harold and you don't have the foggiest idea how the pH scale works, unfreaking believable.
Paper has a pH of 1 ????????
So you're claiming paper is actually a strong acid ?
You are so ignorant of science it's scary.

Reply
Kent
3/23/2019 01:14:51 pm

"1.0 PH" is probably William's funniest fail ever.

Jim
3/23/2019 01:36:08 pm

He probably made this claim after eating some pink microdot.
Now there is some paper with a high (pun intended) acid content.

"After tablets came "computer acid" or "blotter paper LSD",

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysergic_acid_diethylamide

Harold Edwards
3/22/2019 12:03:52 pm

The point cloud for the 2003 3-D scan is available from the Swedish National Heritage Board. I believe the point cloud for the 2008 scan is now with the Minnesota Historical Society. You will need to contact those organizations if you want to see them for yourself. These are large data files, and you will need get a computer program that can take measurements and generate images from the point clouds.

I do not do IT work for others or to explain how to do it. Ars longa, vita brevis.

Good luck.

Reply
Accumulated Wisdom
3/22/2019 01:02:04 pm

Harold Edwards,

The Newport Tower and the KRS are RELATED. Whomever carved that stone, he/she/they incorporated the NT.

There is more going on than your sweeping declarations allow for. Like, I stated above, someone needs to explain how/where Ohman received his Kabbalah training. There are multiple codes.

I have asked SW twice, for the complete Alphabet used on the KRS. Need this information to perform the Attabash Cipher. The keys to the letter switching are 8 and 22. For a historical precedent See: Book of Daniel

Every single Archaeologist, I met growing up claimed, "The Norse explored and settled America before Columbus." ALL of which, claimed "There's no money in it" and "No one is spending money to prove it".

I am not making grandiose claims. I have just been pointing out details overlooked. Much of which, is in plain sight.



Harold Edwards
3/22/2019 02:00:33 pm

There is no known complete runic alphabet for the Kensington Stone inscription since not all the letters are in play. Unlike the Latin alphabet there is no standard runic alphabet. Runic alphabets cluster by age as they morph from one set to another over time. The best information in English on what was used on the KRS is George Flom's 1910 paper referenced above. You can download a copy from the internet archive.

https://archive.org/details/kensingtonrunest00flom/page/n4

The KRS uses 19th Century runes from Dalarna Province in Sweden. There is considerable variance in these. Most of the important studies on these are in Swedish. Two good ones are:

Dalska runinskrifter från nyare tid
Noreen, Adolf
Fornvännen 1, 63-91
http://kulturarvsdata.se/raa/fornvannen/html/1906_063
Ingår i: samla.raa.se

and

"Edward Larssons alfabet och Kensingtonstenens" by Tryggve Sköld in DAUM-KATTA 2003.

The latter shows the runes used by the Larsson brothers which closely match those on the KRS as well as the numbering system.

I think you can download both.

The numbering system on the KRS does not use runes but uses separate symbols. The best paper I have found on this is "The Numerals in the Kensington Inscription" by Karl Martin Nielsen in Runor och runinskrifter Konferenser 15, 1985. You would have to run that down using the interlibrary loan service at your public library.

Ohman received no Kabbalah training. He was not Jewish. He was a freethinker and his wife and children attended the nearby Solem Lutheran Church. His scrapbook contained a clipping from the Swedish language newspaper, Svenska Amerikanaren, for January 8, 1891. It was about Buddhism and ended with the mantra "AUM." This may explain his use of "AVM" in Latin letters on the KRS inscription.

Harold Edwards
3/22/2019 02:05:43 pm

If you are into codes here is an article on the code used by Ohman on the KRS. It is in Swedish.

Larsson, M.G.. 2010. Vem ristade Kensingtonrunstenen? Saga och sed 2010. Uppsala.

Here is an English summary:

https://aardvarchaeology.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/kensington-runestone-fakers-si/

Kent
3/23/2019 05:37:07 am

Haven't posted in a little while because of constant chuckling over "Attabash". Once you mangle a Hebrew word so as to deprive it of its meaning I suppose it's easy to cite the Book of Daniel as your example.

For those following along at home the "Attabash" cipher is just a Caesar cipher.

William Smith
3/23/2019 11:31:05 am

Harold - If your answer for the question (How did you measure the calcite to be .003 in. thick) Was the results of the 3D scanning process which you say you studied.) FACT : The 3D scanning is not an ex-ray of the stone and surface variation showing the topographical surface can not measure calcite thickness. Properly read at the wear line on the left side of the face it will show three levels of surface wear. Above ground, below ground and a small measurable area between the two.
Every reference you have submitted to degrade the KRS and the Ohman family is a disgrace because they lead to a fabricated dead end to help you support your lab calcite comparison to the facts shown on the KRS.

Kent
3/23/2019 12:16:12 pm

Yes Harald, a toothpick and a credit card will get the job done.

Harold Edwards
3/23/2019 04:00:07 pm

The advantage of laser scanning is the virtual artifact can be examined at will any time and any place. I just made some measurements of rune depths using the 2008 scan. The deepest in the calcite layer is the word spacer on line 8. These look like colons. The upper dot is 1.44 mm deep, and the bottom dot is 1.96 mm deep. Since calcite in marble tombstones in the Kensington area weathers at a rate of 6 mm per thousand years, it would take about 333 years or less to weather away these dots. The inscription in the calcite layer should have weathered away by 1898 if it was carved in 1362.

On line 6 next to the step is a popout with a word spacer carved into the graywacke. The upper dot at the top of the step is 1.11 mm deep, and the lower dot in the popout is 1.58 mm deep. I do not have a good rate for the graywacke weathering, but it weathers at a slower rate than calcite. Yet the dots in both are equally sharp.

For information on the use of laser scanning in archaeology:

https://www.si.edu/content/MCIImagingStudio/papers/scanning_paper.pdf

This will give you an overview of the method.

Jim
3/23/2019 12:51:13 pm

William,
You still haven't explained why you falsified your own 2010 data.
I really would like to know.

William Smith comment in this blog (2019):

"The many (60) tomb stone readings were taken at Elliot Cemetery in MO. in a like environment as the KRS. These 60 readings are recorded and show a natural mechanical wear rate of .003 in. per 50 years."

William Smith comment in 2013:

"After we found these facts we went to a grave site in Dawn MO. and took measurement on 60 stones with known standing dates. We then determined the projected wear on stone in a like environment that indicated .005 in. wear every 100 years."

Whats going on there William ?

Reply
Kent
3/24/2019 02:48:36 am

The fact that William doesn't point out that .003" per 50 years and .005" per hundred years are pretty close is ... interesting. It's like he doesn't know.

Reply
Kent
3/24/2019 05:28:43 am

Of course you could have asked him about it in the context of closeness. Could be a rounding error, no?

Jim
3/24/2019 03:36:46 pm

Well, he didn't answer the question after I asked him twice.
All he did was try to deflect the conversation to Ohman's grave marker which isn't even marble and does not rise above ground level to be blown back and forth to create a wear line, or be struck by dust particles or whatever supposedly causes his mechanical wear line.
All he could do is try to change the subject.

William Smith
3/23/2019 02:11:37 pm

If you read my field notes and post you will see the wear line rate is .003 in. per 50 years. Ohmans grave stone has a .004 wear line the last time measured.

Reply
Jim
3/23/2019 03:15:32 pm

Horse manure, Ohman's gravestone does not rise above the level of the ground, therefore NO WEAR LINE PERIOD....

https://images.findagrave.com/photos/2009/335/43190141_125980009903.jpg

Care to try again ?
What is his gravestone made of ? It does not even look like marble. Even if it was standing above ground it would be an apples to oranges comparison.
You are really blowing it here William.

Reply
William Smith
3/23/2019 03:44:04 pm

Jim - I suggest you take another look at Ohmans grave stone. It is granite and sits on a granite slab which is rough cut at the ground level. When the wear line is exposed and measured it will read a between 0003 in and 004 in.
Your calcite wear of 100 years is very misleading. The acid rain or carbonate was I/2 of what it is today during the standing life of the KRS. The wear line indicates the KRS stood 350 years before falling.
You have failed at showing any knowledge of hands on research, however you thrive on attempting to impress others of your master of stupidity.

Jim
3/23/2019 03:50:45 pm

Geez William, did you forget to look at the link I included ??

"Jim - I suggest you take another look at Ohmans grave stone. It is granite and sits on a granite slab which is rough cut at the ground level."

Sorry William, you are lying again, look at the photo link of Ohman's gravestone.

Jim
3/23/2019 04:02:45 pm

Granite has a hardness of 6 -6.5 on the Mohs scale.
Marble has a hardness of 3 on the Mohs scale.

You are saying these wear at the same rate ? Nonsense.

Jim
3/23/2019 03:37:26 pm

You still haven't explained your change from .003 in 50 years to .005 in 100 years. did inches get shorter from 2010 to 2019 ?

Reply
Jim
3/23/2019 03:20:47 pm

" Calcite and dolomite in carbonate rocks, limestone, dolostone and including marble, are soluble in water and tend to quickly erode. In a rainy climate the inscriptions of a gravestone made of of massive carbonate rocks will become unreadable in a geological short time, like 100 years."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidbressan/2016/10/31/the-geology-of-graveyards/#20797223265b

Reply
Accumulated Wisdom
3/25/2019 08:05:28 pm

Harold Edwards,

Expect an email from your friend.

Jim,

Thank you! Sorry for temporarily confusing you with another Jim. Honestly!

danKent,

You are not as smart as, I gave you credit for. You assume the Attabash Cipher was used with Hebrew. This code, which precedes Caesar, can be used with any language. Giving credit to Caesar for the Attabash Cipher is like giving Al Gore credit for the Internet.

Reply
Kent
3/25/2019 11:01:24 pm

I am going to steal from the esteemed Mr. Scales and say "Anthony, you imbecile."

"You assume the Attabash Cipher was used with Hebrew."
I do not. Are you wrong or lying? I care not.

"This code, which precedes Caesar, can be used with any language"
Nonetheless it is what is commonly referred to as a Caesar cipher.

"Giving credit to Caesar for the Attabash Cipher is like giving Al Gore credit for the Internet."
I gave no credit. Again you are either wrong or lying and I care not which.

What you choose in your accumulated imbecilism to call the "Attabash" cipher is properly called the Atbash אתבש cipher. The word is made up of the first, last, second, and next to last letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

Book of Daniel my Aunt Fanny.

"Attabash" indeed. You truly are an imbecile.

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    • Miscellaneous Documents >
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      • The Life and Death of Crown Prince Rudolf
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      • James Dean's Scrapbook
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      • The Amazing James Dean Hoax!
    • Free Classic Pseudohistory eBooks
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