MYS0CT1HNFE1GMN·Mystery · object

The Kensington Runestone

George T. Flom · Public domain

Found: 8 November 1898, farm of Olof Ohman, Solem township, Douglas County, Minnesota⁠[1]
Date in the inscription: 1362⁠[1]
Held by: Runestone Museum, Alexandria, Minnesota⁠[10]
1910 committee: Minnesota Historical Society museum committee gave a conditional favourable opinion⁠[1]
Main linguistic verdict: Modern Swedish-Norwegian with invented or late runes⁠[3]
Rune-form origin: Linked in 2022 to a rune row circulating in Sweden from 1876⁠[7]
Status: Partly explained
Questions: 1 of 4 answered

People Alice B. KehoeAnthropologist; advocate of authenticity Hjalmar HolandHistorian and owner; chief advocate of authenticity Magnus KällströmRunologist, Swedish National Heritage Board Olof OhmanFarmer who found the stone Scott WolterGeologist; weathering study

All 8 people ›

Erik WahlgrenScandinavianist; author of the 1958 study George T. FlomLinguist; argued the inscription is modern Henrik WilliamsRunologist, Uppsala University

Catalog keyMYS0CT1HNFE1GMN

On 8 November 1898 Olof Ohman, a Swedish immigrant farmer, was clearing timber on his land about three miles north-east of Kensington, Minnesota. Under the roots of a poplar or aspen, face down beneath about six inches of soil, lay a flat stone carved with runes⁠[1]. The inscription, as translated for the Minnesota Historical Society in 1910, reads in part: "Eight Goths [Swedes] and twenty-two Norwegians upon a journey of discovery from Vinland westward. ... we found ten men red with blood and dead. AVM, save us from evil. ... Year 1362"⁠[1].

If genuine it would be the oldest document in North America by a European. Scandinavian scholars who examined it soon after the find, and again in 1910, judged it modern, chiefly on its language and runes⁠[2]⁠[3]. The historian Hjalmar Holand bought it in 1907 and spent fifty years defending it, and a museum committee of the Minnesota Historical Society gave it a favourable opinion in 1910, conditional on review by a specialist in the Scandinavian languages⁠[4]⁠[1].

The debate never closed in public. Erik Wahlgren's 1958 study and Theodore Blegen's 1968 study set out the case for a nineteenth-century origin⁠[3]⁠[5]. In 2000 the geologist Scott Wolter reported that weathering of the grooves showed the carving to be at least 200 years old⁠[6]. In 2022 the Swedish runologist Magnus Källström traced the stone's distinctive runes to an alphabet printed in Sweden in 1876 and in use among rune writers into the 1880s⁠[7]. In November 2025 Alice Kehoe restated the case for authenticity in the SAA Archaeological Record⁠[8]. Of the 4 questions on this site, 1 are answered.

Key questionsset by the editors

If the inscription is modern, who carved it?No answer ahead yet

When was the inscription carved?Answered: the inscription was carved in Minnesota between about 1885 and 1898.

All 4 questions

The object

The stone is a slab of greywacke, carved on one face and one edge⁠[1]⁠[9]. It was found on the southern slope of a knoll on what had been an island in a lake, now marsh; Ohman's sons and a neighbour, Nils Flaaten, were present at or just after the find⁠[1]. After Holand acquired it, it was exhibited widely, and it is now displayed at the Runestone Museum in Alexandria, Minnesota⁠[10]⁠[11]. A high-resolution 3D scan of the whole stone and of the runes was made by Laser Design for the television series America's Lost Vikings; a viewer is online but no download or licence is stated⁠[9].

Map of the areaOpen the full map

Area Region

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Ohman farm, Solem township, near Kensington, MinnesotaFarm (find site)

Within 1 km

Kensington, MinnesotaTown

Within 1 km

Runestone Museum, Alexandria, MinnesotaMuseum

Within 100 m

MappedWithin 1 kmBase map © OpenStreetMap contributors

Timeline

Timeline

Squeezed where little happened. Each mark is a published claim, by how it stands:AcceptedMost likelyStill possibleDisputedRuled out

What is known

The inscription mixes runes of medieval form with forms not found in medieval Scandinavian inscriptions, and writes its numbers in a pentadic system⁠[3]⁠[7]. Its language was judged in 1910 by George Flom of the University of Illinois to be a modern Swedish-Norwegian mixture with English influence, and he hinted that a local itinerant teacher, Sven Fogelblad, might have written it⁠[2]⁠[1]. The Minnesota committee itself noted that five abbreviated verb forms would mark the stone as a forgery if they could not be explained for 1362⁠[1].

First page of The Kensington Runestone — The Kensington RunestoneMinnesota Historical Society (plates), 1362. Public domainArtifact

In 2022 Källström, of the Swedish National Heritage Board, identified an 1876 textbook by the itinerant calligrapher Eric Ström that reproduced two runic alphabets, one with "very strange letters and signs for numbers" that match the Kensington runes and pentadic numerals. He argued that the Larsson brothers of Dala-Floda, whose rune writings are known, learned their runes from this tradition, and that the Kensington forms belong to a younger variant than the one Edward Larsson still used in 1885, which would place the carving after 1885⁠[7]. The account is known here from a translated summary of his report.

What has been tested

Two physical tests have been run. In 2000 Wolter, a geologist with American Petrographic Services, examined the weathering of the grooves at the Runestone Museum's request and concluded the inscription was no less than 200 years old; Swedish scientists at a 2004 debate called the conclusion "fantastic" and the method approximate⁠[6]. Kehoe cites a scanning-microscope study arranged by Richard Nielsen that showed weathering of the incision edges⁠[8]. The 3D scan found runes cut in soft calcite about 25 per cent shallower than those in the harder greywacke; one presenter read this as about 130 years of wear rather than 650, and his co-presenter questioned the reasoning⁠[9]. No calibrated rate of groove weathering for this stone type and climate has been published, so neither reading is a measured date.

The linguistic test has been run repeatedly. Flom in 1910, Wahlgren in 1958 and the Uppsala runologist Henrik Williams in 2012 compared the language and runes with fourteenth-century Scandinavian usage and found them modern⁠[2]⁠[3]⁠[12]. Holand and later Kehoe argued that the forms fit a fourteenth-century dialect⁠[4]⁠[8].

The readings

The consensus reading is that the stone was carved in Minnesota in the 1880s or 1890s by someone from the Swedish rune-writing tradition, most often taken to be Ohman, alone or with others⁠[3]⁠[5]⁠[7]. Why it was carved is less clear; suggestions range from a joke on the learned to a deliberate hoax, and the stone became bound up with Scandinavian-American identity⁠[11]. The minority reading is that it was carved in 1362 by a Norse party that reached Minnesota from Hudson Bay, as Holand argued and Kehoe and Wolter maintain⁠[4]⁠[8]⁠[6]. No other trace of such a party has been found in Minnesota⁠[3].

Published claims

Published claims and their status

Year	Who	Claimed	Status	Reason
1910	Minnesota Historical Society museum committee⁠[1]	The stone is probably a genuine record of 1362, provided a specialist in the Scandinavian languages can explain its forms.	Disputed	The language and runes have been judged modern by specialists since 1910, and in 2022 the runes were traced to a Swedish rune row of 1876⁠[2]⁠[7].
1910	George T. Flom⁠[2]	The inscription is a modern Swedish-Norwegian mixture with English influence, written in Minnesota, perhaps by the teacher Sven Fogelblad.	Accepted	Its modern dating is the view of runologists since, and the rune forms have been tied to the 1870s and 1880s; the Fogelblad attribution was never shown⁠[3]⁠[7].
1919	Hjalmar Holand⁠[4]	The stone was carved in 1362 by a party of Swedes and Norwegians who reached Minnesota from Hudson Bay.	Disputed	No other trace of such a party has been found, and the runes and language point to the nineteenth century⁠[3]⁠[7].
1958	Erik Wahlgren⁠[3]	The stone is a nineteenth-century creation of the Swedish community around Kensington, in which Olof Ohman had a hand.	Accepted	The modern date is the consensus, though who carved it has never been proved⁠[5]⁠[7].
1968	Theodore C. Blegen⁠[5]	Local records and correspondence point to the stone's making in the Scandinavian immigrant community of the 1890s.	Most likely	It agrees with the runological evidence found since, but no document of the carving has been found⁠[7].
1982	Robert A. Hall Jr.⁠[14]	The language of the inscription fits fourteenth-century Scandinavian, so the stone is genuine.	Disputed	Scandinavianists have judged the language modern since 1910, and the rune forms have since been matched to a nineteenth-century tradition⁠[3]⁠[13].
2000	Scott Wolter⁠[6]	The weathering of the grooves shows the inscription is at least 200 years old.	Disputed	Swedish scientists called the method approximate, and no calibrated weathering rate for this rock and climate has been published⁠[6].
2009	Scott Wolter⁠[15]	The stone was carved by Norse Knights Templar as a claim to land, and other stones and a tower in Rhode Island are linked to it.	Disputed	Minnesota's state archaeologist and historians reject it, and the runes point to the nineteenth century⁠[15]⁠[7].
2017	Magnus Källström⁠[13]	A nineteenth-century rune staff from Haverö in Sweden carries nearly the same rune row as the stone, and the emigrant Anders Andersson may have carved it.	Still possible	The rune match was strengthened in 2022, but Källström calls the attribution to Andersson a suspicion, not a solution⁠[13]⁠[7].
2022	Magnus Källström⁠[7]	The stone's runes and numerals come from a rune row printed by Eric Ström in 1876, in a form younger than one still used in 1885, so it was carved after 1885.	Most likely	No one has answered it in print, but it is known so far through a translated summary rather than a reviewed paper⁠[7].
2025	Alice B. Kehoe⁠[8]	The weathering and dialect of the inscription show the stone is authentic, and a 1362 expedition is plausible.	Disputed	Her arguments restate the weathering and dialect cases that runologists and the 2022 rune evidence contradict⁠[7]⁠[6].

What would settle it

Three tests would narrow it. A calibrated weathering study, measuring groove profiles on the stone against dated inscriptions on the same rock type in the same climate (gravestones from the 1860s onward, for example), would turn the weathering argument into a date range. A full comparison of each Kensington rune form against the Swedish rune rows of the 1870s and 1880s that Källström identified, and against medieval inscriptions in the Scandinavian Runic-text Database, would show which tradition each form belongs to. A published 3D dataset of the stone would let others repeat both.