The Kensington Rune Stone

Record summary

The Kensington Rune Stone is a slab discovered by Olof Öhman in Minnesota in 1898, bearing a runic inscription that appears to describe a fourteenth-century Scandinavian expedition. It matters for comparison because its debate connects epigraphy, immigrant identity, landscape interpretation and claims of pre-Columbian Norse presence. Most specialists have regarded it as a nineteenth-century forgery or modern production, although a minority continues to defend aspects of its authenticity. Geological weathering, linguistic form, provenance and the discoverer’s context require separate verification.