And, while lately we have been discussing to general
topic of possible evidence of Vikings in America:
(and again, although I have cut and pasted what I could,
you are better off, if you can, going to the citation.)

from https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20221030-the-mysterious-viking-runes-found-in-a-landlocked-us-state

The mysterious Viking runes found in a landlocked US state

(Image credit: Oklahoma Tourism & Recreation Department)
The Smithsonian determined the runes were of a Scandinavian language and translated as "sundial valley" or "monument valley" (Credit: Oklahoma
Tourism & Recreation Department)
By Heide Brandes
31st October 2022
Did Vikings find their way to a remote part of Oklahoma? Some in a small community believe so, thanks to controversial runic carvings found in
the area.
"[Farley] spent the majority of her adult life researching the stone,"
said Amanda Garcia, Heavener Runestone Park manager. "She travelled all
around the US, went to Egypt and went to different places looking at
different markings."

Faith Rogers, an environmental-science intern and volunteer at the
Heavener Runestone Park, led me down a cobblestone path toward one of
the 55-acre woodland's biggest attractions – which is also one of the
US' biggest historical mysteries. We were deep in the rolling,
scrub-forest foothills of the Ouachita Mountains in far eastern
Oklahoma, and we were on our way to view a slab of ancient sandstone
that still has experts scratching their heads and debating about the
eight symbols engraved on its face.

Some believe that these cryptic inscriptions are runes (ancient
alphabetical characters) carved into the towering stone circa 1000 CE by
Norse explorers who travelled up the Arkansas River to this remote part
of landlocked America.

"Do I think the Vikings carved this? I do," said Rogers, as we stood in
the protective wood-and-glass "house" built around the 3m-by-3.6m slab.
"[Local historian] Gloria Farley spent her whole life researching this,
and she has a lot of evidence to back it up."

Farley – who grew up in the town of Heavener where the runestone was
found and who passed away in 2006 – is a legend in these parts. She
first saw the relic while hiking as a young girl in 1928 and was
fascinated by it. Two decades later, she returned to study it, as an
amateur runologist and self-taught epigraphist.

The first modern knowledge of the runestone dates to the 1830s, when it
was found by a Choctaw hunting party. For years, white Oklahomans called
it Indian Rock, mistakenly thinking that the carvings were Native American.

"[Farley] spent the majority of her adult life researching the stone,"
said Amanda Garcia, Heavener Runestone Park manager. "She travelled all
around the US, went to Egypt and went to different places looking at
different markings."

Gloria Farley first saw the Heavener Runestone while hiking as a young
girl in 1928; here, she is with her sons in 1971 (Credit: Courtesy of
the Oklahoma Historical Society)
Gloria Farley first saw the Heavener Runestone while hiking as a young
girl in 1928; here, she is with her sons in 1971 (Credit: Courtesy of
the Oklahoma Historical Society)

She even contacted the Smithsonian only to find that they'd already made
their conclusion back in 1923: they said the characters were of a
Scandinavian language, and read "GNOMEDAL," or "gnome" and "dal",
translated as "sundial valley" or "monument valley". Other scholars
afterwards translated the symbols as "GLOMEDAL," meaning "Glome's
Valley." So that cleared up the question of what language it was, but
left two other questions unanswered: who carved those symbols, and when?

"I began to believe that the symbols on the stone indicated that
Norsemen had visited the area before the time of [Christopher] Columbus.
I renamed the rock 'The Heavener Runestone' and began my search for
similar inscriptions in the area," Farley wrote in her book In Plain
Sight: Old World Records in Ancient America.

Heavener Runestone Park is in the foothills of the Ouachita Mountains in
far eastern Oklahoma (Credit: Oklahoma Tourism & Recreation Department)

Throughout her career, Farley consulted with Norse historians,
geologists and other epigraphists. She gathered evidence that supported
her claim that Vikings had visited North America and were more than
capable of travelling up rivers and creeks in longboats that could float
in shallow water.

"A study of the fascinating Norse sagas revealed the efforts of the
Norse inhabitants of Greenland to colonise the eastern coast of America
from approximately 1002 until 1010 [CE]," she wrote. "If the Vikings had
sailed to Russia, Ireland, England, France and to the far end of the Mediterranean, why would it have been impossible for them to reach
Oklahoma via the Mississippi River?"

Ultimately, Farley led the charge that Vikings sailed inland from the
Gulf of Mexico 600 to 800 years ago and left their mark in this canyon.
Two additional sandstone slabs, each with runic markings (not enough to
be translated), were found a mile north and a mile south of the Heavener Runestone, which park officials say indicates that the carvings were
boundary markers.

The idea of Vikings cruising the mighty Mississippi isn't as far-fetched
as it might seem
The idea of Vikings cruising the mighty Mississippi isn't as far-fetched
as it might seem. Reported Viking runestones have been found in other
places throughout North America (including in Kensington, Minnesota, and
Spirit Pond in Maine), and Oklahoma itself has unearthed six, the most
of any state in the US, though their authenticity is still in question.

However, one Norse settlement – L'Anse aux Meadows, a Unesco World
Heritage Site on the northernmost tip of the island of Newfoundland,
Canada – has been proven to date to at least 1021 CE, thereby providing
a concrete timeframe for Viking activity in North America, and one that coincides with the estimated age of the Heavener Runestone.

The Norse settlement of L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland dates to at
least 1021 CE, providing a timeframe for Viking activity in North
America (Credit: Murphy_Shewchuk/Getty)

According to Farley, Vikings could have easily travelled south from Newfoundland along North America's eastern seaboard, then swung around
the tip of Florida to the Gulf of Mexico where they could enter the
Mississippi River, which flowed into to the Arkansas River, which in
turn led into the Poteau River in Oklahoma.

"The Poteau River is just a few miles from here," said Garcia. "Don't
think about how the waterways look now. Before all [the] man-made lakes
and dams, these little creeks were big rivers and waterways back then."

Not everyone is convinced though. In 2011, Lyle Tompsen, an
archaeologist who specialises in the Viking era, analysed the runestone
and wrote a paper concluding: "The veracity of the Heavener stone as a
Viking artifact is problematic. The linguistic evidence is ambiguous.
However, historical evidence from the 19th Century… strongly suggests
the stone is a 19th-Century creation of a Scandinavian immigrant (likely
a Swedish immigrant working at the local train depot)."

Other theories are floating around. One is that the stone was carved by
a member of the La Salle expedition circa 1687, when French explorer René-Robert Cavelier claimed the area (which he named Louisiana) for
France. Yet another is that it's the work of a Swedish captain who led
German colonists to the area between 1718 and 1720.

The language of the runes remains in question too. "The inscriptions are
not a Viking script, but a combination of [runic languages] Elder
Futhark and Younger Futhark, which predates when the Vikings would have
been traveling," said Dennis Peterson, archaeologist and manager of the
Spiro Mounds Archaeological Center, the source of America's largest
collection of prehistoric Native American relics, not far from Heavener.

Heavener Runestone Park Oklahoma landscape overview (Credit: Oklahoma
Tourism & Recreation Department)

"But they're also potentially more recent than that too, because the
same style of writing was being taught in Northern Europe in the 1800s,
much like when we used to have to learn Latin or Greek. So, it's a
higher probability that somebody who learned Elder Futhark in school
came through and left the equivalent of graffiti."

Peterson also argued that because Spiro was a major trading metropolis
during the same era, some record would have been left behind of strange
Nordic men coming through the area.

Because carvings made in stone can't be dated using traditional
scientific methods (such as carbon dating or comparing the decay rate of organic materials), researchers of the Heavener Runestone have had to
look to contextual evidence, such as additional Viking artefacts or
activity in the area; however, none has been found. "There's simply not
a lot of evidence pointing to Vikings coming into Oklahoma," said Larry
O'Dell, director of the Oklahoma Historical Society.

Fans of Viking lore come from all over the world to visit Heavener
Runestone Park (Credit: Oklahoma Tourism & Recreation Department)

Despite that dubiousness, fans of Viking lore come from all over the
world to visit Heavener Runestone Park. "We had a gentleman from
Austria, and his sole purpose to come to the US was to see the
runestone," said Garcia. "When I first started here five years ago, we
had around 400 people a month; now we have that many in a week.
Depending on different times of the year, we could have 2,000 people or
more on a regular weekend."

The park even hosted a Runestone Viking Festival for 10 years that
attracted thousands of visitors, reenactors and Scandinavian vendors in
the past. In fact, the festival got so big that it's currently on hiatus
while organisers figure out how to accommodate the crowds.

Standing eye to eye with those ancient letters, I, too, wanted to
believe in the legend of Vikings sailing into Oklahoma, and I left the
park with visions of bearded warriors striding through the same
boulder-strewn forests and dense woodlands I was exploring. No evidence
may prove that they definitively did, but no evidence proves that they definitively didn't either.

Rediscovering America is a BBC Travel series that tells the inspiring
stories of forgotten, overlooked or misunderstood aspects of the US,
flipping the script on familiar history, cultures and communities.

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