A comment by Arthur Faram on my last post about the Kensington Rune Stone led me to the website of the Faram Research Foundation. On his site, Faram provides a list of archaeological/historical "mysteries" that he claims to have solved through the application of "geoglyphology." The Kensington Rune Stone (KRS) is one of them. Here is what Faram wrote on my blog:
The KRS has it's own section on Faram's site. `The short version of Faram's claim is that the KRS is an encrypted survey document that describes a pre-Columbian European claim to North America. Faram keys in on the numbers in the stone's text, interpreting them in terms of distances and orientations to various important locations. I'm not sure if/how he attempts to justify his assumptions about what the numbers mean (in one stanza, for example, the phrase "10 men" is decoded as '10 miles,' and in another it's decoded as "a 110 degree radial").
Two parts of the claim interested me. One was Faram's suggestion that the runes on the stone were carved by two different people:
Two parts of the claim interested me. One was Faram's suggestion that the runes on the stone were carved by two different people:
"Upon submitting the runestone to a handwriting analysis it was determined that the writing had been done by two different persons. The first five rows were done by one person and the last four rows, and side, were done by a second person. The first tip off is the slant of the work. If you will check the slant in the pictures above you will notice a distinct difference from one persons writing to the other. Another tip off is the way the letters are formed. For example; the first person brings the right leg of his "R" all the way down to the baseline, the second person stops short of the baseline. As is common when someone is attempting to copy another person’s writing, the first half of the sixth line is similar to the first five lines. But as is always the case, the copier gets tired of trying to copy the other person’s style and towards the end of the first line and thereafter he reverts back to his own style."
My knowledge of the KRS and the main claims about it is not exhaustive, so I don't know if this is an original idea or not. Knowing if the stone was carved by two different people could be relevant to understanding the circumstances under which the stone was created. If the two parts of the text were created at two different times hundreds of years apart (as Faram claims), for example, one would expect the time difference would be detectable based on differences in the physical weathering of the carvings. If there were two carvers roughly contemporary, however, and the stone can be shown to be a nineteenth century creation, then we're looking for at least two hoaxers rather than one (Update 6/18/2016: this short post discusses the issue of right- and left-handed carvers discussed in a 1976 Minnesota History article about the Gran tapes).
Although I can't claim to follow Faram's logic in decoding the stone in terms of distance and orientation directions, it was simple enough to evaluate his central claim that the KRS describes "new boundaries for the North American Territory for which Inspiration Peak is the central survey marker." Faram states that the number "1362" on the stone, in addition to recording the year the stone was carved, indicates that "Inspiration Peak [Minnesota] was exactly 1362 miles from the three corners of what would later become the United States."
Faram's figure showing 1362 mile distances from Inspiration Peak, MN, to the boundaries of the United States; markers for the NW, NE, and S corners added (original from www.thekensingtonrunestone.com)
Faram provides latitudes and longitudes for both Inspiration Peak and the "three corners," making it simple enough to perform distance calculations. Here are the results that I got using this online tool:
The distance from Inspiration Peak, MN, to the Stuart Island coordinates provided by Faram is 1367 pre-1592 miles.
The distance from Inspiration Peak, MN, to the La Haute-Cote Nord coordinates provided by Faram is 1436 pre-1592 miles.
The distance from Inspiration Peak, MN, to the South Texas coordinates provided by Faram is 1441 pre-1592 miles
None of the distances between the pairs of coordinates he provides is "exactly" 1362 miles, and the distances to the NE and S points aren't even close in pre-1592 miles (i.e., when a mile was defined as 5,000 feet rather than 5,280 feet). The claim that Inspiration Peak, MN, is an equidistant 1362 miles from those three boundaries of the United States is demonstrably false.
The issue of why the length of the mile was changed from 5,000 feet to 5,280 feet in the late 1500's is an interesting one (you can read one take on it here and another here). Faram asks if the change was made "to mask all the measurements done before" 1592, hinting at a mapping conspiracy that could be easily overcome by a change in division.
One of the strangest ideas embedded in Faram's treatment of the KRS is that the number "1362" stands for both the year the stone was created and the distance measurement to each of the three corners of of the territory. Peculiar on its own (in 1362 a party journeyed to a point 1362 miles equidistant from opposing coasts and carved on a rock?), it becomes bizarre when you factor in Faram's claim that the lower portion of the writing, including the number "1362," was an amendment to the stone that was actually added after 1519. So the original stone was placed 1362 miles from the opposing coasts in 1362, but the number "1362" was not added until much later? And, coincidentally, the third (southern) point that was added to the claim was also 1362 miles from Inspiration Peak, even though it was an amendment? What good would the original marker have been without the date/distance recorded on it? And how would the carvers in 1362 have known that they needed to place the stone in a location 1362 miles from a point on the southern boundary of the territory which had not yet been defined? You almost need to invoke time travel to make the claim reasonable.
But these gymnastics don't matter, of course, since Inspiration Peak is not actually 1362 miles from the points that Faram specifies.
As usual, let me know if I've gotten anything wrong. I'm happy to fix errors.
The issue of why the length of the mile was changed from 5,000 feet to 5,280 feet in the late 1500's is an interesting one (you can read one take on it here and another here). Faram asks if the change was made "to mask all the measurements done before" 1592, hinting at a mapping conspiracy that could be easily overcome by a change in division.
One of the strangest ideas embedded in Faram's treatment of the KRS is that the number "1362" stands for both the year the stone was created and the distance measurement to each of the three corners of of the territory. Peculiar on its own (in 1362 a party journeyed to a point 1362 miles equidistant from opposing coasts and carved on a rock?), it becomes bizarre when you factor in Faram's claim that the lower portion of the writing, including the number "1362," was an amendment to the stone that was actually added after 1519. So the original stone was placed 1362 miles from the opposing coasts in 1362, but the number "1362" was not added until much later? And, coincidentally, the third (southern) point that was added to the claim was also 1362 miles from Inspiration Peak, even though it was an amendment? What good would the original marker have been without the date/distance recorded on it? And how would the carvers in 1362 have known that they needed to place the stone in a location 1362 miles from a point on the southern boundary of the territory which had not yet been defined? You almost need to invoke time travel to make the claim reasonable.
But these gymnastics don't matter, of course, since Inspiration Peak is not actually 1362 miles from the points that Faram specifies.
As usual, let me know if I've gotten anything wrong. I'm happy to fix errors.
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