Posted on 05/28/2011 11:35:08 PM PDT by ButThreeLeftsDo
A controversial Minnesota artifact is making a name for itself across the country in its next biggest publicity move.
The Kensington Runestone, which was unearthed in Minnesota but has been long disputed as a hoax, will now be featured on 2,300 20-foot moving trucks across the country.
U-Haul unveiled the image Saturday morning at the Alexandria museum that houses the stone during the city's "Awake the Lakes" celebration. About 1,000 people celebrated the announcement at the Runestone Museum with T-shirts and a truck depicting the stone behind a large Vikings ship -- the fourth image representing Minnesota on the company's trucks.
"It's just the wonderful marketing of 2,300 billboards across the country," museum volunteer Carol Meyer said. "As a nonprofit, we can't buy that kind of advertising."
The stone received national publicity in 2009 when a History Channel documentary aired. That helped pique interest in the stone, Meyer said, drawing 10,000 visitors to the museum last year.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
;-)
Pong!
WELCOME TO FREE REPUBLIC’S MINNESOTA PING LIST!
148 MEMBERS AND GROWING...!
FREEPMAIL ME IF YOU WANT ON OR OFF THIS LIST!
Kewl. I hope this sparks interest in all of the anamolies that defy the usual explanations about our origins, history and the created world.
Doh! I want people to be interested in anomalies, not anamolies!
· join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic · subscribe · |
|||
Antiquity Journal & archive Archaeologica Archaeology Archaeology Channel BAR Bronze Age Forum Discover Dogpile Eurekalert LiveScience Mirabilis.ca Nat Geographic PhysOrg Science Daily Science News Texas AM Yahoo Excerpt, or Link only? |
|
||
· Science topic · science keyword · Books/Literature topic · pages keyword · |
With all that traveling I hope they don’t do anything to rune it.
Like a Runestone cowboy...
They’re probably safe as long as they don’t travel the road to rune.
It doesn’t really matter who got here first from Europe.
The Vikings visited a lot of places, but they just did a little raping and pillaging and went home, or got killed.
What matters is who colonizes, not who visits.
I prefer people interested in anemomes.
Cool.
Hometown stuff here.. remember seeing it as a kid..
Too bad Ole the Giant Viking can’t go with..
Used to always enjoy the Holiday Season, big Ole decked out as Santa Claus.
make a good commercial
—
How do you get a Runestone to roll?
U-Haul!
One reason given for the failure of the Viking colonies (there were some) to stick was the lack of firearms. They weren’t any better armed than the skraelings. In fact, had the Vikings not peaked circa 1066 (Battle of Stamford Bridge), they’d have eventually been blown off the high seas by all the rest of the navies in Europe — and that’s assuming one regards the Vikings as having a navy in any true sense. They are best described as, uh, merchant marines. :’)
Despite their navigating prowess, they used their ships to get around from land to land (w Scandinavia being dominated by fjords and mountainous landscapes), and to move along rivers through the countryside (the Varangians). They were all about trade, and there wasn’t much to trade for in the Americas. The colonies dwindled. Viking burial grounds (unless they cremated everyone) must have been next to their villages, but AFAIK, none have been found.
Then the climate turned with the arrival of the Little Ice Age. The Greenland colonies (there were two, plus some probable other isolated domiciles) were abandoned, the inhabitants may have returned to Iceland, or been absorbed by the Eskimos or whatever, or just died off. Assuming they even had a ship in inventory and had the choice, that is. There is and was no trees to build ships, so if no one happened to visit, they were stranded.
In her Plato Prehistorian: 10,000 to 5000 B.C. Myth, Religion, Archaeology, Mary Settegast reproduces a table which shows four runic character sets; a is Upper Paleolithic (found among the cave paintings), b is Indus Valley script, c is Greek (western branch), and d is the Scandinavian runic alphabet.
So the stranded Vikings did colonize by accidental assimilation. Interesting. Viking blood would be quite diluted using that method though. ;-p
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.