Poteau Runestone

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. (help, get involved!)
This article has been tagged since August 2006.

The Poteau Runestone was found by schoolboys in 1967. It is 15 inches long. There are seven characters in a straight line, l 1/2 to 2 inches high. The runes showed very plainly because the bottom of the grooves were in a lighter colored layer of the stone, while the surface was dark. Tool marks in the grooves showed that the letters had been made with a punch, like the Heavener Runestone. Four of the runes are duplicates of those on the Heavener Runestone, and three seemed to be variants of others on it. From the site of the Poteau runestone, the Heavener Runestone on the side of Poteau Mountain lies about 10 miles to the southeast. The original sites of Heavener Runestones Numbers Two and Three fall in a line between them.

There are several more theories regarding the Heavener and Poteau runestones. In 1967, Alf Monge, a former US Army cryptographer asserted that the symbols are a runic puzzle, indicating a date, equivalent to November 11, 1012, St. Martin's Day, on our calendar. According to Monge, all of the cryptic runic messages in North America and those found in Stave Churches in Norway, are deciphered as dates of church holidays. He feels there is evidence that the creator of this puzzle and others found in North America was Erik Gnupsson, known as Henricus, who was made Bishop of Greenland in 1112. Henricus was believed to have made several trips to Vinland and farther inland. Monge says Henricus left seven runic puzzles including the Kensington Runestone, the Heavener Runestone and the Spirit Pond Runestone. Monge's solution to the Poteau inscription is another date, November 11, 1017 A.D., exactly five years later than the date he said was on the Heavener Runestone. The seventh symbol on the Poteau Runestone is not in the standard runic alphabets but was a runic symbol for the numeral 17. This is discussed in two books by O.G. Landsverk: Runic Records of the Norsemen in America, Erik J Friis Publisher, 1974, and Ancient Norse Messages on American Stones, Norseman Press, 1969., and in Earl Syversen's Norse Runic Inscriptions: with their long-forgotten cryptography, Vine Hill Press.