Customer Reviews

The Kensington Rune-Stone: Authentic & Important (Edward Sapir Monograph Series in Language, Culture & Cognition, Vol 19)

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The book's author served as Cornell University's Professor Emeritus of Linquistics, so he is far from a fad-flaring fringe-fan of Viking rune-stones. Rather, Professor Hall has, in a very readable-yet-scholarly manner, argued the linguistic and archaeological evidence (corroborated by forensic insights) for the historic authenticity of the Kensington Rune-Stone, with a very helpful interlinear translation, followed by a word-by-word analytical commentary, especially buttressed by contemporary political history events of relevance, all the while using logic and historic philology for analysis. It is a shame that the detractors of the Kensington Rune-stone don't make a good-faith effort to reply to Hall's evidence and logic. To date I have seen no serious scholarship to refute Hall's work in this extreming interesting area of American Viking history. I say that as a viking history lecturer with a history-oriented doctorate that included a minor in European studies, as the author of a few publications on Viking history, as a past Historian for a chapter of the Sons of Norway, and after having served as a Icelandic saga analyst/Viking history lecturer abroad (involving research-related travels to viking history locations in 7 different countries). Sadly, many researchers today judge events in history by a "uniformitarian" approach, e.g., assuming that the "wine-berries" (grapes) of Vinland must match growth conditions under today's climate, as opposed to researching what a place's climate was like 1000 years ago, e.g., by noticing that the Norman Domesday Book of 1086 recorded at least 38 vineyards in England. Hall provides REAL research.
><> JJSJ, a college professor/Viking history lecturer