Word: kensington
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When Farmer Olof Ohman stumbled across this laconic (but, to him, illegible) account of adventure and death, near Kensington, Minn, in 1898, he had no idea of the importance of his find. The story was carved on a 200-lb. stone he dug out of a small hill that had once been an island in an ancient lake. The inscription was written in more than 200 runes, the ancient alphabet of the Norse. Ever since the carving was first translated, the Kensington Stone has been one of the most fascinating exhibits in the history of the daring Norse seamen...
...last week one Danish expert on old runic inscriptions announced that the Kensington Stone may be genuine, after all. In a lengthy report released by the Smithsonian Institution, Dr. William Thalbitzer admitted with true scientific caution: "I cannot but waver in my doubt . . . the inscription may be authentic...
Support from Greenland. What first caused Thalbitzer's doubt to waver was his study of the smaller Kingigtorssauq rune-stone discovered in 1823 near Upernavik in northern Greenland. The Greenland Stone is undoubtedly genuine, and its runes have peculiarities like those that cast doubt on the Kensington Stone...
After long study, Dr. Thalbitzer was convinced that some at least of the faults of language in the Kensington inscription may be normal for the period. At the end of the 14th Century, he says, the languages of Scandinavia were in decay and confusion. Latin letters were replacing the ancient runes, dialects were changing rapidly. These language changes, he decided, might account for the peculiarities of the Kensington Stone...
...money and found only $119,000. But they could not discover why Schlekat had stolen $600,000. There was no woman in the case, no racetrack gambling, no wild parties. Then the bank's former president, Charles C. Alter, described his own retirement to the examiners. A New Kensington real-estate man (now dead) had approached him four years ago on behalf of two "Ohio businessmen," H. A. McDevitt and J. H. McKeown, and offered $254,000 for 540 shares of the bank's 750 shares of stock. He had accepted, and Schlekat, although only an assistant cashier...