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Runestone
Heavener runestone with the runes copied above.
Name	Heavener Runestone
Country	United States
Region	Poteau Mountain
City/Village	Heavener, Oklahoma
Text - Native
Elder Futhark
Text - English
Other resources
Runestones - Runic alphabet Runology - Runestone styles
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The Heavener Runestone is an inscribed stone located in Heavener, Oklahoma. It is now in state park on Poteau Mountain, just outside the town limits. The origin the stone's runic carvings is disputed.^[1]

Inscription

Author Gloria Farley is among those who attribute the inscription to wandering pre-Columbian Norsemen.^[2] However, the inscription has been rejected by Scandinavian philologists and runologists, who consider it most likely modern (19th or early 20th century). The reading of the "Elder Futhark" style runes is probably be "GNOMEDAL" (meaning "Gnome Valley", or perhaps a personal name "G. Nomedal").

The difficulty of using the Heavener Runestone to demonstrate Viking exploration of the area is that the Elder Futhark had become obsolete by the 8th century, long before the Viking expeditions to Greenland and Vinland. Also, only six of the eight characters are correct Elder Futhark runes. A transliteration would read "G [rough backwards N] O M E D A [backwards L]".

Alternative hypotheses

In 1967 Alf Monge speculated ^[3] that the letters represent an elaborate cryptogram, using three runic alphabets, that decodes to "November 11, 1012".

Amateur researcher Richard Nielsen proposed that a Viking explorer hastily reversed the last letter and substituted a letter from the then-extinct Gothic alphabet in the second position. According to this interpretation, the inscription reads "GLOME DAL" -- the "Valley of Glome".^[4] Unfortunately, this explanation would require the Norse explorer to have known two extinct alphabets.

Cultural significance

• In 1991, Carl Albert State College in nearby Poteau changed its mascot to a Viking in the stone's honor.
• Don Coldsmith's 1995 novel Runestone, offers a speculative theory about how an 11th century Viking could have made his way to the area of Heavener.

Other local stones

Two other, much smaller inscribed stones have been found near Heavener. In the 1970s scholars translated these stones.

Heavener stone #2 is said to show the letter "R" and a "bind rune". This would be in the Anglo-Saxon character set since in the Norwegian this might be an "M" and a small cross. In the Elder Futhark, this could be an "R"/"Z" or a "T". It has also been given as "25 December, 1015" in Monge's "Norse Code" date system.

Heavener stone #3 is said to show the letters "G", "R" and "T". This could be in the Anglo-Saxon character set since in the Norwegian set this might be an "M", a "T" and the small cross COULD be an "N". In Monge's system (which seems to be applicable to any group of runes) this gives the date "30 December, 1022".

Several other inscribed stones have been found in Oklahoma, one near Poteau, one in Shawnee, and one in Turley north of Tulsa. In fact, the Tulsa area is alleged to have 4 runestones along the Arkansas River on Turkey Mountain, all with very similar characters. One was destroyed in the 1960s, and the specific locations of two others are not known (see Turkey Mountain inscriptions).^[5]

References

External links

• North American Rune Stones
• The Oklahoma Runestones
• The Heavener Runestone
• Heavener Runestone State Park