Smithosonian and the Kensington Stone (long)
Michael Zalar
Recently, I received the companion volume to the Smithsonian Exhibition
on vikings titled Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga (ed by William
Fitzhugh and Elisabeth Ward, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington
and London, 2000). Chapter 29 (written by Fitzhugh and Brigitta
Lindroth-Wallace) contains, among other things, three pages on
Kensington Runestone.
I regret to say that I found numerous and sometimes critical errors in
the piece.
Regarding my personal references in relation to the Kensington
Runestone, I have been investigating the stone for the past two years,
During which time I have gone through thousands of unpublished documents
at the Minnesota Historical Society, University of Minnesota, Alexander
Runestone Museum, Douglas County Historical Society, and Vesterheim
Museum among other places.
I have corresponded with researchers of the Runestone in Sweden and
Norway, and have met with Drs. Richard Nielsen, and Barry Hanson, both
of whom are published authors on the stone with whom I continue
correspondence. I have also corresponded with experts in related fields
such as geology, shipbuilding, cartography and the location of the
magnetic north. I have been requested by the Journal of the West to
produce an article on the Runestone for publication this summer
(submitted and now in peer review), and have lectured on the subject
locally. I believe myself fully qualified to speak on the subject of the
Kensington stone.
++++++++
Factual Errors in Chap. 29 of Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga Regarding
the Kensington Stone.
"It was around this time, 1879, that a Swedish emigrant named Olof
Ohman, a stonemason from Forsa, Halsingland, arrived in Minnesota"
1. There is no record of Ohman having ever been employed as a
stonemason, he did not own the equipment to cut stone until considerably
after the runestone was found and even then his skill was not ever more
than fair <Landesverk: p65 (signed statement of Ohman's son, Arthur)>
and then used, according to neighbors, for only rough work, such as
cutting blasting holes in rocks <Douglas Co. Historical Society,
interviews with residents conducted in August, 1981 by Gordon Duenow>.
The RUMOR that Ohman was a stonemason was investigated by Dr. Newton
Winchell in 1909-10 and according to him "there seems to be no truth nor
basis for this rumor, other than the natural desire to explain a
puzzle. It may have been suggested by some one, asked by another
whether true or not, intimated by another and affirmed by the fourth.
Once stated as fact, it was hence additional evidence". <Minnesota
Historical Society report, 1910>
Ohman did sometimes find employ as a rough carpenter, and if he had had
a more skilled craft would undoubtedly have used it to support his
family.
"according to affidavits he signed, in November 1898, while digging out
stumps..."
2. The affidavits gave an (apparently incorrect) finding date of
August, 1898 <Blegen: 138>.
"It was exhibited at a local bank in Alexandria and newspaper articles
publishing translations of the text appeared in local papers. A
transcription said to have been made by Ohman was send to Professor Olaf
Breda.."
3. The stone was exhibited in Kensington <Blegen: 9>.
4. Translations appeared in the Svenska Amerikanska Posten (a
Minneapolis paper) on Mar 14, 1899 and Mar 28, 1899 and Minneapolis
Journal (Feb. 24, 1899). Neither of these were local papers to the
Alexandria area <Blegen: 20-21, 129-30, 132-4> Blegen also specific lack
of interest by local paper <p42>.
5. The author(s) makes it appear the translations appeared before the
letter was sent to Breda, however the translations were made after
Breda's translation was published.
6. In a letter to Winchell (Mar 12, 1910) J. P. Hedberg says he made the
copy of the runestone that ended up in Breda's hands <Blegen: 169>.
There is no evidence connecting Ohman to the copy received by Breda.
7. The copy was sent to S Turnblad of the Svenska Amerikanska Posten,
who in turn sent it on to Breda <Blegen: 19>.
8. Breda's first name was Olaus, not Olof.
"Breda concluded it was modern, because it contained numbers which were
not proper runic numbers.
9. Breda stated that "I was unable to decipher the numerals because I
was unfamiliar with the runic 'primstav' calendars" <Smyra, 1910, p 70,
trans. Hamlet Peterson>. Neither in this article, nor in a letter
written to Warren Upham Mar 7, 1910 <Blegen:165>, nor in any newspaper
accounts that I have seen does Breda make reference to the numerals
being the reason for his conclusion.
"This might have been the end of the matter had it not been for a young
Norwegian-born amateur historian named Hjalmar Holand who became
interested in it while traveling through Minnesota giving lectures on
Norwegian History"
10. Holand was, according to Blegen, working on his Master's thesis in
1898 - hardly an amateur <Blegen: 49>.
11. Holand was not traveling through giving lectures, he was
researching a book on Norwegian immigration, which was published in 1908
<Blegen: 48, 52>.
"Holand kept the stone, (even carving his initials into it)"
12. Minor point, but Holand only carved one letter, an 'H', which he
later claimed was for purposes of checking the weathering of the stone
<Holand, 1959: 12>.
"Holand's vigorous campaigning let the Minnesota Historical Society to
look further into the matter, and in late 1909 and early 1910 they sent
State Geologist Newton H. Winchell to investigate... His written report
was heavily influenced by Holand, who was hired by Winchell to
translate, because Ohman did not speak English.
13. The author(s) imply that Holand interpreted in direct conversations
between Ohman and Winchell, but Blegen states specifically "It is worth
noting, however, that Holand did not accompany Winchell on his trips to
Kensington. <p 142>"
14. Blegen notes that Winchell "relied heavily on Holand for analysis of
the language of the inscription both in the main text and in attempts to
refute linguistic criticisms" <p 70>, not in the report as a whole. The
author(s) may have had in mind Wahlgren's assertions about Holand's
influence (which he based primarily on a lengthy letter from Holand to
Winchell (May 19, 1910) in which numerous suggestions were made for
revisions in a draft copy of the MHS report), and so may be excused on
this point.
I checked the suggested revisions in this letter against the final
draft, finding the place of 21 of Holand's suggestions. Winchell
ignored 2/3 (14) of these suggestions totally, partially used two, made
one correction to a quote by Holand, and of the remaining 4, two dealt
specifically with Holand's rebuttal of Flom. Holand had virtually no
influence over the non-linguistic portions of the report.
15. The Minnesota Historical Society report states that Ohman "does not
speak English readily, but seems to understand English when he hears it
spoken in common conversation" <MHS: 5>, not that Ohman could not speak
English.
"The report... established that he [Ohman] knew runic writing and had an
interest in history"
16. According to the report, Ohman only said that "Every school boy,
and every Swede and Norwegian, knows something about runes, but not so
as to use them." <MHS: 22> This is hardly a claim to know the futhark,
let alone runic writing.
17. There is nothing in the report which suggests that Ohman had an
interest in history.
"Winchell concluded that the inscription might be genuine but that the
lack of patina on the runes on the otherwise well-patinated stone
indicated that the runes were recent"
18. Winchell makes no statement about the patina, other than to note
that compared to the interior the surface of the stone is lighter and of
a "mellow" color. He notes this of the whole surface of the stone, and
does not say the surface of the inscribed area is different in any way
except to note that parts of it had been scraped by an iron nail. <MHS:
13-17>
A number of other people, however, did make note that the inscription
was as weathered as other parts of the stone. For instance J.F. Steward
who in 1899 photographed the stone for Curme's investigation noted "The
grooves show no more newness than the natural surface of the rock; on
the contrary all show age." <Blegen: 136> and Curme, "wherever the
characters of the inscription have not been disturbed, they have
precisely the same color as the general surface of the stone."
<Skandinavian, Chicago, May 3, 1898 (see Holand, 1959: 12).
19. Winchell's conclusion as to the age of the inscription was that it
was roughly 500 years old, not of recent date <MHS: 17>.
20. The conclusion of the committee report, written by Winchell, was
favorable, the only difficulty being in the linguistic aspects of the
stone, not the physical aspects <MHS: 48>.
"The governors of the Minnesota Historical Society concluded that the
inscription was in all probability a fake and that Ohman was probably
the perpetrator"
21. On May 9, 1910 the executive committee voted to reserve final
judgment on the runestone <Blegen: 91, MHS: 48>. Blegen makes no further
reference to the MHS resolving the issue pro or con. The Historical
Society did, in 1915 publish the favorable committee report, both in its
official records and as a separate publication.. It may, in fact, be
true that the MHS did at some point conclude the inscription was a fake,
but did not do so at this time implied by the author(s).
"Holand kept the stone until he parted with it for $4000 paid by the
Alexandria Chamber of Commerce"
22. Although the runestone was to be entrusted to the Chamber of
Commerce, the stone was purchased by an independent group of 10
businessmen from Alexandria <Park Region Echo (Alexandria, MN), Oct. 9,
1951, p 1, reporting on a deposition given by Holand regarding the
Kensington Runestone>.
23. The amount paid was $2500, not $4000 <ibid.>.
"On the contrary, contemporary descriptions noted that the tree was
judged to be only five to twelve years old and that the root around it
was small (Minneapolis Tidende, 3 October 1911; letter from Cleve Van
Dyke, 19 April 1910, Minnesota Historical Society"
24. The only truly contemporary description in a letter from Olaus Olson
to the Svenska Amerikanska Posted dated May 16 1899 (shortly after he
examined the stone), gives an age for the tree of 25 to 30 years. All
other descriptions came at least 8 years later <Blegen: 134-5>.
25. The Olson letter describes the root around the stone as large
<ibid.>.
26. The Van Dyke letter describes the tree as 12 years old, and
describes the root around the stone as smaller than the large tap root
down the side, not as being small <Blegen: 171>.
27. The MHS archives include a very comprehensive set of translations of
articles regarding the runestone from the Minneapolis Tidende, but I
have not seen such an article from 3 Oct. There is however an article
by Juul Dieserud which is dated 13 Oct. (possibly a translator error)
which notes that a witness (Van Dyke?) gave the thickness of the tree as
five inches, and the author of the article (not the witness) concludes
that the tree may have only been 10 or 12 years old <Minnesota
Historical Society achieves, translation by PP Iverslie>
"The continuing controversy soon led to the appearance of a critical
review (Bronsted 1954), published by the Smithsonian, and two books
(Moltke 1953, Wahlgren 1958)"
28. Moltke wrote no book on the Kensington Runestone, though an article
by Moltke was published in the February 1953 issue of Scandinavian
Studies.
"Dalecarlia, a community where runes were still being used in the 1920s
(Boethius 1906)"
29. The citation is from 1906, and cannot reflect the use of runes in
the 1920s.
"Ohman... had been seen carving runes on sticks during his early years
in Minnesota"
30. There is no first hand report of this - one second hand report gives
one instance of him carving runes on a stick <"The Case of the Gran
Tapes" Minnesota History, Winter, 1976>. Winchell investigated one
other reported case of Ohman writing runes on a board, and found that it
was not Ohman, but Hans Voigt who made the runes in that instance <MHS:
23>
"Among the articles found pasted into Ohman's scrapbook, now in the
Minnesota Historical Society..."
31. The scrapbook was returned to the Ohman family after some of the
articles were microfilmed. It is not in the Minnesota Historical
Society.
"According to a neighbor, Jonas P. Gran, the runic inscription was
planned long in advance of its finding..."
32. The person being referred to here is John P. Gran, though Jonas was
his nickname <Minnesota History, Winter, 1976, >.
33. John Gran did not say anything about the planning of the
inscription. <ibid.>
"In tape recordings... Gran said the inscription had been composed by
Ohman and his friend, Sven Fogelblad... and that Ohman and Gran did the
actual chiseling. "
34. John Gran never made and tape recordings regarding the Runestone.
In 1967, Walter Gran, his son made a recording about the stone, and a
conversation he had with his father in the late 1920s. According to
Walter, there was only this single conversation about the stone - it was
never brought up later. <ibid.>
35. From the transcripts of the Gran tapes: "Nephew: Now did your father
ever talk about a schoolteacher here by the name of Sven Fogelblad?
Walter: No" <ibid., p 154> It is an error to quote John Gran as saying
Fogelblad had any influence on the stone.
36. John Gran never talked about whom did the chiseling. <ibid.>
"Ohman and Gran buried the stone under the roots of a small ash..."
37. John Gran never talked about who buried the stone. Nor, for that
matter does Walter Gran say who buried the stone. <Ibid.>
++++++++
Bibliography
Books referenced in the article:
Blegen, Theodore, The Kensington Runestone: New Light on and Old Riddle,
Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, 1968
Holand, Hjalmar R, A Holy Mission to Minnesota 800 Years Ago,
Alexandria, MN Echo Press, 1959.
Landsverk, Ole, The Kensington Runestone: A Reappraisal of the
Circumstances under which the Stone was Discovered, Glendale, CA, Church
Press, 1961.
Minnesota Historical Society, The Kensington Runestone Preliminary
Report, Minnesota Historical Society Collections, vol. 15, 1915 (offset
printing of article by Volkszeitung Co)
Conclusions to follow seperately.
Yuri Kuchinsky
: Recently, I received the companion volume to the Smithsonian Exhibition
: on vikings titled Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga (ed by William
: Fitzhugh and Elisabeth Ward, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington
: and London, 2000). Chapter 29 (written by Fitzhugh and Brigitta
: Lindroth-Wallace) contains, among other things, three pages on
: Kensington Runestone.
: I regret to say that I found numerous and sometimes critical errors in
: the piece.
[snip the detailed analysis]
Wow! 37 errors, some of them very substantial, and amounting to
misrepresentation, in 3 pages of text???
I suppose American archaeological establishment, as exemplified by the
Smithsonian Institution Press, and these two authors, can truly be
considered as a bunch of bungling clowns. Being blinded by their
Isolationist faith, they trample on the scientific method.
Regards,
Yuri.
Yuri Kuchinsky -=O=- http://www.trends.ca/~yuku
The world is made up, for the most part, of fools or knaves, both
irreconcilable foes to truth; the first being slaves to a blind credulity,
which we may properly call bigotry, the last too jealous of that power
they have usurped over the folly and ignorance of the others -- which the
establishment of the empire of reason would destroy -- George Villiers
INGER E. JOHANSSON
sorry not to be able to use your real first name. Anyhow, I guess you
haven't read the articles I have sent to discussiongroups in re. that? If
it's ok by you I will send you a copy directly to your mailaddress. Please
confirm if you want me to either here in group or by sending me a direct
mailmailto:mrs.inger....@swipnet.se
Inger E
Hyper10n <hype...@hotmail.com> skrev i
diskussionsgruppsmeddelandet:39214F48...@hotmail.com...
> "INGER E. JOHANSSON" wrote:
>
> > Eric,
> > I second your opinion in re. KRS-stone. But I can't for my life
understand
> > who Smithsonian Institution Press can edit let alone print a book with
so
> > many false assumptions used to make KRS a fake. Those who doesn't agree
with
> > our opinion I have to remind that an assumption isn't true because Prof.
> > that and that said so or because Ph.D. that and that "proved" so using a
> > circle-proof.(A circle-proof is when you in your hypnotise use an
unproved
> > fact as a starter which need the hypnotise to be true to be a true in
> > itself. And on the other hand the hypnotise to be proven true need the
> > unproved fact to be true....).
> >
> > What I find most difficult to understand is that the Authors have
managed to
> > forget that there still are Icelandic Annals, Norse and Swedish Diplomas
as
> > well as Papal Diplomas showing that there really was a Royal Swedish
> > "crusade" expedition in the area around 1360.........
> >
>
> I'd love to hear more about this. What did these people (the Pope et. al.)
call
> the area to be explored. What details were contained in these documents
you
> cite?
>
> --
> Donate free food at
> http://www.thehungersite.com/
> Then save a patch of rain forest - for free - at
> http://www.therainforestsite.com/
> If you are an educator check out
> http://www.staffroomcentral.com
>
>
Yuri Kuchinsky
Michael's article was cancelled on many servers. It is my guess that
this was because it was crossposted to mn.general, which may not take
crossposts. So now I'm reposting Michael's article, but omitting
mn.general.
Best,
Yuri.
Yuri Kuchinsky
Eric Stevens wrote:
>As Michael Zalar has demonstrated, the KRS is far from being accepted
>as a fake and the Vinland map is now accepted as genuine.>
One source I haven't seen mentioned in the discussion of the KRS is
Curtis D. MacDougall's Hoaxes (1940, reprint Dover 1958). He discusses
the KRS in his chapter "Incentives to Believe: Chauvinism" on pp.
109-111. MacDougall mentions that Prof. George T. Flom, University of
Illinois, "in his report to the Illinois State Historical Society proved
countless anachronisms in the dialect alleged to be fourteenth century.
Both he and Professor Anderson [Ramus Anderson, University of Wisconsin]
mentioned Andrew Anderson, brother-in-law of Ohman, and a Reverend Svend
Fogelblad, who were known to have produced rune stones for pleasure, as
possible originators of the hoax. Professor Anderson reported a meeting
with Andrew Anderson which, he said, left no doubt in his mind of that
person's guilty knowledge."
*******************
YURI:
There are no anachronisms whatsoever on KRS. All these are urban myths
only. Neither Anderson, nor (the former) Reverend Svend Fogelblad
"produced rune stones for pleasure" -- this is more nonsense and silly
urban myths. It is possible that in Professor Anderson's paranoid mind
all kinds of wild conspiracy theories festered, but there's no evidence
whatsoever to back them up. The truth is plain and simple, KRS is
authentic, and Ohman was an honest man.
As far as the Vinland map goes, I'm not familiar with all the details,
but I heard that these ink tests have been questioned recently.
Best regards,
Yuri.
*******************
As far as the Vinland map being accepted as genuine, Dr. Walter McCrone,
in Judgment Day for the Shroud of Turin (Prometheus Books, 1999), who
initially condemned it, mentions (p. 41) "We should have realized during
the sampling operation [to obtain samples of the ink for analysis] that
the map was unlikely to be authentic....we could see that the ink lines
were double. That is, each line was, in reality, made up of two ink
lines. One, a broad yellow line and the second, a narrow black line
carefully inked down the center of the yellow line. The forger knew
that the colorless medium or vehicle of any black ink would, over a
period of several hundred years, soak into the paper fibers and, with
age, become yellow....in a few places he wobbled a bit in applying the
second black line." Dr. McCrone's finding of titanium dioxide,
indicating post-1916 ink for the map, was based on the ink extracted
directly from this yellow pigment. In 1987 Dr. Thomas A. Cahill of the
University of California at Davis published as study stating that the
map contained only 0.0062% titanium, compared to McCrone's finding of
14-15% (ibid, p. 43). However, his team used a sample nearly 10,000
times larger than the microscopic samples obtained by McCrone due to the
limitations of their equipment. "Cahill's 0.0062% Ti in his gross sample
is equivalent to my 13% TiO2 in the yellow ink line by itself." (ibid,
p. 46). Robert Leonard
Yuri Kuchinsky in Toronto -=O=- http://www.trends.ca/~yuku
It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than
to put out on the troubled seas of thought -=O=- John K. Galbraith
D. Spencer Hines
"...the KRS is far from being accepted as a fake."
Vide infra.
I love it.
--
D. Spencer Hines
Lux et Veritas et Libertas
"It may be said that, thanks to the 'clercs', humanity did evil for two
thousand years, but honoured good. This contradiction was an honour to
the human species, and formed the rift whereby civilisation slipped into
the world." "La Trahison des clercs" [The Treason of the Intellectuals]
(1927) Julien Benda (1867-1956)
All replies to the newsgroup please. Thank you kindly.
All original material contained herein is copyright and property of the
author. It may be quoted only in discussions on this forum and with an
attribution to the author, unless permission is otherwise expressly
given, in writing.
"Yuri Kuchinsky" <yu...@clio.trends.ca> wrote in message
news:8fusva$1gpj$1...@news.tht.net...
Alan Crozier
>There are no anachronisms whatsoever on KRS. All these are urban myths
only.
What about the word opdagelseferd then, to take an example? That's a bit of
a give-away!
Alan
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Alan Crozier
Lund, Sweden
e-mail alan.c...@telia.com
Eric Stevens
wrote:
>As far as the Vinland map being accepted as genuine, Dr. Walter McCrone,
>in Judgment Day for the Shroud of Turin (Prometheus Books, 1999), who
>initially condemned it, mentions (p. 41) "We should have realized during
>the sampling operation [to obtain samples of the ink for analysis] that
>the map was unlikely to be authentic....we could see that the ink lines
>were double. That is, each line was, in reality, made up of two ink
>lines. One, a broad yellow line and the second, a narrow black line
>carefully inked down the center of the yellow line. The forger knew
>that the colorless medium or vehicle of any black ink would, over a
>period of several hundred years, soak into the paper fibers and, with
>age, become yellow....in a few places he wobbled a bit in applying the
>second black line." Dr. McCrone's finding of titanium dioxide,
>indicating post-1916 ink for the map, was based on the ink extracted
>directly from this yellow pigment. In 1987 Dr. Thomas A. Cahill of the
>University of California at Davis published as study stating that the
>map contained only 0.0062% titanium, compared to McCrone's finding of
>14-15% (ibid, p. 43). However, his team used a sample nearly 10,000
>times larger than the microscopic samples obtained by McCrone due to the
>limitations of their equipment. "Cahill's 0.0062% Ti in his gross sample
>is equivalent to my 13% TiO2 in the yellow ink line by itself." (ibid,
>p. 46). Robert Leonard
More to the point, in 1995 the Yale University Press published a new
edition of "The Vinland Map and the Tartar Relation". The whole book
is a fascinating and complex read.
An opening note from the publishers is signed by Chester Ker, Director
Emeritus, and John G. Ryden, Director. This includes:
"... in 1966, during a conference on the map held at the Smithsonian
Institution, proposals were made that that it should undergo more
extensive physical analysis. This led to the announcement in January
1974 by the Yale University Library that in light of the chemical
analysis of the ink, which was found to contain Titanium dioxide in
the modern form of anastase, "The famous Vinland Map may be a
forgery"
In the decades since then, this verdict has been in the process
of being reversed by reappraisals of both humanist and scientific
evidence, including particle induced x-ray emission tests. Now,
thirty years after its initial publication, here is a classic of
historical cartography in a new edition. The original text is
reprinted unaltered, but added to it have been a list of
corrections, as well as new prefatory material that reassesses the
forgery hypothesis. The new matter consists of a fresh statement of
support by George D. Painter, the sole surviving member of the team
that prepared the original edition; a contribution by Wilcomb E.
Washburn, director of the Smithsonian's American Studies Program,
who has altered the sceptical view he held when he convened the 1966
Smithsonian conference that cast doubt on the map's authenticity.".
After nine pages of explanation and deduction, including a detailed
description of the analytical problems associated with the presence of
Titanium, George C. Painter wrote:
"The Vinland Map now appears as a major and authentic message from
the middle ages, on a hitherto unknown moment in the history of the
world and American discovery. It is a true voice from the past
which still lives and never been silent again"
Eric Stevens
There are two classes of people. Those who divide people into
two classes, and those who don't. I belong to the second class.
Doug Weller
says...
>
> More to the point, in 1995 the Yale University Press published a new
> edition of "The Vinland Map and the Tartar Relation". The whole book
> is a fascinating and complex read.
>
>
think would also like it to be genuine, but believes it is not.
See http://ihr.sas.ac.uk/maps/saenger.html
And if you can find it, her article in Mercator's World in 1997.
Doug
--
Doug Weller member of moderation panel sci.archaeology.moderated
Submissions to: sci-archaeol...@medieval.org
Doug's Archaeology Site: http://www.ramtops.demon.co.uk
Co-owner UK-Schools mailing list: email me for details
Eric Stevens
wrote:
>In article <dt66is8aj1m4d7qrf...@4ax.com>, este...@ip.co.nz
>says...
>>
>> More to the point, in 1995 the Yale University Press published a new
>> edition of "The Vinland Map and the Tartar Relation". The whole book
>> is a fascinating and complex read.
>>
>>
>I'd like to think it was genuine. However, I also respect Karen Seaver, who I
>think would also like it to be genuine, but believes it is not.
>
>See http://ihr.sas.ac.uk/maps/saenger.html
>
>And if you can find it, her article in Mercator's World in 1997.
She certainly raises some interesting grounds for doubt.
I am not so foolish as to offer an opinion.
Svein Kjærevik
--
______________________________________
Svein Kjærevik
Kjærevik Båtservice
5636 Varaldsøy
Norway
E-Mail: kja...@online.no
______________________________________
Alan Crozier <alan.c...@telia.com> wrote in article
<UIEU4.8008$Za1.1...@newsc.telia.net>...
It has been discussed before, and as far as I can recall there were good
arguments both ways. Would you please tell why you think it is an
anachronism?
Regards.
Yuri Kuchinsky
: Svein Kjærevik wrote in message
: <01bfc1a9$f051f500$46f44382@svein-kj-revik>...
:>Alan Crozier <alan.c...@telia.com> wrote in article
:>> What about the word opdagelseferd then, to take an example? That's a bit of
:>> a give-away!
:>>
:>>
:> It has been discussed before, and as far as I can recall there were good
:>arguments both ways. Would you please tell why you think it is an
:>anachronism?
:>Regards.
: Both the form of the word and the very meaning seem far too modern to me
: (and other sceptics). It's too perfect that the stone should speak about a
: "voyage of discovery"
Here's some info about this word, Alan. It's certainly highly
tendentious to try to base your arguments on one word only. It's as if
you could be 100% sure what medieval Swedish was? Surely you don't have
the Time Machine?
[quote]
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/6726/kensington/answers.htm
Objection: "One word alone, opdagelsefard, which did not appear in any
Scandinavian language for several centuries after 1362, gives it away."
(5) [Morison, Samuel Eliot, The European Discovery of America, Oxford
University Press, 1971, p. 77]
Answer: "The most criticized word in the inscription in opdagelse. This
word, it is claimed, is an anachronism. It could not have been used in
1362 because it is not found in Soderwall's dictionary of medieval
Swedish.
"It is an error to conclude that a word did not exist in the medieval
Swedish if it is not found in this excellent dictionary. As Professor
Soderwall did not live in the Middle Ages, his only sources about
Sweden's medieval vocabulary were the preserved books and douments of
that period. This literature was rather limited in scope, and there are
many words he did not include in his dictionary because they were not
mentioned in the old writings. As an example, there is the word, eldstal
(fire steel), which was used in the flint-and-fire-steel process of
making fire. This steel was an implement no house in the middle ages
could be without. But it is not mentioned by Soderwall because it does
not occur in the old writings, which are mostly conveyances of land.
"Professor Soderwall had no doubt that opdage was in use in the 14th
century. I spent a couple of hours with him in his study, and he gave me
the following statement:
'As far as I know, this word is not to be found in the meager literary
fragments of the 14th century. But that proves nothing. As you probably
know, these fragments consist chiefly of legal documents and homilies,
and it is therefore not strange if a word of such comparably rare import
as opdagelse is not found in such writings. The old Norse word for this
idea was leita landa, but this expression had become obsolete when the
great change from Old Swedish to the Swedish of the late Middle Ages
took place about 1300. As landelieta was dropped, some other term must
have been adopted to express the same thought. The only word we know
which fills this function is opdage. '" (6) [Holand, H.R., Explorations
in America Before Columbus Twayne Publishers, 1956, pp. 314-315 ]
[unquote]
: - and one that supposedly led the Vikings to precisely
: the parts of North America where huge numbers of Scandinavians later
: settled. I smell a forgery.
Well, and this is an argument by insinuation. Nothing more than
speculation, really. So why do you think there are so many claims of
finding medieval Scandinavian artifacts in this area? All Scandinavians
must be shameless liars, I suppose?
Really now...
Yuri.
Yuri Kuchinsky in Toronto -=O=- http://www.trends.ca/~yuku
Reality is that which, when you stop believing
in it, doesn't go away -=O=- Philip K. Dick
Tim O'Neill
<yu...@clio.trends.ca> wrote:
>Here's some info about this word, Alan. It's certainly highly
>tendentious to try to base your arguments on one word only. It's
>as if you could be 100% sure what medieval Swedish was? Surely
>you don't have the Time Machine?
In the absence of time machines, historians rely on evidence.
>"It is an error to conclude that a word did not exist in the
>medieval Swedish if it is not found in this excellent
>dictionary. As Professor Soderwall did not live in the Middle
>Ages, his only sources about Sweden's medieval vocabulary were
>the preserved books and douments of that period. This literature
>was rather limited in scope, and there are many words he did not
>include in his dictionary because they were not
>mentioned in the old writings.
I can't say I know enough about the East Norse spoken in Sweden
in this time to comment on the scarcity of literary survivals in
that language. But we have a large corpus of literary material
from the high medieval period which are in the West Norse spoken
in Iceland at this time. Does a cognate of this word exist in
that large and diverse body of literary survivals?
>As an example, there is the word, eldstal
>(fire steel), which was used in the flint-and-fire-steel process
>of making fire. This steel was an implement no house in the
>middle ages could be without. But it is not mentioned by
>Soderwall because it does not occur in the old writings, which
>are mostly conveyances of land.
The West Norse material includes romances, laws, religious
material and a great many sagas, some of which describe 'voyages
of discovery' in some detail. Does a cognate of this word appear
in this corpus?
Tim O'Neill
Tasmanian Devil
* Sent from RemarQ http://www.remarq.com The Internet's Discussion Network *
The fastest and easiest way to search and participate in Usenet - Free!
Buzzygirl (Jackie)
I live in the region in question (Minnesota) and one thing that I always
found to be curious about one of the inscriptions on the stone was one
certain passage. Sorry, I don't speak medieval Swedish, so I am not 100%
sure of the correct English translation:
"wi hade lager wed 2 skjar en dags rise norr fra dena sten"...
which I've seen translated in either of two forms:
"we had a camp by 2 skerries one day journey north from this stone" or "we
had camp by 2 rocky islands one day's journey north from this stone" ...
This passage is more telling to me than any of the other words written on
the stone. What this implies to me is that the region the alleged travellers
were in was surrounded by water. The region where the stone was found, in
fact, *was* once under water. If you go to the Alexandria area nowadays,
there are many lakes, but none of such a vast breadth as to have two rocky
islands 2 days journey north of where they were, *assuming* that they were
travelling entirely by water. There aren't any "islands" of appreciable size
in this region now. I've fished in Lake Osakis and Lake Miltona, two of the
large ones, and I haven't noticed any islands of any size in these lakes
that could be camped on by that number of people.
There was much more water in the region in the 14th century, however. It is
entirely conceivable to me that many of the rolling hills that undulate
through the prairies were once small islands surrounded by water. There was
once a large glacial lake (Agassiz) in the region and after the glaciers
moved on northwards, the prairie land of western Minnesota was eventually
pockmarked by many smaller lakes as the glacial meltwater dried up. As I
said, I cannot read medieval Swedish nor runic writing, so I'm not sure on
this translation, but I've always been curious about this passage on the
stone.
--Jackie, who's been lurking and following this thread with *much* interest.
(snipped discourse)
Eric Stevens
<alan.c...@telia.com> wrote:
>Svein Kjærevik wrote in message
><01bfc1a9$f051f500$46f44382@svein-kj-revik>...
>>
>>--
>>______________________________________
>>Svein Kjærevik
>>
>>Kjærevik Båtservice
>>5636 Varaldsøy
>>Norway
>>
>>E-Mail: kja...@online.no
>>______________________________________
>>
>>Alan Crozier <alan.c...@telia.com> wrote in article
>>> What about the word opdagelseferd then, to take an example? That's a bit
>of
>>> a give-away!
>>>
>>>
>> It has been discussed before, and as far as I can recall there were good
>>arguments both ways. Would you please tell why you think it is an
>>anachronism?
>>Regards.
>
>
>Both the form of the word and the very meaning seem far too modern to me
>(and other sceptics). It's too perfect that the stone should speak about a
>"voyage of discovery" - and one that supposedly led the Vikings to precisely
>the parts of North America where huge numbers of Scandinavians later
>settled. I smell a forgery.
>
To me, one of the most convincing arguments for the authenticity of
the KRS are those 'mistakes' identified by the experts of the time
which were held to show what an amatuerish job the forgery really was.
Now they have been identified as not mistakes but genuine, and
requiring a knowledge beyond that of even the experts of the time. Yet
people still argue that the KRS is the work of amatuers. :-(
Eric Stevens
<alan.c...@telia.com> wrote:
>Yuri Kuchinsky wrote in message <8fusva$1gpj$1...@news.tht.net>...
>>There are no anachronisms whatsoever on KRS. All these are urban myths
>only.
>
>
>What about the word opdagelseferd then, to take an example? That's a bit of
>a give-away!
On page 38 of "The Kensington Rune-Stone Authentic and Important",
Robert A. Hall, Jr wrote:
1. The word ophagelse+ ,discovery', in ophagelsefarb
(r. 21-33) 'voyage of discovery', has been condemned as
anachronistic. it has been objected (e.g. by Wahlgren [1958:114])
that the concept of 'voyage of discovery' did not exist in
Scandinavia in the Middle Ages. It did exist, of course, as
evidenced in the Icelandic sagas. Furthermore, 'discovery' might
refer, not only to exploration, but also to 'finding out' what had
happened to others. This suggestion does not depend on the historic
reality or otherwise of the Paul Knutson expedition (cf. below.,
# 5.1). Once we recognize that /opdag-/ is, not old Swedish, but Old
Bohusluhansk (into which it was borrowed from Danish in the Middle
Ages),the difficulty disappears, as it does also if we accept
Nielsen's suggestion that the word in question is not /opdagelse/,
but /optagelse/ 'taking up', e.g. of new territory, a derivative of
/optag-/, also well attested in the Middle Ages. Either explanation
will suffice as an answer to the objection of anachronism (cf. 9
10.2; # 12.12 s.vv.).
Others have previously pointed out in this news group the relevance of
Old Bohusluhansk in terms of both the language of the inscription and
the constitution of the most likely expedition to have been the
creator of the KRS.
Eric Stevens
Isostatic rebound of the land after being relieved of the weight of
ice at the end of the ice age is still going on in many parts of the
world, including further north in Hudson bay where the coast line has
apparently moved out to sea for many miles in historical times. It is
not unreasonable that a similar (but probably lesser) effect has been
going on in Minnesota and that this has affected the local
cajolements. I've been trying to find out something about this but so
far have encountered little useful data of any kind.
Eric Stevens
wrote:
>... has affected the local cajolements.
Bloody spell-checker!!
It didn't like the extra 'e' I put in "catchments" so this is what it
did with it! :-)
J. W. Love
'e' I put in "catchments" so this is what it did with it! :-)>>
Too late! you'd already sent me to the dictionary, which left me puzzling over
my ignorance of geological technical terms. I was trying to imagine the local
flattery---how the ice gently coaxed the land into lying flat. ;)
Cheers. Jacob.
Non omni tempore sensus adest.
Eric Stevens
Scott) wrote:
>On Sun, 21 May 2000 17:47:16 -0500 (CDT), marth...@webtv.net (Martha
>or Larry Athy) wrote:
>
>>Having failed to bury Steede in one of his well(er)s, Doug is now back
>>trying to dig a new one for Dr. Richard Nielsen.
>
>>It is typical that he comments regarding Hall as "Academically
>>respectable, certainly. But not written by a specialist in Runes." Dr.
>>Robert A. Hall, who passed away in Dec. 1997, was a Professor of
>>Linguistics at Cornell University. He had previously written three
>>papers on this same subject. Doug then quotes from replies published in
>>1996 and 1997 of James P. Knirk, Professor of Numismatics and Art
>>History at the University of Oslo, no doubt a better expert since his is
>>politically correct.
>
>From this information there is no way to tell which of the two has the
>better background in this matter. It can easily be discovered,
>however, that Knirk was one of the speakers at the 4th International
>Symposium on Runes and Runic Inscriptions, held at Goettingen in 1995.
>He is also co-author of several annual runic bibliographies (see,
>e.g., <http://www.ukm.uio.no/runenews/nor_1997/bibl96.htm>) and editor
>of 'Nytt om runer: Meldingsblad om runeforskning' ('News about Runes:
>Bulletin of Runic Research'), an international journal that is
>published yearly by the Runic Archives, part of the University Museum
>of Cultural Heritage at the University of Oslo. In short, Knirk is
>clearly something of a runic specialist. Robert A. Hall, on the other
>hand, though a linguist with wide-ranging interests, was a specialist
>in Romance linguistics. He was a formidable scholar, and his opinions
>should not be dismissed out of hand, but of the two Knirk is clearly
>the expert and the one likelier to be more familiar with the available
>evidence.
But, from the tone of his writing, neither impartial nor balanced.
In saying that you must realise I am not challenging his expertise.
Nor am I trying to argue one way or the other on the subject - I
freely admit I do not know enough. However, I have over a long period
come to realise that those who enter academic or intellectual
arguments like a bull at a gate frequently are subconciously
acknowledging that they have little other than sheer force of
personality to support them.
>
>> No mention is made of any concurrent or subsequent
>>replies to Knirk by Nielsen. My guess that no reply was allowed and that
>>only one side of the story was published therein.
>
>Your guess was predictable. Why not acknowledge that you simply don't
>know?
That seems to asking a lot of too many. I keep finding that I have to
point out to people who don't want to rcognise the fact that "don't
know" is a viable middle ground.
>
>>At this point Doug stopped digging - perhaps because he might have
>>uncovered the facts of the case.
>
>>The "Epigraphic Society Occasional Papers", Volume 23, 1998, published
>>a fifty page paper by Nielsen on the linguistic aspects of the KRS,
>>updating his previous work and replying to criticisms of Knirk and six
>>other critics. This paper was presented to both Hall and Knirk for their
>>prepublication comments, which were printed in full following Nielsen's
>>paper. Has such a courtesy ever been granted to Nielsen?
>
>The Epigraphic Society isn't a source that inspires much faith in its
>scholarship; so far as I can tell it hasn't even tried to live down
>the fact that Barry Fell was a co-founder.
Hmmm. By their predecessors shall ye know them? Unto the seventh
generation and all that?
That may be a sound basis for caution but it is not a sound basis for
evaluating particular arguments.
--- slogans snipped ----
Steve Marcus
> On Sun, 21 May 2000 19:05:50 -0700, Steve Marcus
> <barbm...@erols.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >Eric Stevens wrote:
> >
> >> On Sun, 21 May 2000 18:10:48 -0700, Steve Marcus
> >> <barbm...@erols.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> >Look, one can't have it both ways, posting that "they've seen or been told of"
> >> >specific evidence, but then refuse to disclose the specifics of the evidence. Or,
> >> >rather, one can do that, but one can hardly then rely on such bald statements as
> >> >persuasive "evidence" of anything.
> >>
> >> Yet you have several times in this thread relied on the opinion of
> >> 'experts' without knowing anything about the evidence upon which they
> >> have based their conclusions.
> >>
> >> Eric Stevens
> >>
> >> There are two classes of people. Those who divide people into
> >> two classes, and those who don't. I belong to the second class.
> >
> >Eric,
> >
> >When an expert states an opinion, the expert puts his rep on the line. Sure, the
> >expert can be wrong. But if your re-read Doug's post, you'll see that they expert he
> >quoted at least ventured to state his evidence. Your post to the contrary is
> >inaccurate.
>
> (a) You are changing the subject away from your use of the
> unsupported statement of experts.
I don't see how. I will stand by what I said, and will continue to rely upon "the
unsupported statement of experts" over the apparently erroneously supported statements of
amateurs.
>
>
> (b) What is the evidence quoted by Knirk that is of direct relevance
> to the KRS?
>
An example of the evidence relied upon by Knirk that is of relevance to the KRS:
"Hall presents the material using linguistic terms and notation that give his
work credibility. The only new material he provides, however, reflects Nielsen's
articles (printed mainly in Epigraphic Society, Occasional Publications), but he
has either not checked Nielsen's evidence or not been able to evaluate it. For
example, he states that the Kensington X-shaped rune for a, with an extra small
branch in the upper right, has "been attested in Scandinavia"(27), citing
Nielsen. Nielsen's evidence, however, encompasses only an irregular retrograde f
as the first rune in a fupork-inscription in Hedal stave church and crossing
cuts from two rune-like signs on the lead sheet from Torkelsby. Though there may
be some resemblance, these signs cannot provide parallels for a sign for a. In
addition Hall claims that a "simple X-shape" for a is "widely attested in the
Bergen finds," giving, however, no examples-since there are none. Hall states
further that X with umlaut for Swedish a has "now been found attested in
Greenlandic and continental Scandinavian inscriptions" (28), referring again to
Nielsen, whose parallels (exclusively from Greenland) do not stand inspection.
Only through faulty reasoning and by accepting superficial similarities can
medieval "parallels" be found for several of the letters on the Kensington
stone. Thus several of the arguments against the genuineness of the runes have
not been answered, and, applying Hall's own criteria, the stone must still be
considered a forgery. Incidentally, clear parallels to the X-shaped a, runes
with umlaut, and [rho] for /d/ are found in post-Reformational runic
inscriptions."
Namely, it's the entire sample of Knirk's analysis posted by Doug Weller. I've no idea
what you mean by "direct" evidence.
>
> (c) Where or in what respect is my post inaccurate?
To the extent that your wrote:
"Yet you have several times in this thread relied on the opinion of 'experts' without
knowing anything about the evidence upon which they have based their conclusions."
your post was inaccurate in two ways. That I relied upon the opinions of "experts"; I've
only relied upon Doug's citation as quoted above which is the opinion of _an_ expert, and
that this expert didn't support his conclusion with evidence, which of course he did, (see
for example the discussion of the X-shaped rune).
>
>
> Eric Stevens
>
> There are two classes of people. Those who divide people into
> two classes, and those who don't. I belong to the second class.
Steve
--
The above posting is neither a legal opinion nor legal advice, because
we do not have an attorney-client relationship, and should not be
construed as either. This posting does not represent the opinion of my
employer, but is merely my personal view.
Eric Stevens
Scott) wrote:
>>In any case James Knirk is on logically shaky ground when he writes as
>>though there are only two verdicts for the provenance of the KRS -
>>'authentic' or a 'forgery'.
>
>He doesn't. He says that he's applying Hall's criteria.
He is applying Hall's criteria to a decision making process in which
there are only two outcomes - true or false. Apert from the fact that
this is Knirk's own analysis, I don't think Hall would have limited
himself to just these two.
Eric Stevens
wrote:
>Martha or Larry Athy wrote:
>
><snip irrelevant ad hominem>
>
You missed the bit where he said:
The "Epigraphic Society Occasional Papers", Volume 23, 1998,
published a fifty page paper by Nielsen on the linguistic aspects of
the KRS, updating his previous work and replying to criticisms of
Knirk and six other critics. This paper was presented to both Hall
and Knirk for their prepublication comments, which were printed in
full following Nielsen's paper. Has such a courtesy ever been
granted to Nielsen?
I too would like to know the answer to the last question. I would also
like to know the substance of Hall and Knirk's responses (and also
Nielsen's if he made any).
Eric Stevens
<barbm...@erols.com> wrote:
>Eric Stevens wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 21 May 2000 19:05:50 -0700, Steve Marcus
>> <barbm...@erols.com> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >
>> >Eric Stevens wrote:
>> >
>> >> On Sun, 21 May 2000 18:10:48 -0700, Steve Marcus
>> >> <barbm...@erols.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> >Look, one can't have it both ways, posting that "they've seen or been told of"
>> >> >specific evidence, but then refuse to disclose the specifics of the evidence. Or,
>> >> >rather, one can do that, but one can hardly then rely on such bald statements as
>> >> >persuasive "evidence" of anything.
>> >>
>> >> Yet you have several times in this thread relied on the opinion of
>> >> 'experts' without knowing anything about the evidence upon which they
>> >> have based their conclusions.
---- my needlessly quoted sig snipped -----
>> >
>> >When an expert states an opinion, the expert puts his rep on the line. Sure, the
>> >expert can be wrong. But if your re-read Doug's post, you'll see that they expert he
>> >quoted at least ventured to state his evidence. Your post to the contrary is
>> >inaccurate.
>>
>> (a) You are changing the subject away from your use of the
>> unsupported statement of experts.
>
>I don't see how. I will stand by what I said, and will continue to rely upon "the
>unsupported statement of experts" over the apparently erroneously supported statements of
>amateurs.
In the original article I quoted you and responded as follows:
Steve Marcus
Look, one can't have it both ways, posting that "they've seen or
been told of" specific evidence, but then refuse to disclose the
specifics of the evidence. Or, rather, one can do that, but one can
hardly then rely on such bald statements as persuasive "evidence" of
anything.
And then I challenged your objection with:
Yet you have several times in this thread relied on the opinion of
'experts' without knowing anything about the evidence upon which
they have based their conclusions.
To which you generated a non-sequitur as above. Now, in defence, you
reply "I will stand by what I said, and will continue to rely upon
"the unsupported statement of experts" over the apparently erroneously
supported statements of amateurs". I reiterate, you are happy to rely
on the unsupported opinion of others providing only that *you* can
classify them as experts.>
>>
>> (b) What is the evidence quoted by Knirk that is of direct relevance
>> to the KRS?
>>
>
>An example of the evidence relied upon by Knirk that is of relevance to the KRS:
>
>"Hall presents the material using linguistic terms and notation that give his
>work credibility. The only new material he provides, however, reflects Nielsen's
>articles...
--- repeat of Doug's quote snipped -----
> .... Incidentally, clear parallels to the X-shaped a, runes
>with umlaut, and [rho] for /d/ are found in post-Reformational runic
>inscriptions."
>
>Namely, it's the entire sample of Knirk's analysis posted by Doug Weller. I've no idea
>what you mean by "direct" evidence.
That's not evidence!! That's an arument!!!! And you pretend to be a
lawyer - even more exclamation marks. I am disappointed that you can't
tell the difference between an argument and evidence. :-(
>
>>
>> (c) Where or in what respect is my post inaccurate?
>
>To the extent that your wrote:
>
>"Yet you have several times in this thread relied on the opinion of 'experts' without
>knowing anything about the evidence upon which they have based their conclusions."
>
>your post was inaccurate in two ways. That I relied upon the opinions of "experts"; I've
>only relied upon Doug's citation as quoted above which is the opinion of _an_ expert, ....
... and yet just a few lines ago it was "evidence". I will accept it
as an opinion in lieu of an argument.
> ... and
>that this expert didn't support his conclusion with evidence, which of course he did, (see
>for example the discussion of the X-shaped rune).
But you originally wrote "But if your re-read Doug's post, you'll see
that they expert he quoted at least ventured to state his evidence.
Your post to the contrary is inaccurate".
I don't think you can demonstrate that what I wrote in this respect is
'inaccurate' at all. Not when I claim that what he wrote was an
argument and you wrote that what he wrote was an opinion. Neither
arguments nor opinions are evidence. But I thought you would know
that.
---- my again needlessly quoted sig snipped again -----
>Steve
--
>The above posting is neither a legal opinion nor legal advice, because
>we do not have an attorney-client relationship, and should not be
>construed as either.
I presume you know of the Hedley-Burne decision?
If you don't, you should look it up.
Doug Weller
says...
> (b) What is the evidence quoted by Knirk that is of direct relevance
> to the KRS?
>
>
article I mentioned!
Doug Weller
> The Epigraphic Society isn't a source that inspires much faith in its
> scholarship; so far as I can tell it hasn't even tried to live down
> the fact that Barry Fell was a co-founder.
>
>
Nielsen, Knirk, etc. However, I haven't read it and have no comments to make on
it for that reason. I have read, and have a copy of, the article I quoted from
by Knirk. And, like you, I'm aware of the credentials of both Hall and Knirk.
And Nielsen, for that matter.
Yuri Kuchinsky
analysing the "credentials" of various parties. All sound and no
substance.
Because Philistines are not interested in history or archaeology, they
only care about social conventions and opinio communis.
How sad...
Yuri.
Yuri Kuchinsky -=O=- http://www.trends.ca/~yuku
A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff
that nature replaces it with -=O=- Tennessee Williams
Brian M. Scott <sc...@math.csuohio.edu> wrote:
: On Sun, 21 May 2000 17:47:16 -0500 (CDT), marth...@webtv.net (Martha
: or Larry Athy) wrote:
:> No mention is made of any concurrent or subsequent
:>replies to Knirk by Nielsen. My guess that no reply was allowed and that
:>only one side of the story was published therein.
: Your guess was predictable. Why not acknowledge that you simply don't
: know?
:>At this point Doug stopped digging - perhaps because he might have
:>uncovered the facts of the case.
:>The "Epigraphic Society Occasional Papers", Volume 23, 1998, published
:>a fifty page paper by Nielsen on the linguistic aspects of the KRS,
:>updating his previous work and replying to criticisms of Knirk and six
:>other critics. This paper was presented to both Hall and Knirk for their
:>prepublication comments, which were printed in full following Nielsen's
:>paper. Has such a courtesy ever been granted to Nielsen?
: The Epigraphic Society isn't a source that inspires much faith in its
: scholarship; so far as I can tell it hasn't even tried to live down
: the fact that Barry Fell was a co-founder.
:>Doug has expressed his opinion on this matter. Although better informed
:>in this matter than is Doug, I will not express an opinion, since it is
:>clear that neither Doug or I are qualified to do so. Down with
:>politicoarchaeology - up with science.
: Lovely slogan. Meaningless, though, when offered by those who don't
: understand science.
: Brian M. Scott
Yuri Kuchinsky
: I have two questions about this discussion :
: 1. Why is it posted to soc.culture.nordic ?
Perhaps because some people were under the impression that
soc.culture.nordic is relevant to Scandinavian history. And according to
you it's the newsgroup for discussing what? Stamp collecting?
: 2. Why does every poster quote the whole message ?
Yes, there are some clued out individuals out there...
: FUT : sic.archaeology
: --
: Jon Tveten
: En Bæring I Australia
In the future, try not to get too much sun down there in Australia, my
dear friend.
Yuri.
Yuri Kuchinsky -=O=- http://www.trends.ca/~yuku
In short, all heresies, when throughly looked into, are detected
harbouring dissent in many particulars even from their own founders. The
majority of them have not even churches. Motherless, houseless, creedless,
outcasts, they wander about in their own essential worthlessness -=O=-
Tertullian -=O=- THE PRESCRIPTION AGAINST HERETICS, Ch. 42
Yuri Kuchinsky
: In article <557eiss2q73nn7kh7...@4ax.com>, este...@ip.co.nz
: says...
:>
:> For an academically respectable review of the matter you should read
:> the 1994 edition "The Kensington Rune-Stone Authentic and Important",
:> Robert A. Hall, Jr published by the Jupiter Press. The last time I
:> looked it was still available from Amazon at a very reasonable price.
:> Others have independently confirmed Hall's conclusions.
:>
:>
: Academically respectable, certainly. But not written by a specialist in runes.
: And refuted in the Winter 1997 Scandinavian Studies by James Knirk (who is a
: runologist), who also did a detailed review in Skandinavstik 26 (1996), 45-7.
: An excerpt
: "Hall presents the material using linguistic terms and notation that give his
: work credibility. The only new material he provides, however, reflects Nielsen's
: articles (printed mainly in Epigraphic Society, Occasional Publications), but he
: has either not checked Nielsen's evidence or not been able to evaluate it. For
: example, he states that the Kensington X-shaped rune for a, with an extra small
: branch in the upper right, has "been attested in Scandinavia"(27), citing
: Nielsen. Nielsen's evidence, however, encompasses only an irregular retrograde f
: as the first rune in a fupork-inscription in Hedal stave church and crossing
: cuts from two rune-like signs on the lead sheet from Torkelsby. Though there may
: be some resemblance, these signs cannot provide parallels for a sign for a. In
: addition Hall claims that a "simple X-shape" for a is "widely attested in the
: Bergen finds," giving, however, no examples-since there are none. Hall states
: further that X with umlaut for Swedish a has "now been found attested in
: Greenlandic and continental Scandinavian inscriptions" (28), referring again to
: Nielsen, whose parallels (exclusively from Greenland) do not stand inspection.
: Only through faulty reasoning and by accepting superficial similarities can
: medieval "parallels" be found for several of the letters on the Kensington
: stone. Thus several of the arguments against the genuineness of the runes have
: not been answered, and, applying Hall's own criteria, the stone must still be
: considered a forgery. Incidentally, clear parallels to the X-shaped a, runes
: with umlaut, and [rho] for /d/ are found in post-Reformational runic
: inscriptions."
Doug is up to his old tricks again. I see that he's now resurrected this
old discredited opus by Knirk, remarkable mostly by misrepresentation
mixed with obfuscation.
It's interesting that Knirk tried to perpetrate some of the same
falsehoods that were later also repeated by the Smithsonian canard that
Michael rebutted in his original post in this thread.
Repeating the same tired lies over and over again does not make them
true, of course.
Yuri.
From my webpage,
http://www.trends.ca/~yuku/tran/8k.htm
From: yu...@globalserve.net (Yuri Kuchinsky)
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology,soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Kensington Stone and Prof. Knirk
Date: 19 Aug 1998 19:34:54 GMT
James E. Knirk, University of Oslo, KENSINGTON RUNESTONE (a review of
Hall's and Nilsestuen's books) in Scandinavian Studies, Winter 1997.
This review is really quite silly. It is filled with arrogant ad hominems,
preconceived notions, and is rather dishonest.
Prof. Knirk's snobbery, arrogance and elitism are quite unbelievable.
Surely this sort of an attitude must be the worst the University system
has to offer, expressing all the dregs of elitist intolerance of the
academe in a nutshell. His arrogance is expressed constantly towards
"amateurs" who dared to intrude into the Sacred Precincts where only the
True Professional Runologists can enter.
This is total and complete nonsense of course. The innumerable idiocies
and dishonesties of such "true-blue runologists" like Wahlgren, the KRS
chief opponent, are legion... and they are all well documented. Take the
plank out of your own eye, you, assorted academic hacks, before trying to
dump on the "amateurs"...
So Knirk spends much of his review putting down Holand, Nilsestuen and
Nielsen because they are "amateurs". What nonsense is this? And according
to this pathetic snob, these "uppity amateurs", that he's trying to put
down into their place with such contempt, constantly "fail to understand"
the evidence, and even each other!!! He states, for example that
Nilsestuen is "unable to evaluate Holand", and Hall cannot understand
Nielsen... This sort of idiocy may pass for balanced scholarship, I
suppose, but only among the True Believers...
He finds a few microscopic faults with KRS here and there, and tries to
blow them out of proportion. Nilsestuen, whose book, it must be admitted,
contains some rather speculative background material, provides him with
much fodder for arrogant "corrections", none of which, incidentally, have
much to do with KRS itself.
His star piece of evidence has already been pummeled to death by Mr.
Weller in sci.arch. These are the three erroneous lines in Nilsestuen's
book dealing with poor Prof. Rygh's contribution to the Minnesota
Historical Society KRS Committee. A simple minor error, by all
appearances. Yes, they've found their Big Sin of Nilsestuen here...
Knirk's review is also quite dishonest. Most of his tricks are transparent
and will be quite familiar to the readers of these Usenet discussions.
Again we have the same old selective quotation trick, used so frequently
by KRS opponents. Yes, he uses the same old "Winchell gambit", also used
previously by Stephen Williams (the author of FANTASTIC ARCHAEOLOGY),
another bungling "KRS debunker", and quotes selectively from Winchell's
notebooks re: KRS weathering. Quoting selectively to one's own advantage
is a major academic sin and amounts to obvious deception. So this is a
good indication of Knirk's dishonesty, bias and prejudice.
In actual fact, there are no problems whatsoever with KRS weathering.
Knirk also uses the same old strategy, as used by Blegen, of simply
asserting the desired result often, categorically and loudly -- and
expects to be taken on his word. He thinks he's done enough by merely
stating "the inscription is modern". Trust me, I'm The Expert... Of course
he also commends very warmly the dishonest Prof. Blegen, yet another
incompetent debunker. Birds of a feather flock together.
Here's another dishonest assertion of Knirk. He says that right from the
beginning "experts in older Scandinavian languages" found that "many of
the rune-forms" on KRS were not medieval.
This statement is quite dishonest on two counts. First, he uses obsolete
scholarship to validate his questionable thesis. Because early on, it was
simply _not known_ that many KRS rune-forms were medieval. Later they were
attested adequately. So he plays word games here to create a false
impression in the reader. Second, he actually has very little to show in
the way of substantiation for his assertion that many of the rune-forms on
KRS were not medieval.
Yes, dear friends, there's also a tiny amount of substance hiding in
Knirk's spiteful and biased screed somewhere towards the end. He does
claim to find some faults with a few specific KRS runes. So let's take a
look at them. Here are his complaints.
He claims that there are some problems with external attestation of the
following KRS runes.
Kensington x-shaped rune for a, with an extra small branch in the upper
right. Runes with "some resemblance", as he himself admits, were found by
Nielsen. Nearly exact parallel is found on the Greenlandic stone. But
according to Knirk, the parallels are not quite right. Of course, we're
supposed to take his word for it... Nonsense.
Also he complains about the attestation for X with umlaut for a. According
to him they do not stand inspection? I say this is extremely tendentious.
Also he apparently has some problem with using p for d? Again, this is
highly questionable. His other beefs are quite microscopic.
All I can say is that his premise is completely wrong-headed and false.
How can any serious scholar expect that an inscription made by
non-professionals somewhere in America in 1362 will confirm totally and
completely to some preconceived notions of purity as formulated by a
biased academic snob in the 20th century?
It is well known that standards of spelling in the vernacular in the 14th
century were virtually non-existent. Spelling and orthography variations
were the rule rather than exception. Inger E Johansson already gave many
examples of such variations.
And all Knirk can find are only a couple of minor problems with
attestations? And on this basis the inscription is modern? This is just
too absurd for words...
I would say, if anything, KRS runes are _too well attested_ externally by
now! Just about every rune has been attested. KRS uses 12 irregular and/or
rare runes, and only 9 "standard" runes. Some minor problems may exist
with one or two out of the 12 aberrant runes. These problems can hardly
serve to invalidate the Stone. Only in Knirk's dreams...
At the end of this artilce, I'm reposting some very relevant quotes from
Nubkhas. This will serve to illustrate how irregular and shifting the
standards of writing were in the middle ages.
Knirk is a big joke. His ill-tempered harangue -- quite to the contrary of
what he intends -- in fact may serve well to illustrate the total
bankruptcy of such establishement hacks in their efforts to debunk KRS.
And his dishonesties are very good indication that he's truly desperate in
his hopeless task.
Regards,
Yuri.
From: nub...@aol.com
Date: 1998/07/11
Forums: sci.archaeology
A good document to compare the KRS to is the "Oaths of Strassburg", which
spells out the terms of an 842 AD agreement between Charles the Bald of
France and King Louis the German. The oath sworn by Louis the German
begins: "pro d(e)o amur & pro xpian poblo & n(ost)ro commun salvament,
dist di en avant in quant d(eus) savir & podir me dunat. si salvarai eo
cist meon fradre Karle...."
This is one of the most interesting texts I have ever come across. The
linguistic forms used in this "oath" don't conform to those of classical
Old North French or to Old South French (Provencal). The language forms
used in this text is about as far from either of these languages as the
language of the KRS is from "classical" mediaeval Swedish. Yet no one has
ever questioned the authenticity of the "Oaths" because of the
circumstances of their preservation--together with the contemporary oaths
in a proper German for that time which Charles the Bald and Louis the
German's army swore. But if the Romance version of the "Oaths" had been a
lonely stone found on some peasant's farm in the roots of some tree,
someone would have surely said "This is obviously the work of some
ignorant peasant who was trying to imitate Old French, but who knew it so
badly that he mixed in words from Old Provencal, Latin and even modern
French. In fact, he was so ignorant that he even wrote the same word
differently twice in two instances!" The debate would still be going on,
even though ALL these things really occurred in the manuscript of the
"Oaths of Strassburg".
Yuri Kuchinsky -=O=- http://www.globalserve.net/~yuku
You never need think you can turn over any old falsehoods without a
terrible squirming of the horrid little population that dwells under
it -=O=- Oliver Wendell Holmes
Nubkhas
>Doug is up to his old tricks again. I see that >he's now resurrected this
>old discredited opus by Knirk, remarkable >mostly by misrepresentation
>mixed with obfuscation.
Makes one wonder just what he has against this particular stone. Did it fall
on his foot? Is he jealous because he doesn't have a glib way with runes? Or
is he just a miso-ignosist? (there's a term for you!) I'm sure there are a few
other stones and stele in the world that are suspicious enough to merit Doug's
immediate attention--a lot more so than the poor old Kensington Rune Stone. I
just don't know...some bee buzzing around in that bonnet...I wish he'd let it
loose and stop trying to discredit the most interesting things in Minnesota.
Nubkhas
However, it's the wrong term. How about miso-lithosist? Anyway, the KRS is
the most buoyant rock on earth. It never seems to sink into oblivion.
Brian M. Scott
wrote:
>On Mon, 22 May 2000 01:48:15 GMT, sc...@math.csuohio.edu (Brian M.
>Scott) wrote:
>>>In any case James Knirk is on logically shaky ground when he writes as
>>>though there are only two verdicts for the provenance of the KRS -
>>>'authentic' or a 'forgery'.
>>He doesn't. He says that he's applying Hall's criteria.
>He is applying Hall's criteria to a decision making process in which
>there are only two outcomes - true or false. Apert from the fact that
>this is Knirk's own analysis, I don't think Hall would have limited
>himself to just these two.
I have no reason to doubt Knirk's honesty, and he appears to be saying
that Hall's own criteria would require the (possibly provisional)
judgement 'forgery', and in particularly that they don't allow a
different possibility. To be sure, he may be mistaken in his reading
of Hall, but that *is* what he appears to be saying. One would have
to read Hall to find out whether Knirk is right on this point; what
you think he might have done is irrelevant.
As for the analysis, on the basis of the available information one
must either reserve judgement altogether or lean toward Knirk's
position, simply because he has the better background in the field.
Brian M. Scott
Brian M. Scott
wrote:
>On Mon, 22 May 2000 02:26:38 GMT, sc...@math.csuohio.edu (Brian M.
>Scott) wrote:
>>On Sun, 21 May 2000 17:47:16 -0500 (CDT), marth...@webtv.net (Martha
>>or Larry Athy) wrote:
>>>Having failed to bury Steede in one of his well(er)s, Doug is now back
>>>trying to dig a new one for Dr. Richard Nielsen.
>>>It is typical that he comments regarding Hall as "Academically
>>>respectable, certainly. But not written by a specialist in Runes." Dr.
>>>Robert A. Hall, who passed away in Dec. 1997, was a Professor of
>>>Linguistics at Cornell University. He had previously written three
>>>papers on this same subject. Doug then quotes from replies published in
>>>1996 and 1997 of James P. Knirk, Professor of Numismatics and Art
>>>History at the University of Oslo, no doubt a better expert since his is
>>>politically correct.
>>From this information there is no way to tell which of the two has the
>>better background in this matter. It can easily be discovered,
>>however, that Knirk was one of the speakers at the 4th International
>>Symposium on Runes and Runic Inscriptions, held at Goettingen in 1995.
>>He is also co-author of several annual runic bibliographies (see,
>>e.g., <http://www.ukm.uio.no/runenews/nor_1997/bibl96.htm>) and editor
>>of 'Nytt om runer: Meldingsblad om runeforskning' ('News about Runes:
>>Bulletin of Runic Research'), an international journal that is
>>published yearly by the Runic Archives, part of the University Museum
>>of Cultural Heritage at the University of Oslo. In short, Knirk is
>>clearly something of a runic specialist. Robert A. Hall, on the other
>>hand, though a linguist with wide-ranging interests, was a specialist
>>in Romance linguistics. He was a formidable scholar, and his opinions
>>should not be dismissed out of hand, but of the two Knirk is clearly
>>the expert and the one likelier to be more familiar with the available
>>evidence.
>But, from the tone of his writing, neither impartial nor balanced.
That is not at all apparent to anyone familiar with academic writing.
What I've seen is rather mild.
>In saying that you must realise I am not challenging his expertise.
>Nor am I trying to argue one way or the other on the subject - I
>freely admit I do not know enough. However, I have over a long period
>come to realise that those who enter academic or intellectual
>arguments like a bull at a gate frequently are subconciously
>acknowledging that they have little other than sheer force of
>personality to support them.
That does not in my opinion accurately describe his writing.
>>> No mention is made of any concurrent or subsequent
>>>replies to Knirk by Nielsen. My guess that no reply was allowed and that
>>>only one side of the story was published therein.
>>Your guess was predictable. Why not acknowledge that you simply don't
>>know?
>That seems to asking a lot of too many. I keep finding that I have to
>point out to people who don't want to rcognise the fact that "don't
>know" is a viable middle ground.
Not a middle ground; simply a statement of fact.
>>>At this point Doug stopped digging - perhaps because he might have
>>>uncovered the facts of the case.
>>>The "Epigraphic Society Occasional Papers", Volume 23, 1998, published
>>>a fifty page paper by Nielsen on the linguistic aspects of the KRS,
>>>updating his previous work and replying to criticisms of Knirk and six
>>>other critics. This paper was presented to both Hall and Knirk for their
>>>prepublication comments, which were printed in full following Nielsen's
>>>paper. Has such a courtesy ever been granted to Nielsen?
>>The Epigraphic Society isn't a source that inspires much faith in its
>>scholarship; so far as I can tell it hasn't even tried to live down
>>the fact that Barry Fell was a co-founder.
>Hmmm. By their predecessors shall ye know them? Unto the seventh
>generation and all that?
I took a quick look at some of their recent stuff; hence my comment,
by which I stand.
>That may be a sound basis for caution but it is not a sound basis for
>evaluating particular arguments.
Brian M. Scott
Brian M. Scott
wrote:
>In sci.archaeology Doug Weller <dwe...@ramtops.co.uk> wrote:
[...]
>: And refuted in the Winter 1997 Scandinavian Studies by James Knirk (who is a
>: runologist), who also did a detailed review in Skandinavstik 26 (1996), 45-7.
[...]
>Doug is up to his old tricks again. I see that he's now resurrected this
>old discredited opus by Knirk, remarkable mostly by misrepresentation
>mixed with obfuscation.
As usual, Yuri has a bit of trouble dealing with anything more recent
than, oh, 1960 or so; 'old discredited opus' my foot!
[...]
>Knirk is a big joke. His ill-tempered harangue [...]
*Someone* known for his ill-tempered harangues is certainly a big
joke.
Brian M. Scott
Brian M. Scott
wrote:
>So typically for Brian the Philistine, the whole post is spent on
>analysing the "credentials" of various parties. [...]
Yes; it was necessary to correct Larry Athy's misrepresentation. I
notice that you didn't complain about *his* comments on the
credentials of Hall and Knirk.
Brian M. Scott
Doug Weller
>
> As for the analysis, on the basis of the available information one
> must either reserve judgement altogether or lean toward Knirk's
>
>
Quoting Knirk obviously really upsets some people (and of course brings personal
attacks back down on me for having the effrontery to do such a dastardly deed),
and I suspect it is because he really is an expert in runes, something the KRS
supporters find difficult to deal with except by denial.
I have to say it's a bit odd to see Yuri calling a 1997 article old. :)
What is a shame is that Knirk's detailed criticism doesn't seem to be available
in English.
The KRS may be genuine. But its supporters still don't seem able to convince
people who have real expertise in runes and Old Norse philology.
Steve Marcus
Eric Stevens wrote:
Eric, you've been in many discussion in which your ability to read what others have written has
been challenged. I've never subscribed to that where you are concerned. But now I have to
wonder.
1. What is unclear about the concept that one cannot baldly state that "they've been seen or
been told" about something, and then refuse to address the particulars of what that something
is? Like what is it specifically, where can it be read, and if it says that which you allege,
why isn't it more widely published for its impact on the KRS topic as well as the field of
runeology and lingusitics.
2. In the above quote of what I wrote, "the unsupported statement of experts" is in quotes, to
show that it's what others have alleged that I'm relying on. Where I come from, by definition
experts don't make unsupported statements within their field of expertise. When they venture
an opinion, it is supported by their expert knowledge of the facts. I contrast this with the
opinions of amateurs, and the opinions of posters to this newsgroup who refuse to answer
questions about sources and rely on sources that are not freely available.
> >
> >>
> >> (b) What is the evidence quoted by Knirk that is of direct relevance
> >> to the KRS?
> >>
> >
> >An example of the evidence relied upon by Knirk that is of relevance to the KRS:
> >
> >"Hall presents the material using linguistic terms and notation that give his
> >work credibility. The only new material he provides, however, reflects Nielsen's
> >articles...
>
> --- repeat of Doug's quote snipped -----
>
> > .... Incidentally, clear parallels to the X-shaped a, runes
> >with umlaut, and [rho] for /d/ are found in post-Reformational runic
> >inscriptions."
> >
> >Namely, it's the entire sample of Knirk's analysis posted by Doug Weller. I've no idea
> >what you mean by "direct" evidence.
>
> That's not evidence!! That's an arument!!!! And you pretend to be a
> lawyer - even more exclamation marks. I am disappointed that you can't
> tell the difference between an argument and evidence. :-(
Of course it's evidence. Knirk discussed (in the quote that you snipped), certain specific
evidence. That evidence was:
1) "Nielsen's evidence, however, encompasses only an irregular retrograde f as the first rune
in a fupork-inscription in Hedal stave church and crossing cuts from two rune-like signs on the
lead sheet from Torkelsby."; -- this is a statement of fact about the basis for Nielsen's
evidence (which Hall relied on), and then Knirk goes on to explain why Hall's reliance on
Nielsen here was misplaced.
2) "In addition Hall claims that a "simple X-shape" for a is "widely attested in the Bergen
finds," giving, however, no examples-since there are none."; -- this too is a statement of
fact, either there are or are not examples of a "simple X-shape" in the Bergen finds.
3) "Hall states further that X with umlaut for Swedish a has "now been found attested in
Greenlandic and continental Scandinavian inscriptions" (28), referring again to Nielsen, whose
parallels (exclusively from Greenland) do not stand inspection." -- a statement which certain
infers the existence of facts that would back up the statement; and
4) "Incidentally, clear parallels to the X-shaped a, runes with umlaut, and [rho] for /d/ are
found in post-Reformational runic inscriptions." -- a factual statement from which one supposes
that Knirk infers that if parallels to the characters existed in pre-Reformational runic
inscriptions, one would be able to find clear parallels therein.
Knirks interspaces his comments (opinions if you will) on Hall's work based on the above
statements of fact.
So Eric, I'm not the one who cannot tell the difference between argument and evidence Eric.
Perhaps Knirk should have flagged his factual statements (evidence) and his conclusions
(opinions) so that guys like yourself wouldn't have had trouble figuring things out. And by
the way, there's nothing "pretend" about my being a lawyer; it cost me four years of 100 mile
round trips at night while holding down a full time job to get my law degree, while also
attending evening and weekend National Guard drills. I resent the word "pretend" a great
deal. (And yes, I passed the bar on my first try).
>
> >
> >>
> >> (c) Where or in what respect is my post inaccurate?
> >
> >To the extent that your wrote:
> >
> >"Yet you have several times in this thread relied on the opinion of 'experts' without
> >knowing anything about the evidence upon which they have based their conclusions."
> >
> >your post was inaccurate in two ways. That I relied upon the opinions of "experts"; I've
> >only relied upon Doug's citation as quoted above which is the opinion of _an_ expert, ....
>
> ... and yet just a few lines ago it was "evidence". I will accept it
> as an opinion in lieu of an argument.
In a court of law, "expert opinion" is routinely accepted as evidence. If you were trying to
qualify Hall or Knirksen as an "expert" on runeology, which would do you think would be
accepted as expert? For the answer, see Brian Scott's previous post. But of course even that
isn't entirely what I meant. I meant that I would accept Knirk's opinions, to the extent that
they are based on the evidence as discussed above. I would rejects Hall's opinions, as they
seem to be based on either no evidence or inaccurate appraisals of the evidence as demonstrated
by Knirk's statement.
>
>
> > ... and
> >that this expert didn't support his conclusion with evidence, which of course he did, (see
> >for example the discussion of the X-shaped rune).
>
> But you originally wrote "But if your re-read Doug's post, you'll see
> that they expert he quoted at least ventured to state his evidence.
> Your post to the contrary is inaccurate".
>
> I don't think you can demonstrate that what I wrote in this respect is
> 'inaccurate' at all. Not when I claim that what he wrote was an
> argument and you wrote that what he wrote was an opinion. Neither
> arguments nor opinions are evidence. But I thought you would know
> that.
>
As you can see, not only did Knirk base his opinions on statements of fact (evidence), but as
an expert on runeology, his opinions would be admitted as facts in a court of law. The same
can't be said for Hall.
Now, opinions can be wrong. But given the facts that Knirk advanced regarding the basis for
Hall's opinions, I would bet on Knirk in this instance.
>
> ---- my again needlessly quoted sig snipped again -----
>
> >Steve
> --
> >The above posting is neither a legal opinion nor legal advice, because
> >we do not have an attorney-client relationship, and should not be
> >construed as either.
>
> I presume you know of the Hedley-Burne decision?
>
> If you don't, you should look it up.
>
No, I'm not aware of the Hedley-Burne decision. How does it bear on the fact that Knirk, in
about a paragraph, has demonstrated that Hall's conclusions aren't properly supported by the
facts?
>
> Eric Stevens
Steve
--
The above posting is neither a legal opinion nor legal advice, because
we do not have an attorney-client relationship, and should not be
Eric Stevens
wrote:
>2. Why does every poster quote the whole message ?
That one bugs me too.
Eric Stevens
Scott) wrote:
>On Mon, 22 May 2000 21:46:42 +1200, Eric Stevens <este...@ip.co.nz>
>wrote:
>
>>On Mon, 22 May 2000 01:48:15 GMT, sc...@math.csuohio.edu (Brian M.
>>Scott) wrote:
>
>>>>In any case James Knirk is on logically shaky ground when he writes as
>>>>though there are only two verdicts for the provenance of the KRS -
>>>>'authentic' or a 'forgery'.
>
>>>He doesn't. He says that he's applying Hall's criteria.
>
>>He is applying Hall's criteria to a decision making process in which
>>there are only two outcomes - true or false. Apert from the fact that
>>this is Knirk's own analysis, I don't think Hall would have limited
>>himself to just these two.
>
>I have no reason to doubt Knirk's honesty, and he appears to be saying
>that Hall's own criteria would require the (possibly provisional)
>judgement 'forgery', and in particularly that they don't allow a
>different possibility.
Its this last part with which I disagree. One cannot properly reduce
any problem to but two states 'true' or 'false', in the absence of
perfect knowledge. In my opinion Knirk is making a fundamental error
by eliminating the possibility of "don't know".
>To be sure, he may be mistaken in his reading
>of Hall, but that *is* what he appears to be saying. One would have
>to read Hall to find out whether Knirk is right on this point; what
>you think he might have done is irrelevant.
I have read Hall. In fact I own a copy of the later 1994 work. The
points made by Knirk are criticisms of Nielsen and, in particular, the
complete denial and contradiction of some of Nielsen's conclusions.
All Hall does in the book is to refer to Nielsen and accept his
conclusions. I do not know what he has done elsewhere.
In both his 1982 work and his later 1994 book Hall wrote that he
believed the KRS was genuine (and later "Important"). Both books were
directed to addressing the reasons why he thought it was genuine.
>
>As for the analysis, on the basis of the available information one
>must either reserve judgement altogether or lean toward Knirk's
>position, simply because he has the better background in the field.
Arguing from authority is never entirely safe and I would prefer to
reserve judgement. This was my original point.
Eric Stevens
wrote:
>In article <3929a6de...@nntp.stratos.net>, sc...@math.csuohio.edu says...
>>
>> As for the analysis, on the basis of the available information one
>> must either reserve judgement altogether or lean toward Knirk's
>> position, simply because he has the better background in the field.
>>
>>
>Quoting Knirk obviously really upsets some people (and of course brings personal
>attacks back down on me for having the effrontery to do such a dastardly deed),
>and I suspect it is because he really is an expert in runes, something the KRS
>supporters find difficult to deal with except by denial.
My objection to Knirk has nothing to do with expertise but his
insistence on eleiminating uncertainty from the conclusions to be
drawn.
>
>I have to say it's a bit odd to see Yuri calling a 1997 article old. :)
>
>What is a shame is that Knirk's detailed criticism doesn't seem to be available
>in English.
>
>The KRS may be genuine. But its supporters still don't seem able to convince
>people who have real expertise in runes and Old Norse philology.
The interesting thing is that the original philological objections
seem to be slowly melting away as knowledge of old Norse philology
advances. I don't know what reasons other than the X rune Knirk may
have left for rejecting the KRS but if that is all that remains then,
in light of known North American examples of that rune, the KRS is
perilously close to becoming accepted.
Eric Stevens
Scott) wrote:
>>But, from the tone of his writing, neither impartial nor balanced.
>
>That is not at all apparent to anyone familiar with academic writing.
>What I've seen is rather mild.
True, but that does not really improve the tone of his writing. All
you are saying is that he is no more impartial and imbalanced than his
peers. :-)
>
>>In saying that you must realise I am not challenging his expertise.
>>Nor am I trying to argue one way or the other on the subject - I
>>freely admit I do not know enough. However, I have over a long period
>>come to realise that those who enter academic or intellectual
>>arguments like a bull at a gate frequently are subconciously
>>acknowledging that they have little other than sheer force of
>>personality to support them.
>
>That does not in my opinion accurately describe his writing.
I read a lot of technical documents-papers etc. I also read
closely-reasoned legal arguments of varying degrees of impartiality.
None have the tone of the quotation from Knirk produced by Doug
Weller. I guess part of the difference is that that the documents I
read are inviting the reader to agree while authorities such as Knirk
are instructing the reader to agree. I do not find the latter style of
writing any more persuasive for all its aura of authority. But this is
a side issue.
>
>>>> No mention is made of any concurrent or subsequent
>>>>replies to Knirk by Nielsen. My guess that no reply was allowed and that
>>>>only one side of the story was published therein.
>
>>>Your guess was predictable. Why not acknowledge that you simply don't
>>>know?
>
>>That seems to asking a lot of too many. I keep finding that I have to
>>point out to people who don't want to rcognise the fact that "don't
>>know" is a viable middle ground.
>
>Not a middle ground; simply a statement of fact.
For which Knirk appears to have left no place. That was the basis of
my original objection.
--- snip ----
Eric Stevens
<barbm...@erols.com> wrote:
------ enormous snip ------
>Eric, you've been in many discussion in which your ability to read what others have written has
>been challenged. I've never subscribed to that where you are concerned. But now I have to
>wonder.
>
>1. What is unclear about the concept that one cannot baldly state that "they've been seen or
>been told" about something, and then refuse to address the particulars of what that something
>is?
Nothing. But if you are going to criticise others you should give up
the practice yourself. In your case the practice takes the form of
putting forward opinions generated by others without being able to
address the particulars of the argument.
>Like what is it specifically, where can it be read, and if it says that which you allege,
>why isn't it more widely published for its impact on the KRS topic as well as the field of
>runeology and lingusitics.
Wah an earth is 'it' that you are talking about?
>
>2. In the above quote of what I wrote, "the unsupported statement of experts" is in quotes, to
>show that it's what others have alleged that I'm relying on. Where I come from, by definition
>experts don't make unsupported statements within their field of expertise. When they venture
>an opinion, it is supported by their expert knowledge of the facts.
Then why did you write just a few articles ago "I will stand by what I
said, and will continue to rely upon "the unsupported statement of
experts" over the apparently erroneously supported statements of
amateurs". It seems clear enough to me that then you were quite
prepared to accept the unsupported opinion. Now you say it doesn't
happen that way.
>I contrast this with the
>opinions of amateurs, and the opinions of posters to this newsgroup who refuse to answer
>questions about sources and rely on sources that are not freely available.
... who may even know more than you?
---- snip ----
>> That's not evidence!! That's an arument!!!! And you pretend to be a
>> lawyer - even more exclamation marks. I am disappointed that you can't
>> tell the difference between an argument and evidence. :-(
>
>Of course it's evidence. Knirk discussed (in the quote that you snipped), certain specific
>evidence. That evidence was:
>1) "Nielsen's evidence, however, encompasses only an irregular retrograde f as the first rune
>in a fupork-inscription in Hedal stave church and crossing cuts from two rune-like signs on the
>lead sheet from Torkelsby."; -- this is a statement of fact about the basis for Nielsen's
>evidence (which Hall relied on)
Oops! It should be 'the basis of Nielsen's opinion'.
>, and then Knirk goes on to explain why Hall's reliance on Nielsen here was misplaced.
But gave no evidence. As you pointed out, all he gave you was an
opinion.
>2) "In addition Hall claims that a "simple X-shape" for a is "widely attested in the Bergen
>finds," giving, however, no examples-since there are none."; -- this too is a statement of
>fact, either there are or are not examples of a "simple X-shape" in the Bergen finds.
As you say its a statement. But its not evidence. It is not possible
to produce evidence that there is no evidence unless you can show that
you have examined all surviving runes.
>
>3) "Hall states further that X with umlaut for Swedish a has "now been found attested in
>Greenlandic and continental Scandinavian inscriptions" (28), referring again to Nielsen, whose
>parallels (exclusively from Greenland) do not stand inspection." -- a statement which certain
>infers the existence of facts that would back up the statement;
... but doesn't actually produce any evidence.
>and
>4) "Incidentally, clear parallels to the X-shaped a, runes with umlaut, and [rho] for /d/ are
>found in post-Reformational runic inscriptions." -- a factual statement
Which no doubt could be supported by evidence if required.
>from which one supposes
>that Knirk infers that if parallels to the characters existed in pre-Reformational runic
>inscriptions, one would be able to find clear parallels therein.
Now that's your opinion.
>
>Knirks interspaces his comments (opinions if you will) on Hall's work based on the above
>statements of fact.
>
>So Eric, I'm not the one who cannot tell the difference between argument and evidence Eric.
>Perhaps Knirk should have flagged his factual statements (evidence) and his conclusions
>(opinions) so that guys like yourself wouldn't have had trouble figuring things out.
And you would not have described it as an 'opinion'.
>And by
>the way, there's nothing "pretend" about my being a lawyer; it cost me four years of 100 mile
>round trips at night while holding down a full time job to get my law degree, while also
>attending evening and weekend National Guard drills. I resent the word "pretend" a great
>deal. (And yes, I passed the bar on my first try).
-------- snip ----------
>In a court of law, "expert opinion" is routinely accepted as evidence.
But it is still opinion which must be capable of being backed up by
real evidence if required.
>If you were trying to
>qualify Hall or Knirksen as an "expert" on runeology, which would do you think would be
>accepted as expert? For the answer, see Brian Scott's previous post. But of course even that
>isn't entirely what I meant. I meant that I would accept Knirk's opinions, to the extent that
>they are based on the evidence as discussed above. I would rejects Hall's opinions, as they
>seem to be based on either no evidence or inaccurate appraisals of the evidence as demonstrated
>by Knirk's statement.
But have you actually read Hall's work? Or are you merely accepting
someone else's word about what he said and its merits?
--- snip ----
>As you can see, not only did Knirk base his opinions on statements of fact (evidence),
Which you accept without any confirmation
>but as
>an expert on runeology, his opinions would be admitted as facts in a court of law. The same
>can't be said for Hall.
Not now. Hall is dead. But before that, I would expect a Professor of
Classics from Cornell to be accepted as readily as a person with a
background in numismatics and art history.
>
>Now, opinions can be wrong. But given the facts that Knirk advanced regarding the basis for
>Hall's opinions, I would bet on Knirk in this instance.
>
>>
>> ---- my again needlessly quoted sig snipped again -----
>>
>> >Steve
>> --
>> >The above posting is neither a legal opinion nor legal advice, because
>> >we do not have an attorney-client relationship, and should not be
>> >construed as either.
>>
>> I presume you know of the Hedley-Burne decision?
>>
>> If you don't, you should look it up.
>>
>
>No, I'm not aware of the Hedley-Burne decision.
It says that if you give advice under circumstances when you know it
might be relied upon then you are responsible for the consequences and
it doesn't matter whether an attorney-client arrangements exists or
not. As I recall it, Burne was a dentist who effectively gave advice
to his patient (Hedley) while the latter's mouth was jammed full of
junk. Hedley took the advice, invested, lost money and successfully
sued Burne. I understand that later case law has held that disclaimers
offer little of no protection to the advisor.
Brian M. Scott
wrote:
>On Mon, 22 May 2000 21:40:02 GMT, sc...@math.csuohio.edu (Brian M.
>Scott) wrote:
>>>But, from the tone of his writing, neither impartial nor balanced.
>>That is not at all apparent to anyone familiar with academic writing.
>>What I've seen is rather mild.
>True, but that does not really improve the tone of his writing. All
>you are saying is that he is no more impartial and imbalanced than his
>peers. :-)
No, I'm saying that one has to be familiar with the style in order to
judge accurately.
>>>In saying that you must realise I am not challenging his expertise.
>>>Nor am I trying to argue one way or the other on the subject - I
>>>freely admit I do not know enough. However, I have over a long period
>>>come to realise that those who enter academic or intellectual
>>>arguments like a bull at a gate frequently are subconciously
>>>acknowledging that they have little other than sheer force of
>>>personality to support them.
>>That does not in my opinion accurately describe his writing.
>I read a lot of technical documents-papers etc. I also read
>closely-reasoned legal arguments of varying degrees of impartiality.
>None have the tone of the quotation from Knirk produced by Doug
>Weller.
Technical documents (as I understand the term) generally give
instructions or present data. That's quite different from making an
argument. I have no idea what the stylistic constraints on formal
legal arguments may be; the legalistic arguments that I've seen have
in general not impressed me with their substance. I *am* familiar
with scholarly writing in linguistics and history, however, and in the
context of that experience I find the quotation from Knirk a rather
mild rebuttal.
> I guess part of the difference is that that the documents I
>read are inviting the reader to agree while authorities such as Knirk
>are instructing the reader to agree. I do not find the latter style of
>writing any more persuasive for all its aura of authority. But this is
>a side issue.
No, it's not. As long as you misunderstand the tone of academic
writing, you'll assign motives improperly. And you do misunderstand,
if you think that Knirk, say, is *instructing* you to agree with him.
(Actually, a good deal of that passage isn't argumentation at all;
it's simply presentation of information.)
>>>>> No mention is made of any concurrent or subsequent
>>>>>replies to Knirk by Nielsen. My guess that no reply was allowed and that
>>>>>only one side of the story was published therein.
>>>>Your guess was predictable. Why not acknowledge that you simply don't
>>>>know?
>>>That seems to asking a lot of too many. I keep finding that I have to
>>>point out to people who don't want to rcognise the fact that "don't
>>>know" is a viable middle ground.
>>Not a middle ground; simply a statement of fact.
>For which Knirk appears to have left no place. That was the basis of
>my original objection.
Except that you persistently fail to acknowledge that (at least
according to Knirk) it is *Hall* who left no middle ground. Had you
done so, I'd not have objected, even if you had then gone on to
suspect that Knirk misinterpreted Hall's criteria.
Brian M. Scott
Brian M. Scott
wrote:
>On Mon, 22 May 2000 21:35:00 GMT, sc...@math.csuohio.edu (Brian M.
>Scott) wrote:
>>On Mon, 22 May 2000 21:46:42 +1200, Eric Stevens <este...@ip.co.nz>
>>wrote:
>>>On Mon, 22 May 2000 01:48:15 GMT, sc...@math.csuohio.edu (Brian M.
>>>Scott) wrote:
>>>>>In any case James Knirk is on logically shaky ground when he writes as
>>>>>though there are only two verdicts for the provenance of the KRS -
>>>>>'authentic' or a 'forgery'.
>>>>He doesn't. He says that he's applying Hall's criteria.
>>>He is applying Hall's criteria to a decision making process in which
>>>there are only two outcomes - true or false. Apert from the fact that
>>>this is Knirk's own analysis, I don't think Hall would have limited
>>>himself to just these two.
>>I have no reason to doubt Knirk's honesty, and he appears to be saying
>>that Hall's own criteria would require the (possibly provisional)
>>judgement 'forgery', and in particularly that they don't allow a
>>different possibility.
>Its this last part with which I disagree. One cannot properly reduce
>any problem to but two states 'true' or 'false', in the absence of
>perfect knowledge. In my opinion Knirk is making a fundamental error
>by eliminating the possibility of "don't know".
I agree that 'don't know' is a fine answer. But in the passage quoted
here, which is all I have available, Knirk does not eliminate that
possibility; he says that *Hall's* criteria would eliminate it. I
have no idea what these criteria are or whether Knirk is correct in
his interpretation of them. They may amount to little more than the
obvious: that the burden of proof is on those claiming that the damn'
thing is genuine.
And while 'don't know' is a fine answer, it is misleading in one
sense. If it's the best we can say, then for the most part we must
proceed as if the thing were a forgery. (This is *not* the same as
*assuming* that it is a forgery; on that we withhold judgement.) That
is, we cannot responsibly use it as evidence for a 14th Scandinavian
presence in the northern Midwest.
>>To be sure, he may be mistaken in his reading
>>of Hall, but that *is* what he appears to be saying. One would have
>>to read Hall to find out whether Knirk is right on this point; what
>>you think he might have done is irrelevant.
>I have read Hall. In fact I own a copy of the later 1994 work. The
>points made by Knirk are criticisms of Nielsen and, in particular, the
>complete denial and contradiction of some of Nielsen's conclusions.
>All Hall does in the book is to refer to Nielsen and accept his
>conclusions. I do not know what he has done elsewhere.
This is beside the point. The question is not what evidence Hall
used; the question is what the criteria are to which Knirk refers.
>In both his 1982 work and his later 1994 book Hall wrote that he
>believed the KRS was genuine (and later "Important"). Both books were
>directed to addressing the reasons why he thought it was genuine.
>>As for the analysis, on the basis of the available information one
>>must either reserve judgement altogether or lean toward Knirk's
>>position, simply because he has the better background in the field.
>Arguing from authority is never entirely safe and I would prefer to
>reserve judgement. This was my original point.
Arguing from authority is sometimes the only possibility, unless you
want to take the trouble to learn a field from the ground up. The
experts may in any given case be wrong, but as Paul Gans would say,
that's never the way to bet.
Brian M. Scott
Doug Weller
says...
> Not now. Hall is dead. But before that, I would expect a Professor of
> Classics from Cornell to be accepted as readily as a person with a
> background in numismatics and art history.
>
EG:
Runearkivet, UKM/Oldsaksamlingen, Universitetet i Oslo, Attn.: James E. Knirk,
Postboks 6762 St. Olavs plass, N-0130 Oslo, Norway
Tel: (47) 22 85 19 55; fax: (47) 22 85 19 38; e-mail: james...@ukm.uio.no
Runearkivet is a centre for Runic Research.
http://www.ukm.uio.no/runenews/address.htm
See also, eg
http://www.ukm.uio.no/runenews/nor_2000/bibl99.htm
I'd expect Yuri et al to make this sort of statement about Knirk, but it really
is very misleading. He is a runic expert and respected in the field, Hall was
not.
Steve Marcus
Eric Stevens wrote:
> On Mon, 22 May 2000 19:00:03 -0700, Steve Marcus
> <barbm...@erols.com> wrote:
>
> ------ enormous snip ------
>
> <equally large snip>
>
> >> That's not evidence!! That's an arument!!!! And you pretend to be a
> >> lawyer - even more exclamation marks. I am disappointed that you can't
> >> tell the difference between an argument and evidence. :-(
> >
> >Of course it's evidence. Knirk discussed (in the quote that you snipped), certain specific
> >evidence. That evidence was:
> >1) "Nielsen's evidence, however, encompasses only an irregular retrograde f as the first rune
> >in a fupork-inscription in Hedal stave church and crossing cuts from two rune-like signs on the
> >lead sheet from Torkelsby."; -- this is a statement of fact about the basis for Nielsen's
> >evidence (which Hall relied on)
>
> Oops! It should be 'the basis of Nielsen's opinion'.
>
> >, and then Knirk goes on to explain why Hall's reliance on Nielsen here was misplaced.
>
> But gave no evidence. As you pointed out, all he gave you was an
> opinion.
Eric, I'm not going to rehash the debate with you about absence of evidence. Knirk, after making
the above statement, clearly states why Hall-Nielsen's conclusions is unsupported. If there is
evidence _for_ an X-shaped rune for a, with a small branch on the right, it is up to Hall-Nielsen to
support it. Naturally Knirk can never _prove_ there's no such evidence, but he quite rightly points
out that there is presently no such known evidence. What more can he do on the matter?
>
>
> >2) "In addition Hall claims that a "simple X-shape" for a is "widely attested in the Bergen
> >finds," giving, however, no examples-since there are none."; -- this too is a statement of
> >fact, either there are or are not examples of a "simple X-shape" in the Bergen finds.
>
> As you say its a statement. But its not evidence. It is not possible
> to produce evidence that there is no evidence unless you can show that
> you have examined all surviving runes.
Again, what more can Knirk do. If there is evidence attesting to a simple X-shape", Nielson-Hall
bear the burden of showing it. If it doesn't exist in the Bergen finds, then there that
non-existence (in a sample of finite size, the Bergen finds, as opposed to an infinitely large
sample) is clearly evidence that Nielson-Hall haven't proven their point.
>
> >
> >3) "Hall states further that X with umlaut for Swedish a has "now been found attested in
> >Greenlandic and continental Scandinavian inscriptions" (28), referring again to Nielsen, whose
> >parallels (exclusively from Greenland) do not stand inspection." -- a statement which certain
> >infers the existence of facts that would back up the statement;
>
> ... but doesn't actually produce any evidence.
Again, would you bet that Knirk can't demonstrate that Hall-Nielsen's analysis won't stand
inspection? Which position do you think more likely?
>
>
> >and
> >4) "Incidentally, clear parallels to the X-shaped a, runes with umlaut, and [rho] for /d/ are
> >found in post-Reformational runic inscriptions." -- a factual statement
>
> Which no doubt could be supported by evidence if required.
>
> >from which one supposes
> >that Knirk infers that if parallels to the characters existed in pre-Reformational runic
> >inscriptions, one would be able to find clear parallels therein.
>
> Now that's your opinion.
Now you're being obtuse on purpose. What else do you think that Knirk means?
>
> >
> >Knirks interspaces his comments (opinions if you will) on Hall's work based on the above
> >statements of fact.
> >
> >So Eric, I'm not the one who cannot tell the difference between argument and evidence Eric.
> >Perhaps Knirk should have flagged his factual statements (evidence) and his conclusions
> >(opinions) so that guys like yourself wouldn't have had trouble figuring things out.
>
> And you would not have described it as an 'opinion'.
>
> >And by
> >the way, there's nothing "pretend" about my being a lawyer; it cost me four years of 100 mile
> >round trips at night while holding down a full time job to get my law degree, while also
> >attending evening and weekend National Guard drills. I resent the word "pretend" a great
> >deal. (And yes, I passed the bar on my first try).
>
> -------- snip ----------
>
> >In a court of law, "expert opinion" is routinely accepted as evidence.
>
> But it is still opinion which must be capable of being backed up by
> real evidence if required.
And in the case of conflicting opinions, a showing by expert X that Y's opinion A is unsupported by
evidence will always trump Y's opinion. In science, if Y is asserting opinion A, then Y has the
burden of citing evidence. It is not X's burden to cite evidence disproving A, if X can show that
opinion A isn't supported by evidence. That is enough, in science, to show that opinion A hasn't
been established.
In runeology, it is impossible to prove that any given rune "doesn't exist". Perhaps it simply
hasn't been discovered yet. But in the meantime, Eric, those on the planet exercising a modicum of
intelligence will hold that one cannot assert the propostion the any given rune _does_ exist without
showing positive evidence that it does. Absent such evidence, the rune may or may not exist.
But what we have here is too non-experts in runeology, Hall-Nielsen, asserting that there are
examples of runes found on the KRS to show that the KRS runes are not anachronisms and can be shown
to have been used in documents or on other runestones prior to or contemporaneous with the alleged
date of the KRS. These non-experts have not, however, really shown such examples. It is enough, in
science, to demonstrate that there are no such examples. That doesn't prove that the KRS is bogus;
it does show that its authenticity is in doubt. Those alleging such authenticity have the burden of
proof, and still have not carried it.
>
>
> >If you were trying to
> >qualify Hall or Knirksen as an "expert" on runeology, which would do you think would be
> >accepted as expert? For the answer, see Brian Scott's previous post. But of course even that
> >isn't entirely what I meant. I meant that I would accept Knirk's opinions, to the extent that
> >they are based on the evidence as discussed above. I would rejects Hall's opinions, as they
> >seem to be based on either no evidence or inaccurate appraisals of the evidence as demonstrated
> >by Knirk's statement.
>
> But have you actually read Hall's work? Or are you merely accepting
> someone else's word about what he said and its merits?
>
> --- snip ----
>
Have you read Knirk's review? Have you read Einstein's original papers.
It is enough to read what Doug quoted, unless you think that Knirk was making it up. It is enough
to read books about Einstein's works, unless you think that those authors were making it all up.
>
> >As you can see, not only did Knirk base his opinions on statements of fact (evidence),
>
> Which you accept without any confirmation
And you accept Hall-Nielsen's statements without any confirmation. The difference is they have the
burden of producing confirmation, which they haven't, altthough they've stated that they have.
Hmmmm........
>
>
> >but as
> >an expert on runeology, his opinions would be admitted as facts in a court of law. The same
> >can't be said for Hall.
>
> Not now. Hall is dead. But before that, I would expect a Professor of
> Classics from Cornell to be accepted as readily as a person with a
> background in numismatics and art history.
Eric, you know damn well that Knirk can demonstrate credentials in runeology that Hall could not.
>
> >
> >Now, opinions can be wrong. But given the facts that Knirk advanced regarding the basis for
> >Hall's opinions, I would bet on Knirk in this instance.
> >
> >>
> >> ---- my again needlessly quoted sig snipped again -----
> >>
> >> >Steve
> >> --
> >> >The above posting is neither a legal opinion nor legal advice, because
> >> >we do not have an attorney-client relationship, and should not be
> >> >construed as either.
> >>
> >> I presume you know of the Hedley-Burne decision?
> >>
> >> If you don't, you should look it up.
> >>
> >
> >No, I'm not aware of the Hedley-Burne decision.
>
> It says that if you give advice under circumstances when you know it
> might be relied upon then you are responsible for the consequences and
> it doesn't matter whether an attorney-client arrangements exists or
> not. As I recall it, Burne was a dentist who effectively gave advice
> to his patient (Hedley) while the latter's mouth was jammed full of
> junk. Hedley took the advice, invested, lost money and successfully
> sued Burne. I understand that later case law has held that disclaimers
> offer little of no protection to the advisor.
Eric, you need to look up the word "jurisdiction", and then look up some cases about the application
of specific cases to specific jurisdictions. Then look up the law re legal advice, get back to me.
>
>
> Eric Stevens
Steve
--
The above posting is neither a legal opinion nor legal advice, because
we do not have an attorney-client relationship, and should not be
Eric Stevens
Scott) wrote:
>On Tue, 23 May 2000 13:53:25 +1200, Eric Stevens <este...@ip.co.nz>
>wrote:
>
>>On Mon, 22 May 2000 21:35:00 GMT, sc...@math.csuohio.edu (Brian M.
>>Scott) wrote:
>
>>>On Mon, 22 May 2000 21:46:42 +1200, Eric Stevens <este...@ip.co.nz>
>>>wrote:
---- snip -----
>>Its this last part with which I disagree. One cannot properly reduce
>>any problem to but two states 'true' or 'false', in the absence of
>>perfect knowledge. In my opinion Knirk is making a fundamental error
>>by eliminating the possibility of "don't know".
>
>I agree that 'don't know' is a fine answer. But in the passage quoted
>here, which is all I have available, Knirk does not eliminate that
>possibility; he says that *Hall's* criteria would eliminate it. I
>have no idea what these criteria are or whether Knirk is correct in
>his interpretation of them. They may amount to little more than the
>obvious: that the burden of proof is on those claiming that the damn'
>thing is genuine.
>
>And while 'don't know' is a fine answer, it is misleading in one
>sense. If it's the best we can say, then for the most part we must
>proceed as if the thing were a forgery.
Only if that is essential to your particular decision process.
>(This is *not* the same as
>*assuming* that it is a forgery; on that we withhold judgement.) That
>is, we cannot responsibly use it as evidence for a 14th Scandinavian
>presence in the northern Midwest.
I agree, while you "don't know", you cannot also claim that you do.
>
>>>To be sure, he may be mistaken in his reading
>>>of Hall, but that *is* what he appears to be saying. One would have
>>>to read Hall to find out whether Knirk is right on this point; what
>>>you think he might have done is irrelevant.
Its not irrelevant if I have read Hall. The entire work is devoted to
explaining why hall thinks the KRS is genuine and important. he says
nothing about whether the alternative view should reconise the
possibility of "don't know". That is entirely a construct of Knirk and
I think it is unwarranted.
>
>>I have read Hall. In fact I own a copy of the later 1994 work. The
>>points made by Knirk are criticisms of Nielsen and, in particular, the
>>complete denial and contradiction of some of Nielsen's conclusions.
>>All Hall does in the book is to refer to Nielsen and accept his
>>conclusions. I do not know what he has done elsewhere.
>
>This is beside the point. The question is not what evidence Hall
>used; the question is what the criteria are to which Knirk refers.
There are none in particular that I can recognise.
>
>>In both his 1982 work and his later 1994 book Hall wrote that he
>>believed the KRS was genuine (and later "Important"). Both books were
>>directed to addressing the reasons why he thought it was genuine.
>
>>>As for the analysis, on the basis of the available information one
>>>must either reserve judgement altogether or lean toward Knirk's
>>>position, simply because he has the better background in the field.
>
>>Arguing from authority is never entirely safe and I would prefer to
>>reserve judgement. This was my original point.
>
>Arguing from authority is sometimes the only possibility, unless you
>want to take the trouble to learn a field from the ground up. The
>experts may in any given case be wrong, but as Paul Gans would say,
>that's never the way to bet.
Aah - but who is really the expert on the X rune? Is it Knirk who
seems to believe there are no other examples or is it Nielsen who
believes there are? This is a case where one has to go back to the
source(s). I still think that it is most likely that Nielsen thought
he had examples and that Knirk does not make the same identification.
In that case we (you and I) would have see the actual evidence (or a
good facsimile there-of) and then make up our own minds about who was
right. Having said that I am intrigued by what appears to be the same
X rune on the Spirit Lake stone.
Eric Stevens
Scott) wrote:
--- arguments over academic writing style avoided ---- :-)
>>For which Knirk appears to have left no place. That was the basis of
>>my original objection.
>
>Except that you persistently fail to acknowledge that (at least
>according to Knirk) it is *Hall* who left no middle ground. Had you
>done so, I'd not have objected, even if you had then gone on to
>suspect that Knirk misinterpreted Hall's criteria.
I can't acknowledge that Hall left no middle ground when I see no
evidence that that is the case. Hall argued strenuously that the KRS
was genuine and said nothing much about the alternatives. As far as I
can see, it is Knirk who has said that there are only two alternatives
- 'genuine' or 'forgery' and I can see no basis for this either in
logic or in Hall.
I have just skimmed Hall once more to see what he had to say that
might be relevant to this particular point. I have concluded that the
best think I can do is to recommend that you find a copy and read it.
Hall provides answers for many of the criticisms which have been made
and in the whole I find it a fascinating read.
Eric Stevens
wrote:
>In article <rnnjiscgft1ecf1v4...@4ax.com>, este...@ip.co.nz
>says...
>> Not now. Hall is dead. But before that, I would expect a Professor of
>> Classics from Cornell to be accepted as readily as a person with a
>> background in numismatics and art history.
>>
>Careful. Aren't you confusing Knirk's title with his background?
Not really. Seeing that I didn't quote his title for the very simple
reason that I couldn't remember what it was.
>EG:
>Runearkivet, UKM/Oldsaksamlingen, Universitetet i Oslo, Attn.: James E. Knirk,
>Postboks 6762 St. Olavs plass, N-0130 Oslo, Norway
>Tel: (47) 22 85 19 55; fax: (47) 22 85 19 38; e-mail: james...@ukm.uio.no
>
>Runearkivet is a centre for Runic Research.
>http://www.ukm.uio.no/runenews/address.htm
>
>See also, eg
>http://www.ukm.uio.no/runenews/nor_2000/bibl99.htm
>
>I'd expect Yuri et al to make this sort of statement about Knirk, but it really
>is very misleading. He is a runic expert and respected in the field, Hall was
>not.
But that does not really address the question of who was right on the
particular point of the disputed X rune.
Mark Richardson
Steve Marcus <barbm...@erols.com> wrote in message
news:392A8380...@erols.com...
>
> In runeology, it is impossible to prove that any given rune "doesn't
exist". Perhaps it simply
> hasn't been discovered yet. But in the meantime, Eric, those on the
planet exercising a modicum of
> intelligence will hold that one cannot assert the propostion the any given
rune _does_ exist without
> showing positive evidence that it does. Absent such evidence, the rune
may or may not exist.
>
> But what we have here is too non-experts in runeology, Hall-Nielsen,
asserting that there are
> examples of runes found on the KRS to show that the KRS runes are not
anachronisms and can be shown
> to have been used in documents or on other runestones prior to or
contemporaneous with the alleged
> date of the KRS. These non-experts have not, however, really shown such
examples. It is enough, in
> science, to demonstrate that there are no such examples. That doesn't
prove that the KRS is bogus;
> it does show that its authenticity is in doubt. Those alleging such
authenticity have the burden of
> proof, and still have not carried it.
I may be in error here and I hasten to say that I have no knowledge of the
detail of the arguments over the KRS. But it has been interesting to follow
this thread. However, I do seem to recall some posts a little while ago from
Inger?, which appeared to indicate that from the time of the stone's
"discovery" a fair number of reservations as to it's genuiness or otherwise
had been based on language usage and that because certain words or phrases
were considered, very strongly considered in fact, to be from a latter
period, the stone could not be genuine. But, over a period of time examples
of such words or phraseology dating from the appropriate period from which
the stone is supposed to date have come to light.
If this is so it would, in itself, seem to be an indication of genuineness
because if the "finders" in the first instance had faked it they could not
have known that the words in question were obscure but actually genuine.
This present argument hinges on an "X" rune. I would have two questions:-
firstly is this the only remaining point at issue? If it is and if, as
someone else has stated, there is not a very large body of "literature" from
that particular time and from the supposed home of the supposed writers it
would not seem to be a very strong reason for assessing that the balance of
probabilities are on the "faked" side. Secondly, were all runes written in
exactly the same way by each writer and in each of the widely spread
Scandinavian communities are there not normal variations to be considered?
Just from the point of view of an interested spectator it would seem that
Eric's "not proven" alternative has a lot of merit.
Mark Richardson
Brian M. Scott
wrote:
[...]
>>>>To be sure, he may be mistaken in his reading
>>>>of Hall, but that *is* what he appears to be saying. One would have
>>>>to read Hall to find out whether Knirk is right on this point; what
>>>>you think he might have done is irrelevant.
>Its not irrelevant if I have read Hall. The entire work is devoted to
>explaining why hall thinks the KRS is genuine and important. he says
>nothing about whether the alternative view should reconise the
>possibility of "don't know". That is entirely a construct of Knirk and
>I think it is unwarranted.
You don't see it in Hall; Knirk does. I can't know without reading
Hall myself. Perhaps someday I will, just out of curiosity; but on
non-linguistic grounds the odds against its being genuine are too high
to justify setting aside other, more interesting projects.
[...]
Brian M. Scott
Brian M. Scott
wrote:
>On Tue, 23 May 2000 03:07:14 GMT, sc...@math.csuohio.edu (Brian M.
>Scott) wrote:
>--- arguments over academic writing style avoided ---- :-)
>>>For which Knirk appears to have left no place. That was the basis of
>>>my original objection.
>>Except that you persistently fail to acknowledge that (at least
>>according to Knirk) it is *Hall* who left no middle ground. Had you
>>done so, I'd not have objected, even if you had then gone on to
>>suspect that Knirk misinterpreted Hall's criteria.
>I can't acknowledge that Hall left no middle ground when I see no
>evidence that that is the case.
I didn't say that you should have made any such acknowledgement. I
said that you should have been careful to acknowledge that Knirk's
statement in this passage is *not* that the KRS is a forgery, but
rather that by Hall's criteria applied to the evidence in hand that
must be the conclusion. You can then go on, if you like, to explain
that in your opinion Knirk completely misreads Hall, but as it stands
you're simply misrepresenting what Knirk actually wrote.
> Hall argued strenuously that the KRS
>was genuine and said nothing much about the alternatives. As far as I
>can see, it is Knirk who has said that there are only two alternatives
>- 'genuine' or 'forgery' and I can see no basis for this either in
>logic or in Hall.
No, damn it, that is *not* what he said. What he did say may be an
inaccurate reading of Hall, but he did not make that claim in his own
voice.
[...]
Brian M. Scott
Doug Weller
says...
> On Tue, 23 May 2000 05:49:19 GMT, Doug Weller <dwe...@ramtops.co.uk>
> wrote:
>
> >In article <rnnjiscgft1ecf1v4...@4ax.com>, este...@ip.co.nz
> >says...
> >> Classics from Cornell to be accepted as readily as a person with a
> >> background in numismatics and art history.
> >>
>
> Not really. Seeing that I didn't quote his title for the very simple
> reason that I couldn't remember what it was.
>
art history' from.
Steve Marcus
> Steve Marcus <barbm...@erols.com> wrote in message
> news:392A8380...@erols.com...
> >
> > In runeology, it is impossible to prove that any given rune "doesn't
> exist". Perhaps it simply
> > hasn't been discovered yet. But in the meantime, Eric, those on the
> planet exercising a modicum of
> > intelligence will hold that one cannot assert the propostion the any given
> rune _does_ exist without
> > showing positive evidence that it does. Absent such evidence, the rune
> may or may not exist.
> >
> > But what we have here is too non-experts in runeology, Hall-Nielsen,
> asserting that there are
> > examples of runes found on the KRS to show that the KRS runes are not
> anachronisms and can be shown
> > to have been used in documents or on other runestones prior to or
> contemporaneous with the alleged
> > date of the KRS. These non-experts have not, however, really shown such
> examples. It is enough, in
> > science, to demonstrate that there are no such examples. That doesn't
> prove that the KRS is bogus;
> > it does show that its authenticity is in doubt. Those alleging such
> authenticity have the burden of
> > proof, and still have not carried it.
>
> I may be in error here and I hasten to say that I have no knowledge of the
> detail of the arguments over the KRS. But it has been interesting to follow
> this thread. However, I do seem to recall some posts a little while ago from
> Inger?, which appeared to indicate that from the time of the stone's
> "discovery" a fair number of reservations as to it's genuiness or otherwise
> had been based on language usage and that because certain words or phrases
> were considered, very strongly considered in fact, to be from a latter
> period, the stone could not be genuine. But, over a period of time examples
> of such words or phraseology dating from the appropriate period from which
> the stone is supposed to date have come to light.
If you've been following the thread, you may notice that I've made references to
allegations of sources that are not specifically identified, and/or are not
presently published/disseminated, etc., etc. IIRC, many of the allegations you
allude to were made by Ms. Johansson. As she points out, I (and others) don't
speak Swedish, and we haven't access to the texts to which you refers. I gave
up trying to get specifics from her long ago, and I also gave up asking why
these texts aren't more widely acknowledged in general, and why they haven't
been used affirmatively by recognized scholars to confirm the authenticity of
the KRS. I gave up because I couldn't get a straight answer to these rather
simple questions.
>
>
> If this is so it would, in itself, seem to be an indication of genuineness
> because if the "finders" in the first instance had faked it they could not
> have known that the words in question were obscure but actually genuine.
>
> This present argument hinges on an "X" rune. I would have two questions:-
> firstly is this the only remaining point at issue?
No, not as I understand things.
> If it is and if, as
> someone else has stated, there is not a very large body of "literature" from
> that particular time and from the supposed home of the supposed writers it
> would not seem to be a very strong reason for assessing that the balance of
> probabilities are on the "faked" side. Secondly, were all runes written in
> exactly the same way by each writer and in each of the widely spread
> Scandinavian communities are there not normal variations to be considered?
One can only presume that experts in runeology (which is not necessarily the
same thing as being an expert in linguistics) have considered these issues. To
date, I am unaware that any expert in runeology who has considered the KRS, (and
presumeably would have considered the points you raise), has held other than
that the KRS is not authentic.
>
>
> Just from the point of view of an interested spectator it would seem that
> Eric's "not proven" alternative has a lot of merit.
>
> Mark Richardson
Steve
Steve Marcus
Eric Stevens wrote:
> On Tue, 23 May 2000 06:11:30 -0700, Steve Marcus
> <barbm...@erols.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >Eric Stevens wrote:
> >
> >> On Mon, 22 May 2000 19:00:03 -0700, Steve Marcus
> >> <barbm...@erols.com> wrote:
> >>
> --- snip ----
>
> >> >, and then Knirk goes on to explain why Hall's reliance on Nielsen here was misplaced.
> >>
> >> But gave no evidence. As you pointed out, all he gave you was an
> >> opinion.
> >
> >Eric, I'm not going to rehash the debate with you about absence of evidence. Knirk, after making
> >the above statement, clearly states why Hall-Nielsen's conclusions is unsupported.
>
> Actually he didn't, at least not unless you are easily satisfied. I
> originally quoted from Hall as follows:
>
> 6. X a. A very much disputed rune, regarded by many, ever
> since Flom's discussion in 1910, as prima facie evidence of modern
> forgery. A simple X-shape, either vertical or "lazy" (i.e. on its
> side), was used from the Middle Ages (widely attested in the Bergen
> finds) down to modern times, as in Dalecarlia. The main sticking
> point has been the dot inside the upper right branch, which until
> the 1980's was attested in exactly this shape only in this
> inscription and in others discovered in North America 'Spirit Pond,
> Narragansett). Most recently, similar shapes with a dot or a small
> branch, thus: X, have been attested in Scandinavia (cf. Nielsen
> [1987:10-13, with tables 3-5; Forthcoming-b:1-12, with six
> illustrations), so that this form of the a rune can no longer be
> dismissed as a North American forgery. Sound-value: /a/.
>
> Note that Hall wrote "Nielsen [1987:10-13, with tables 3-5;
> Forthcoming-b:1-12, with six illustrations)". It is to be presumed
> that Hall had actually seen the 'tables' and 'illustrations' and that
> Nielsen actually had examples of what he believed to prior use of the
> disputed X rune. It may well be that Knirk has examined these various
> examples and found reasons for disputing all of them, but that is not
> what he said. Knirk's words on this subject were:
>
> "Nielsen's evidence, however, encompasses only an irregular
> retrograde f as the first rune in a fupork-inscription in Hedal
> stave church and crossing cuts from two rune-like signs on the
> lead sheet from Torkelsby. Though there may be some resemblance,
> these signs cannot provide parallels for a sign for a".
>
> Knirk does not say why "these signs cannot provide parallels for a
> sign for a" but merely gives his opinion as to that. Knirk then goes
> on to say:
>
> "In addition Hall claims that a "simple X-shape" for a is "widely
> attested in the Bergen finds," giving, however, no examples-since
> there are none".
>
> This is a simple statement of fact upon which I cannot comment.
> However, I am again surprised that Hall should make this statement
> without evidence. Unfortunately while the Blegen index still functions
> (http://gonzo.hd.uib.no/NCCH-docs/Runehtml/RiBWWW/English/runeindex.html)
> the rune database appears to be down. However I do note that that what
> Hall has said and what Knirk has denied are not quite the same things.
>
> Knirk goes on to say:
>
> "further that X with umlaut for Swedish a has "now been found
> attested in Greenlandic and continental Scandinavian inscriptions
> (28), referring again to Nielsen, whose parallels (exclusively from
> Greenland) do not stand inspection".
>
> There are two points to be made about this. First, this is again an
> opinion with no evidence or even reasons given as to why Knirk should
> have reached that conclusion.
What would you have him say, Eric. He has told you that the evidence asserted by Nielsen does not stand
inspection. I would presume that simply means that whatever characters rom Greenland runestones Nielsen
asserted as supporting an X rune with umlaut for Swedish simply do not show an X rune with umlaut.
> Second, Knirk has not made it clear that
> he is now commenting on a different rune and text by Hall from a
> different page of Halls 1994 book.
>
> >If there is
> >evidence _for_ an X-shaped rune for a, with a small branch on the right, it is up to Hall-Nielsen to
> >support it. Naturally Knirk can never _prove_ there's no such evidence, but he quite rightly points
> >out that there is presently no such known evidence. What more can he do on the matter?
>
> From what I have quoted above it is clear that at least in part Hall,
> via Nielsen, has produced evidence. Blegen has produced no evidence
> but merely stated his opinions. Blegen is a special case and I agree
> that if there are no X runes in the Blegen finds, then there is no
> evidence to be produced. I don't know about "(X runes) ... down to
> modern times, as in Dalecarlia".
>
> ---- snip ------
>
> It is intriguing that Hall seemed to think that "The main sticking
> point has been the dot inside the upper right branch ... " while Knirk
> seems to be of the opinion that there is no evidence for the use of an
> X rune at that time. This surely is a point which should be reasonably
> easily clarified.
>
> Eric Stevens
>
> There are two classes of people. Those who divide people into
> two classes, and those who don't. I belong to the second class.
Steve
Brian M. Scott
wrote:
>On Tue, 23 May 2000 19:34:04 GMT, sc...@math.csuohio.edu (Brian M.
>Scott) wrote:
[...]
>>>>>For which Knirk appears to have left no place. That was the basis of
>>>>>my original objection.
>>>>Except that you persistently fail to acknowledge that (at least
>>>>according to Knirk) it is *Hall* who left no middle ground. Had you
>>>>done so, I'd not have objected, even if you had then gone on to
>>>>suspect that Knirk misinterpreted Hall's criteria.
>>>I can't acknowledge that Hall left no middle ground when I see no
>>>evidence that that is the case.
>>I didn't say that you should have made any such acknowledgement. I
>>said that you should have been careful to acknowledge that Knirk's
>>statement in this passage is *not* that the KRS is a forgery, but
>>rather that by Hall's criteria applied to the evidence in hand that
>>must be the conclusion. You can then go on, if you like, to explain
>>that in your opinion Knirk completely misreads Hall, but as it stands
>>you're simply misrepresenting what Knirk actually wrote.
>The relevant part of what Knirk actually wrote is:
> "Thus several of the arguments against the genuineness of the runes
> have not been answered, and, applying Hall's own criteria, the
> stone must still be considered a forgery."
Yes: APPLYING HALL'S OWN CRITERIA.
>As is usually the case, this statement is open to several
>interpretations. I took it to mean that applying Halls own criteria to
>judging the authenticity of the stone, it must still be considered a
>forgery. Hall's argument was that the stone was genuine. Knirk's
>statement implies that the only alternative to 'genuine' is 'forgery'.
IT DOES NOT. It says that BY HALL'S CRITERIA this is the only
alternative -- NOT by Knirk's. Now Knirk may in fact believe that
this really is the only alternative, but THAT'S NOT WHAT HE WROTE.
>This is the point I have repeatedly made. Knirk has left no room for
>the middle ground of "don't know".
THIS IS NOT TRUE. I can't make it any plainer than I already have.
>Further, I cannot see anywhere in the book that Hall has established
>criteria by means of which the stone must be judged a forgery. The
>statement that "(by) applying Hall's own criteria, the stone must
>still be considered a forgery" appears to be entirely of Knirks
>creation. Yet, you have read Knirk as attributing it to Hall (see
>above "Except that you persistently fail to acknowledge that (at least
>according to Knirk) it is *Hall* who left no middle ground").
Damn' straight I have. THAT'S WHAT HE BLOODY WELL SAYS.
> My point
>is that I can see nothing in Hall which might be a basis for this
>quite specific interpretation. My opinion is that Knirk is wrong in
>both logic and fact.
Fine -- as long as you quit misrepresenting Knirk's statement.
>>> Hall argued strenuously that the KRS
>>>was genuine and said nothing much about the alternatives. As far as I
>>>can see, it is Knirk who has said that there are only two alternatives
>>>- 'genuine' or 'forgery' and I can see no basis for this either in
>>>logic or in Hall.
>>No, damn it, that is *not* what he said. What he did say may be an
>>inaccurate reading of Hall, but he did not make that claim in his own
>>voice.
>See above. I believe he did.
Then you bloody well can't read.
Brian M. Scott
Brian M. Scott
wrote:
[...]
>>You don't see it in Hall; Knirk does. I can't know without reading
>>Hall myself. Perhaps someday I will, just out of curiosity; but on
>>non-linguistic grounds the odds against its being genuine are too high
>>to justify setting aside other, more interesting projects.
>A reading of the history of the investigation into the history of the
>KRS will show that that the odds have been considerably stacked
>against the KRS being accepted by a program of systematic distortion
>and falsehoods, many of which have been focussed through Wahlgren.
Wouldn't know, since my source for this opinion is independent. I
frankly think that all the fuss is pretty silly. Even in the unlikely
event that the thing does turn out to be genuine, it means little from
a historical point of view.
[...]
Brian M. Scott
Martha or Larry Athy
I note that Mr.____ is back from the bar and has joined Doug and his
collaborator, Brian, in the attack on Nielson's work. We are getting a
lot of relatively meaningless postings from these three characters who
clearly have not read the most recent writings on this subject by
Nielsen, Hall, or Knirk. Isn't pseudo-science wonderful?
It seems that in the minds of politicoarchaeologists the expertise of
the critics of a paper are more important than the contents of the
paper. Scott chooses to compare the relative expertise of Hall and Knirk
with regard to this specific inscription by saying "--of the two Knirk
is clearly the expert and the one likelier to be more familiar with the
available evidence."
Thus Brian has suggested that since Knirk is "something of a Runic
specialist" he is automatically an expert on the Kensington Rune Stone -
a flawed assumption. I have a good friend who has spent fifty years in
the study of the history of the English language and literature and is
thus "something of an English language specialist." Using the flawed
logic of our three politicos, we would no doubt assume that she knows
more about Elizabethan English is general and "Hamlet" specifically than
a person who has spent the last ten years on "Hamlet" primarily.
For a person to have become an expert on the Kensington Rune Stone, he
necessarily would have spent considerable time on the specifics of the
inscription, consulted with others having the same interest, and
probably published books and/or papers on the subject.
Robert A Hall wrote a paper on this subject in 1980 and books in 1982
and 1995. Although he wrote other papers during that twenty years, it
is clear as to what his primary interest would have been.
Richard Nielsen has had papers published on this subject in 1986, 87,
88, 89, 94, 95 & 98. I have served with him on a board of directors,
and there is no doubt in my mind as to what has been his primary
interest over the last fourteen years.
I can not find that James P. Knirk has ever written a book or paper on
this subject; however, he has had reviews published in 1996 and 1997.
He may have spent several weeks on this subject, or even several months,
but could not know any more about the details of this stone than my
friend does about the details of "Hamlet", which she has no doubt read
and no doubt has opinions regarding details.
Not being a politicoarchy, I think that it is only right to be fair to
Dr. Knirks, a courtesy not so far extended to Hall and Nielson by the
archys. As is made clear by Nielsen in his 1998 paper, Knirk's various
criticisms by letter and publication have helped Nielsen to further
research and eliminate many of the weaker points of his paper. Although
Knirk has had to concede many points do to further research by Nielson,
there are still some points of disagreement. The relationship between
these three gentlemen appears to have been cooperative and professional.
It is unfortunate that such is not always the case when American
archaeologists working in Mexico are involved.
Perhaps someone can explain to me how in 1898 a farmer, or linguist for
that matter, would have been able to have incorporated into a forgery of
a 1362 inscription alphabet and/or language details not used in 1898 and
not at that time known to have been used in 1362. Since some of these
details have subsequently been confirmed as to use in the 14th century,
the forger would have been far ahead of his time as a linguist. The
probability of this inscription being a forgery is thus very small
indeed. Thus we have here the same enigma that we have with the Pariaba
Stone found in Brazil in 1872. Both of these stones would have been
accepted as genuine years ago if it were not for politics.
Regards, Larry Athy, P.E.
Eric Stevens
Scott) wrote:
>On Tue, 23 May 2000 22:26:32 +1200, Eric Stevens <este...@ip.co.nz>
>wrote:
>
>[...]
>
>>>>>To be sure, he may be mistaken in his reading
>>>>>of Hall, but that *is* what he appears to be saying. One would have
>>>>>to read Hall to find out whether Knirk is right on this point; what
>>>>>you think he might have done is irrelevant.
>
>>Its not irrelevant if I have read Hall. The entire work is devoted to
>>explaining why hall thinks the KRS is genuine and important. he says
>>nothing about whether the alternative view should reconise the
>>possibility of "don't know". That is entirely a construct of Knirk and
>>I think it is unwarranted.
>
>You don't see it in Hall; Knirk does. I can't know without reading
>Hall myself. Perhaps someday I will, just out of curiosity; but on
>non-linguistic grounds the odds against its being genuine are too high
>to justify setting aside other, more interesting projects.
A reading of the history of the investigation into the history of the
KRS will show that that the odds have been considerably stacked
against the KRS being accepted by a program of systematic distortion
and falsehoods, many of which have been focussed through Wahlgren.
That a person of such emminence as Wahlgren should have mounted what
appears to have been a systematic program of denigration is a very
good example of why arguing from authority is not entirely safe. The
only way to get to the root of this problem is to look at various
claims and the evidence for them as Hall has done and Michael Zalar is
doing now. I won't say that Hall is correct in all his conclusions but
he certainly has dispelled a number of myths about the KRS which many
still seem to regard as truth.
Eric Stevens
Scott) wrote:
>On Tue, 23 May 2000 22:26:33 +1200, Eric Stevens <este...@ip.co.nz>
>wrote:
>
>>On Tue, 23 May 2000 03:07:14 GMT, sc...@math.csuohio.edu (Brian M.
>>Scott) wrote:
>
>>--- arguments over academic writing style avoided ---- :-)
>
>>>>For which Knirk appears to have left no place. That was the basis of
>>>>my original objection.
>
>>>Except that you persistently fail to acknowledge that (at least
>>>according to Knirk) it is *Hall* who left no middle ground. Had you
>>>done so, I'd not have objected, even if you had then gone on to
>>>suspect that Knirk misinterpreted Hall's criteria.
>
>>I can't acknowledge that Hall left no middle ground when I see no
>>evidence that that is the case.
>
>I didn't say that you should have made any such acknowledgement. I
>said that you should have been careful to acknowledge that Knirk's
>statement in this passage is *not* that the KRS is a forgery, but
>rather that by Hall's criteria applied to the evidence in hand that
>must be the conclusion. You can then go on, if you like, to explain
>that in your opinion Knirk completely misreads Hall, but as it stands
>you're simply misrepresenting what Knirk actually wrote.
The relevant part of what Knirk actually wrote is:
"Thus several of the arguments against the genuineness of the runes
have not been answered, and, applying Hall's own criteria, the
stone must still be considered a forgery."
As is usually the case, this statement is open to several
interpretations. I took it to mean that applying Halls own criteria to
judging the authenticity of the stone, it must still be considered a
forgery. Hall's argument was that the stone was genuine. Knirk's
statement implies that the only alternative to 'genuine' is 'forgery'.
This is the point I have repeatedly made. Knirk has left no room for
the middle ground of "don't know".
Further, I cannot see anywhere in the book that Hall has established
criteria by means of which the stone must be judged a forgery. The
statement that "(by) applying Hall's own criteria, the stone must
still be considered a forgery" appears to be entirely of Knirks
creation. Yet, you have read Knirk as attributing it to Hall (see
above "Except that you persistently fail to acknowledge that (at least
according to Knirk) it is *Hall* who left no middle ground"). My point
is that I can see nothing in Hall which might be a basis for this
quite specific interpretation. My opinion is that Knirk is wrong in
both logic and fact.
>> Hall argued strenuously that the KRS
>>was genuine and said nothing much about the alternatives. As far as I
>>can see, it is Knirk who has said that there are only two alternatives
>>- 'genuine' or 'forgery' and I can see no basis for this either in
>>logic or in Hall.
>
>No, damn it, that is *not* what he said. What he did say may be an
>inaccurate reading of Hall, but he did not make that claim in his own
>voice.
See above. I believe he did.
Eric Stevens
Eric Stevens
<barbm...@erols.com> wrote:
>
>
>Eric Stevens wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 22 May 2000 19:00:03 -0700, Steve Marcus
>> <barbm...@erols.com> wrote:
>>
--- snip ----
>> >, and then Knirk goes on to explain why Hall's reliance on Nielsen here was misplaced.
>>
>> But gave no evidence. As you pointed out, all he gave you was an
>> opinion.
>
>Eric, I'm not going to rehash the debate with you about absence of evidence. Knirk, after making
>the above statement, clearly states why Hall-Nielsen's conclusions is unsupported.
Actually he didn't, at least not unless you are easily satisfied. I
originally quoted from Hall as follows:
6. X a. A very much disputed rune, regarded by many, ever
since Flom's discussion in 1910, as prima facie evidence of modern
forgery. A simple X-shape, either vertical or "lazy" (i.e. on its
side), was used from the Middle Ages (widely attested in the Bergen
finds) down to modern times, as in Dalecarlia. The main sticking
point has been the dot inside the upper right branch, which until
the 1980's was attested in exactly this shape only in this
inscription and in others discovered in North America 'Spirit Pond,
Narragansett). Most recently, similar shapes with a dot or a small
branch, thus: X, have been attested in Scandinavia (cf. Nielsen
[1987:10-13, with tables 3-5; Forthcoming-b:1-12, with six
illustrations), so that this form of the a rune can no longer be
dismissed as a North American forgery. Sound-value: /a/.
Note that Hall wrote "Nielsen [1987:10-13, with tables 3-5;
Forthcoming-b:1-12, with six illustrations)". It is to be presumed
that Hall had actually seen the 'tables' and 'illustrations' and that
Nielsen actually had examples of what he believed to prior use of the
disputed X rune. It may well be that Knirk has examined these various
examples and found reasons for disputing all of them, but that is not
what he said. Knirk's words on this subject were:
"Nielsen's evidence, however, encompasses only an irregular
retrograde f as the first rune in a fupork-inscription in Hedal
stave church and crossing cuts from two rune-like signs on the
lead sheet from Torkelsby. Though there may be some resemblance,
these signs cannot provide parallels for a sign for a".
Knirk does not say why "these signs cannot provide parallels for a
sign for a" but merely gives his opinion as to that. Knirk then goes
on to say:
"In addition Hall claims that a "simple X-shape" for a is "widely
attested in the Bergen finds," giving, however, no examples-since
there are none".
This is a simple statement of fact upon which I cannot comment.
However, I am again surprised that Hall should make this statement
without evidence. Unfortunately while the Blegen index still functions
(http://gonzo.hd.uib.no/NCCH-docs/Runehtml/RiBWWW/English/runeindex.html)
the rune database appears to be down. However I do note that that what
Hall has said and what Knirk has denied are not quite the same things.
Knirk goes on to say:
"further that X with umlaut for Swedish a has "now been found
attested in Greenlandic and continental Scandinavian inscriptions
(28), referring again to Nielsen, whose parallels (exclusively from
Greenland) do not stand inspection".
There are two points to be made about this. First, this is again an
opinion with no evidence or even reasons given as to why Knirk should
have reached that conclusion. Second, Knirk has not made it clear that
he is now commenting on a different rune and text by Hall from a
different page of Halls 1994 book.
>If there is
>evidence _for_ an X-shaped rune for a, with a small branch on the right, it is up to Hall-Nielsen to
>support it. Naturally Knirk can never _prove_ there's no such evidence, but he quite rightly points
>out that there is presently no such known evidence. What more can he do on the matter?
From what I have quoted above it is clear that at least in part Hall,
via Nielsen, has produced evidence. Blegen has produced no evidence
but merely stated his opinions. Blegen is a special case and I agree
that if there are no X runes in the Blegen finds, then there is no
evidence to be produced. I don't know about "(X runes) ... down to
modern times, as in Dalecarlia".
---- snip ------
It is intriguing that Hall seemed to think that "The main sticking
point has been the dot inside the upper right branch ... " while Knirk
seems to be of the opinion that there is no evidence for the use of an
X rune at that time. This surely is a point which should be reasonably
easily clarified.
Eric Stevens
wrote:
>In article <dtmkisgsrrhq5cnba...@4ax.com>, este...@ip.co.nz
>says...
>> On Tue, 23 May 2000 05:49:19 GMT, Doug Weller <dwe...@ramtops.co.uk>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >In article <rnnjiscgft1ecf1v4...@4ax.com>, este...@ip.co.nz
>> >says...
>> >> Not now. Hall is dead. But before that, I would expect a Professor of
>> >> Classics from Cornell to be accepted as readily as a person with a
>> >> background in numismatics and art history.
>> >>
>> >Careful. Aren't you confusing Knirk's title with his background?
>>
>> Not really. Seeing that I didn't quote his title for the very simple
>> reason that I couldn't remember what it was.
>>
>Sorry, I thought someone had and that this was where you got 'numismatics and
>art history' from.
You are quite right about somebody else describing his general
background but I could only remember the 'numismatics and
art history'. I didn't pay too much attention to it as I prefer to
first try to make decisions on facts rather than qualifications of the
various experts.
Eric Stevens
Scott) wrote:
>On Wed, 24 May 2000 10:13:16 +1200, Eric Stevens <este...@ip.co.nz>
>wrote:
>
>[...]
>
>>>You don't see it in Hall; Knirk does. I can't know without reading
>>>Hall myself. Perhaps someday I will, just out of curiosity; but on
>>>non-linguistic grounds the odds against its being genuine are too high
>>>to justify setting aside other, more interesting projects.
>
>>A reading of the history of the investigation into the history of the
>>KRS will show that that the odds have been considerably stacked
>>against the KRS being accepted by a program of systematic distortion
>>and falsehoods, many of which have been focussed through Wahlgren.
>
>Wouldn't know, since my source for this opinion is independent.
But so are we all - all independent :-)
(My apologies to Mark Anthony)
I
>frankly think that all the fuss is pretty silly. Even in the unlikely
>event that the thing does turn out to be genuine, it means little from
>a historical point of view.
>
I suspect that others may not entirely agree.
Eric Stevens
Scott) wrote:
>On Wed, 24 May 2000 10:13:17 +1200, Eric Stevens <este...@ip.co.nz>
>wrote:
>
>>On Tue, 23 May 2000 19:34:04 GMT, sc...@math.csuohio.edu (Brian M.
>>Scott) wrote:
>
>[...]
>
>>>>>>For which Knirk appears to have left no place. That was the basis of
>>>>>>my original objection.
>
>>>>>Except that you persistently fail to acknowledge that (at least
>>>>>according to Knirk) it is *Hall* who left no middle ground. Had you
>>>>>done so, I'd not have objected, even if you had then gone on to
>>>>>suspect that Knirk misinterpreted Hall's criteria.
>
>>>>I can't acknowledge that Hall left no middle ground when I see no
>>>>evidence that that is the case.
>
>>>I didn't say that you should have made any such acknowledgement. I
>>>said that you should have been careful to acknowledge that Knirk's
>>>statement in this passage is *not* that the KRS is a forgery, but
>>>rather that by Hall's criteria applied to the evidence in hand that
>>>must be the conclusion. You can then go on, if you like, to explain
>>>that in your opinion Knirk completely misreads Hall, but as it stands
>>>you're simply misrepresenting what Knirk actually wrote.
>
>>The relevant part of what Knirk actually wrote is:
>
>> "Thus several of the arguments against the genuineness of the runes
>> have not been answered, and, applying Hall's own criteria, the
>> stone must still be considered a forgery."
>
>Yes: APPLYING HALL'S OWN CRITERIA.
You can apply all the capital letters you like but **I insist**
HALL HAD NO SUCH CRITERIA.
HALL CERATINLY HAD NO CRITERIA BY WHICH HE WOULD HAVE TO CONCLUDE THAT
IF THE krs WAS NOT GENUINE THAN IT HAD TO BE A FORGERY.
ALL OF THIS IS A CREATION OF KNIRK'S
>
>>As is usually the case, this statement is open to several
>>interpretations. I took it to mean that applying Halls own criteria to
>>judging the authenticity of the stone, it must still be considered a
>>forgery. Hall's argument was that the stone was genuine. Knirk's
>>statement implies that the only alternative to 'genuine' is 'forgery'.
>
>IT DOES NOT. It says that BY HALL'S CRITERIA this is the only
>alternative -- NOT by Knirk's. Now Knirk may in fact believe that
>this really is the only alternative, but THAT'S NOT WHAT HE WROTE.
>
>>This is the point I have repeatedly made. Knirk has left no room for
>>the middle ground of "don't know".
>
>THIS IS NOT TRUE. I can't make it any plainer than I already have.
You could try actually pointing out the place where he did that. As
far as I can see he (apparently falsely) attributed to Hall a set of
criteria and then, again with with no apparent basis in Hall, he
concluded that if the KRS was not shown to be genuine then it was a
forgery.
>
>>Further, I cannot see anywhere in the book that Hall has established
>>criteria by means of which the stone must be judged a forgery. The
>>statement that "(by) applying Hall's own criteria, the stone must
>>still be considered a forgery" appears to be entirely of Knirks
>>creation. Yet, you have read Knirk as attributing it to Hall (see
>>above "Except that you persistently fail to acknowledge that (at least
>>according to Knirk) it is *Hall* who left no middle ground").
>
>Damn' straight I have. THAT'S WHAT HE BLOODY WELL SAYS.
Please refer me to the actual text. As far as I can see what Knirk has
done can be described by a classic IF, THEN statement:
IF
Fails Hall's Criteria (applied to the X rune)
THEN
KRS is a forgery
ENDIF
I have the advantage of having read the book and as far as I can see
there is absolutely no basis for the claim that Hall had either
established such criteria or that the outcome could only be 'genuine'
or 'false'. This is something Hall did not say and if it was not Knirk
we are left with a problem.
>
>> My point
>>is that I can see nothing in Hall which might be a basis for this
>>quite specific interpretation. My opinion is that Knirk is wrong in
>>both logic and fact.
>
>Fine -- as long as you quit misrepresenting Knirk's statement.
I don't think I am. I think he is misrepresenting Hall.
>
>>>> Hall argued strenuously that the KRS
>>>>was genuine and said nothing much about the alternatives. As far as I
>>>>can see, it is Knirk who has said that there are only two alternatives
>>>>- 'genuine' or 'forgery' and I can see no basis for this either in
>>>>logic or in Hall.
>
>>>No, damn it, that is *not* what he said. What he did say may be an
>>>inaccurate reading of Hall, but he did not make that claim in his own
>>>voice.
>
>>See above. I believe he did.
>
>Then you bloody well can't read.
One of us seems to have got locked on to a different interpretation
from the other and for the life of me I can't see why you should hold
the view you do.
Eric Stevens
or Larry Athy) wrote:
>Perhaps someone can explain to me how in 1898 a farmer, or linguist for
>that matter, would have been able to have incorporated into a forgery of
>a 1362 inscription alphabet and/or language details not used in 1898 and
>not at that time known to have been used in 1362. Since some of these
>details have subsequently been confirmed as to use in the 14th century,
>the forger would have been far ahead of his time as a linguist. The
>probability of this inscription being a forgery is thus very small
>indeed.
This was my original point and I stand by it. If the KRS was indeed
forged, the forger had to forge it, not in 1898 but, somewhere between
about 1840 and 1885 in order to leave sufficient time for the tree
roots to grow around it. It does seem extraordinary that at those
times there was in that part of America a forger who knew more of the
old norse runes than the acknowledged experts were to know for nearly
the next century. I think that even if not all the runes can yet be
agreed to be attested, the fact that so many now have been, argues
strongly for the KRS being genuine.
Eric Stevens
or Larry Athy) wrote:
>Perhaps someone can explain to me how in 1898 a farmer, or linguist for
>that matter, would have been able to have incorporated into a forgery of
>a 1362 inscription alphabet and/or language details not used in 1898 and
>not at that time known to have been used in 1362. Since some of these
>details have subsequently been confirmed as to use in the 14th century,
>the forger would have been far ahead of his time as a linguist. The
>probability of this inscription being a forgery is thus very small
>indeed. Thus we have here the same enigma that we have with the Pariaba
>Stone found in Brazil in 1872. Both of these stones would have been
>accepted as genuine years ago if it were not for politics.
>
I remember, many years ago now, reading about a stone with out of
place petroglyphs that had been found in South America. The finder of
the stone had copied the petroglyphs but in finding his way back to
civilization he lost track of the whereabouts of the stone.
The petroglyphs were initially held to be Phoenecian characters but
on the basis of the copy they were rejected as a crude forgery. The
reason for this was that the charcters contained at least one which
was not known to have been used by the Phoenecians.
Much later, the so-called fraudulent character was identified
somewhere in North Africa and it was realised that the stone may have
been genuine after all. Attempts to find the stone had been
unsuccesful at the time the article was written.
Could this be the Pariaba stone?
Brian M. Scott
wrote:
>On Tue, 23 May 2000 23:10:33 GMT, sc...@math.csuohio.edu (Brian M.
>Scott) wrote:
>>On Wed, 24 May 2000 10:13:17 +1200, Eric Stevens <este...@ip.co.nz>
>>wrote:
[...]
>>>The relevant part of what Knirk actually wrote is:
>>> "Thus several of the arguments against the genuineness of the runes
>>> have not been answered, and, applying Hall's own criteria, the
>>> stone must still be considered a forgery."
>>Yes: APPLYING HALL'S OWN CRITERIA.
>You can apply all the capital letters you like but **I insist**
>HALL HAD NO SUCH CRITERIA.
Insist all you like. You may even be right, though I certainly
wouldn't bet on it, given your inability to read a straightforward
paragraph by Knirk correctly. You're still missing the point, which
is that it is simply dishonest to blame Knirk without at least
acknowledging that he thinks that he's applying criteria used by Hall.
[...]
>>>Further, I cannot see anywhere in the book that Hall has established
>>>criteria by means of which the stone must be judged a forgery. The
>>>statement that "(by) applying Hall's own criteria, the stone must
>>>still be considered a forgery" appears to be entirely of Knirks
>>>creation. Yet, you have read Knirk as attributing it to Hall (see
>>>above "Except that you persistently fail to acknowledge that (at least
>>>according to Knirk) it is *Hall* who left no middle ground").
>>Damn' straight I have. THAT'S WHAT HE BLOODY WELL SAYS.
>Please refer me to the actual text. As far as I can see what Knirk has
>done can be described by a classic IF, THEN statement:
> IF
> Fails Hall's Criteria (applied to the X rune)
> THEN
> KRS is a forgery
> ENDIF
No. Read it again. Read it until you understand it. I've had
enough. (Hint: 'Fails' is your invention.)
>I have the advantage of having read the book and as far as I can see
>there is absolutely no basis for the claim that Hall had either
>established such criteria or that the outcome could only be 'genuine'
>or 'false'. This is something Hall did not say and if it was not Knirk
>we are left with a problem.
Not at all. (1) Your ability to extract implicit criteria from Hall
may be defective. (2) Knirk's ability to do so may be defective in
the opposite sense.
>>Fine -- as long as you quit misrepresenting Knirk's statement.
>I don't think I am. I think he is misrepresenting Hall.
YOUR belief that he is misrepresenting Hall does not justify failure
to acknowledge that he claims to be applying Hall's criteria, not his
own.
[...]
>One of us seems to have got locked on to a different interpretation
>from the other and for the life of me I can't see why you should hold
>the view you do.
Because I can read English. Your preconceptions are blinding you to
what's on the page: you're presenting inferences as if they were there
in print.
Brian M. Scott
Eric Stevens
Scott) wrote:
>On Wed, 24 May 2000 12:28:06 +1200, Eric Stevens <este...@ip.co.nz>
>wrote:
>
>>On Tue, 23 May 2000 23:10:33 GMT, sc...@math.csuohio.edu (Brian M.
>>Scott) wrote:
>
>>>On Wed, 24 May 2000 10:13:17 +1200, Eric Stevens <este...@ip.co.nz>
>>>wrote:
>
>[...]
>
>>>>The relevant part of what Knirk actually wrote is:
>
>>>> "Thus several of the arguments against the genuineness of the runes
>>>> have not been answered, and, applying Hall's own criteria, the
>>>> stone must still be considered a forgery."
>
>>>Yes: APPLYING HALL'S OWN CRITERIA.
>
>>You can apply all the capital letters you like but **I insist**
>
>>HALL HAD NO SUCH CRITERIA.
>
>Insist all you like. You may even be right, though I certainly
>wouldn't bet on it, given your inability to read a straightforward
>paragraph by Knirk correctly. You're still missing the point, which
>is that it is simply dishonest to blame Knirk without at least
>acknowledging that he thinks that he's applying criteria used by Hall.
He MAY think he's applying criteria applied by Hall, but that is not
what he says. There is no ambiguity in what Knirk has written. Nor is
there any in Hall. I freely admit thatwithout reading all of Hall all
over again I may have missed a sentence or even a paragraph somewhere
but, subject only to that proviso, I believe that what Knirk has
written has no basis in Hall. In the absence of a ghost writer the
words and meaning can only be Knirk's and I believe him to be wrong.
That is all I have been saying from the beginning.
I cannot argue for what Knirk may or may not have believed. I only
know what he wrote and I believe that what he wrote is wrong on a
number of counts.
>
>[...]
>
>>>>Further, I cannot see anywhere in the book that Hall has established
>>>>criteria by means of which the stone must be judged a forgery. The
>>>>statement that "(by) applying Hall's own criteria, the stone must
>>>>still be considered a forgery" appears to be entirely of Knirks
>>>>creation. Yet, you have read Knirk as attributing it to Hall (see
>>>>above "Except that you persistently fail to acknowledge that (at least
>>>>according to Knirk) it is *Hall* who left no middle ground").
>
>>>Damn' straight I have. THAT'S WHAT HE BLOODY WELL SAYS.
>
>>Please refer me to the actual text. As far as I can see what Knirk has
>>done can be described by a classic IF, THEN statement:
>
>> IF
>> Fails Hall's Criteria (applied to the X rune)
>
>> THEN
>> KRS is a forgery
>
>> ENDIF
>
>No. Read it again. Read it until you understand it. I've had
>enough. (Hint: 'Fails' is your invention.)
Knirk has written as though therte are only two states. 'genuine' and
'forgery'. I have merely set up a test in an attempt to make that
point clear.
>
>>I have the advantage of having read the book and as far as I can see
>>there is absolutely no basis for the claim that Hall had either
>>established such criteria or that the outcome could only be 'genuine'
>>or 'false'. This is something Hall did not say and if it was not Knirk
>>we are left with a problem.
>
>Not at all. (1) Your ability to extract implicit criteria from Hall
>may be defective. (2) Knirk's ability to do so may be defective in
>the opposite sense.
I am arguing for the second in this case. You seem to object to that.
>
>>>Fine -- as long as you quit misrepresenting Knirk's statement.
>
>>I don't think I am. I think he is misrepresenting Hall.
>
>YOUR belief that he is misrepresenting Hall does not justify failure
>to acknowledge that he claims to be applying Hall's criteria, not his
>own.
I know he "claims" to be applying Hall's criteria. However, I have
discussed this right from the very beginning on the basis that the
analysis and judgement is Knirks, not Hall's, and that Knirk is
unjustified in making the *particular* statement he did.
>
>[...]
>
>>One of us seems to have got locked on to a different interpretation
>>from the other and for the life of me I can't see why you should hold
>>the view you do.
>
>Because I can read English. Your preconceptions are blinding you to
>what's on the page: you're presenting inferences as if they were there
>in print.
... and you are ignoring on the grounds that they are not. Instead, as
you said above, "he thinks that he's applying criteria used by Hall"
even though what Knirk actually thought when he wrote that was not
documented either.
I can demonstrate that what Hall wrote is logically indefensible. I
also claim that there is no basis in Hall for what Knirk wrote. My
original statement can stand without the aid of speculation about what
Knirk may have been thinking.
Neville Lindsay
"Brian M. Scott" <sc...@math.csuohio.edu> wrote in message
news:392b51f3...@nntp.stratos.net...
> On Wed, 24 May 2000 12:28:06 +1200, Eric Stevens <este...@ip.co.nz>
> wrote:
>
> >On Tue, 23 May 2000 23:10:33 GMT, sc...@math.csuohio.edu (Brian M.
> >Scott) wrote:
>
> >>On Wed, 24 May 2000 10:13:17 +1200, Eric Stevens <este...@ip.co.nz>
> >>wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> >>>The relevant part of what Knirk actually wrote is:
>
> >>> "Thus several of the arguments against the genuineness of the runes
> >>> have not been answered, and, applying Hall's own criteria, the
> >>> stone must still be considered a forgery."
>
> >>Yes: APPLYING HALL'S OWN CRITERIA.
>
> >You can apply all the capital letters you like but **I insist**
>
> >HALL HAD NO SUCH CRITERIA.
>
> Insist all you like. You may even be right, though I certainly
> wouldn't bet on it, given your inability to read a straightforward
> paragraph by Knirk correctly. You're still missing the point, which
> is that it is simply dishonest to blame Knirk without at least
> acknowledging that he thinks that he's applying criteria used by Hall.
>
>
> >>>Further, I cannot see anywhere in the book that Hall has established
> >>>criteria by means of which the stone must be judged a forgery. The
> >>>statement that "(by) applying Hall's own criteria, the stone must
> >>>still be considered a forgery" appears to be entirely of Knirks
> >>>creation. Yet, you have read Knirk as attributing it to Hall (see
> >>>above "Except that you persistently fail to acknowledge that (at least
> >>>according to Knirk) it is *Hall* who left no middle ground").
>
> >>Damn' straight I have. THAT'S WHAT HE BLOODY WELL SAYS.
>
> >Please refer me to the actual text. As far as I can see what Knirk has
> >done can be described by a classic IF, THEN statement:
>
> > IF
> > Fails Hall's Criteria (applied to the X rune)
>
> > THEN
> > KRS is a forgery
>
> > ENDIF
>
> No. Read it again. Read it until you understand it. I've had
> enough. (Hint: 'Fails' is your invention.)
>
> >there is absolutely no basis for the claim that Hall had either
> >established such criteria or that the outcome could only be 'genuine'
> >or 'false'. This is something Hall did not say and if it was not Knirk
> >we are left with a problem.
>
> Not at all. (1) Your ability to extract implicit criteria from Hall
> may be defective. (2) Knirk's ability to do so may be defective in
> the opposite sense.
>
>
> >I don't think I am. I think he is misrepresenting Hall.
>
> YOUR belief that he is misrepresenting Hall does not justify failure
> to acknowledge that he claims to be applying Hall's criteria, not his
> own.
>
>
> >One of us seems to have got locked on to a different interpretation
> >from the other and for the life of me I can't see why you should hold
> >the view you do.
>
> Because I can read English. Your preconceptions are blinding you to
> what's on the page: you're presenting inferences as if they were there
> in print.
>
Just a spot of third party logic here.
If Knirk says Hall's criteria make the stone a forgery, and Hall presents no
such criteria, surely this is a straw man of Knirk's and he fails in
subjectivity on that simple ground.
Suggestion of failure to read Hall properly by someone who has read and
re-read Hall can hardly be postulated by someone who has not read Hall,
again other than as a straw man.
It seems that on the evidence presented so far, the verdict of forgery is
ill founded unless Hall's self-defeating criteria can be quoted, and the
position must still be open, particularly if there is a current review of
the evidence in progress.
NL
Brian M. Scott
<nev...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
[...]
>Just a spot of third party logic here.
>If Knirk says Hall's criteria make the stone a forgery, and Hall presents no
>such criteria, surely this is a straw man of Knirk's and he fails in
>subjectivity on that simple ground.
(1) I don't know whether Hall does or not. I'm willing to believe
that he does not do so explicitly, but I certainly don't trust Eric's
ability to extract implicit criteria. (2) It isn't a straw man if
Knirk interprets Hall as implicitly giving such criteria, even if
Knirk is mistaken. I've said repeatedly that I've no objection to
Eric's disagreeing with Knirk on this; it's his dishonest
characterization of Knirk's position that pisses me off.
>Suggestion of failure to read Hall properly by someone who has read and
>re-read Hall can hardly be postulated by someone who has not read Hall,
>again other than as a straw man.
Wrong. It is an obvious a priori possibility to be considered. In
this case it's more than that, since Eric, for all his virtues (and
I'm not being sarcastic), is known to have a rather different
understanding of the language from many of us. (And you're misusing
the term 'straw man'.)
>It seems that on the evidence presented so far, the verdict of forgery is
>ill founded unless Hall's self-defeating criteria can be quoted,
Wrong again. I have little doubt that no explicit criteria can be
found to quote; the question is what can be inferred about his
standards of evidence and proof from Hall's discussion.
> and the
>position must still be open, particularly if there is a current review of
>the evidence in progress.
So far as I can tell, Knirk is one of the most current knowledgeable
writers on the subject.
Brian M. Scott
Brian M. Scott
wrote:
>On Wed, 24 May 2000 04:03:14 GMT, sc...@math.csuohio.edu (Brian M.
>Scott) wrote:
[...]
>>>>>The relevant part of what Knirk actually wrote is:
>>>>> "Thus several of the arguments against the genuineness of the runes
>>>>> have not been answered, and, applying Hall's own criteria, the
>>>>> stone must still be considered a forgery."
>>>>Yes: APPLYING HALL'S OWN CRITERIA.
>>>You can apply all the capital letters you like but **I insist**
>>>HALL HAD NO SUCH CRITERIA.
>>Insist all you like. You may even be right, though I certainly
>>wouldn't bet on it, given your inability to read a straightforward
>>paragraph by Knirk correctly. You're still missing the point, which
>>is that it is simply dishonest to blame Knirk without at least
>>acknowledging that he thinks that he's applying criteria used by Hall.
>He MAY think he's applying criteria applied by Hall, but that is not
>what he says.
That is exactly what he says: '... applying Hall's own criteria ...'.
Your inability to understand those four words is truly bizarre.
[...]
>Knirk has written as though therte are only two states. 'genuine' and
>'forgery'.
No, he has not. Try again. Pretend that you know absolutely nothing
about what is in Hall and take Knirk at his word.
[...]
Brian M. Scott
Steve Marcus
Martha or Larry Athy wrote:
> Hello Everybody:
>
> I note that Mr.____ is back from the bar and has joined Doug and his
> collaborator, Brian, in the attack on Nielson's work.
You are a bit confused, aren't you? It is Knirk, a recognized expert in the
field of runeology that is "attacking" Nielsen's work. Doug merely reported
that fact. Brian, Eric Stevens and I are discussing it.
> We are getting a
> lot of relatively meaningless postings from these three characters who
> clearly have not read the most recent writings on this subject by
> Nielsen, Hall, or Knirk. Isn't pseudo-science wonderful?
Have read these works? Have you read Knirk's work?
>
>
> It seems that in the minds of politicoarchaeologists the expertise of
> the critics of a paper are more important than the contents of the
> paper. Scott chooses to compare the relative expertise of Hall and Knirk
> with regard to this specific inscription by saying "--of the two Knirk
> is clearly the expert and the one likelier to be more familiar with the
> available evidence."
>
> Thus Brian has suggested that since Knirk is "something of a Runic
> specialist" he is automatically an expert on the Kensington Rune Stone -
> a flawed assumption. I have a good friend who has spent fifty years in
> the study of the history of the English language and literature and is
> thus "something of an English language specialist." Using the flawed
> logic of our three politicos, we would no doubt assume that she knows
> more about Elizabethan English is general and "Hamlet" specifically than
> a person who has spent the last ten years on "Hamlet" primarily.
>
> For a person to have become an expert on the Kensington Rune Stone, he
> necessarily would have spent considerable time on the specifics of the
> inscription, consulted with others having the same interest, and
> probably published books and/or papers on the subject.
But being an "expert" on the Kensington Rune Stone is not really the issue, is
it? The requisite expertise is in runeology, and the language(s) involved
(linguistics).
>
>
> Robert A Hall wrote a paper on this subject in 1980 and books in 1982
> and 1995. Although he wrote other papers during that twenty years, it
> is clear as to what his primary interest would have been.
>
>
> Richard Nielsen has had papers published on this subject in 1986, 87,
> 88, 89, 94, 95 & 98. I have served with him on a board of directors,
> and there is no doubt in my mind as to what has been his primary
> interest over the last fourteen years.
>
> I can not find that James P. Knirk has ever written a book or paper on
> this subject; however, he has had reviews published in 1996 and 1997.
> He may have spent several weeks on this subject, or even several months,
> but could not know any more about the details of this stone than my
> friend does about the details of "Hamlet", which she has no doubt read
> and no doubt has opinions regarding details.
>
James P. Knirk spent however much time he had to spend to look at the product of
Hall-Nielsen and comment that the evidence relied upon them was either wrongly
interpreted or absent. Rather than deal with that, you want to discuss how many
papers have been written, whether anyone has read them all, and sprinkle in a
large dose of ad hominems.
And Von Daniken wrote 5 or 6 books on the "Chariots of the Gods" themes. Would
an expert in Eygptology, or Mayan art, have to write a book on the subjects
encompassed in Von Daniken's works in order to accurately criticize Von
Daniken's Egyptian or Mayan "evidence" that "space aliens" built the pyramids
and are depicted in Mayan art?
>
> Not being a politicoarchy, I think that it is only right to be fair to
> Dr. Knirks, a courtesy not so far extended to Hall and Nielson by the
> archys. As is made clear by Nielsen in his 1998 paper, Knirk's various
> criticisms by letter and publication have helped Nielsen to further
> research and eliminate many of the weaker points of his paper. Although
> Knirk has had to concede many points do to further research by Nielson,
> there are still some points of disagreement. The relationship between
> these three gentlemen appears to have been cooperative and professional.
> It is unfortunate that such is not always the case when American
> archaeologists working in Mexico are involved.
>
> Perhaps someone can explain to me how in 1898 a farmer, or linguist for
> that matter, would have been able to have incorporated into a forgery of
> a 1362 inscription alphabet and/or language details not used in 1898 and
> not at that time known to have been used in 1362. Since some of these
> details have subsequently been confirmed as to use in the 14th century,
> the forger would have been far ahead of his time as a linguist. The
> probability of this inscription being a forgery is thus very small
> indeed. Thus we have here the same enigma that we have with the Pariaba
> Stone found in Brazil in 1872. Both of these stones would have been
> accepted as genuine years ago if it were not for politics.
>
Which specific details have been confirmed as to use in the 14th century, and
what is the supporting evidence?
>
> Regards, Larry Athy, P.E.
Eric Stevens
Scott) wrote:
>On Wed, 24 May 2000 19:05:04 +1200, Eric Stevens <este...@ip.co.nz>
>wrote:
>
>>On Wed, 24 May 2000 04:03:14 GMT, sc...@math.csuohio.edu (Brian M.
>>Scott) wrote:
>
>[...]
>
>>>>>>The relevant part of what Knirk actually wrote is:
>
>>>>>> "Thus several of the arguments against the genuineness of the runes
>>>>>> have not been answered, and, applying Hall's own criteria, the
>>>>>> stone must still be considered a forgery."
>
>>>>>Yes: APPLYING HALL'S OWN CRITERIA.
>
>>>>You can apply all the capital letters you like but **I insist**
>
>>>>HALL HAD NO SUCH CRITERIA.
>
>>>Insist all you like. You may even be right, though I certainly
>>>wouldn't bet on it, given your inability to read a straightforward
>>>paragraph by Knirk correctly. You're still missing the point, which
>>>is that it is simply dishonest to blame Knirk without at least
>>>acknowledging that he thinks that he's applying criteria used by Hall.
>
>>He MAY think he's applying criteria applied by Hall, but that is not
>>what he says.
>
>That is exactly what he says: '... applying Hall's own criteria ...'.
>Your inability to understand those four words is truly bizarre.
Don't be perverse. Of course I understand them. All along I have been
saying that he is wrong to claim that he is "applying Hall's own
criteria" or that if Hall had such criteria they only allowed a
'genuine' or 'forgery' outcome.
>
>[...]
>
>>Knirk has written as though therte are only two states. 'genuine' and
>>'forgery'.
>
>No, he has not. Try again. Pretend that you know absolutely nothing
>about what is in Hall and take Knirk at his word.
I did. 'genuine', as per Hall, or 'forgery', as per Knirk. What other
alternative does Knirk allow? Please explain.
Eric Stevens
<nev...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
>Just a spot of third party logic here.
>If Knirk says Hall's criteria make the stone a forgery, and Hall presents no
>such criteria, surely this is a straw man of Knirk's and he fails in
>subjectivity on that simple ground.
Doug Weller has advised me by email that Knirk may have been reviewing
a publication other than the 1994 Jupiter edition which I own and
which I thought was Hall's last word on the subject. Just this may be
enough to cause confusions.
>Suggestion of failure to read Hall properly by someone who has read and
>re-read Hall can hardly be postulated by someone who has not read Hall,
>again other than as a straw man.
True, but I freely admit that it is a while since I read Hall
properly. Nevertheless, I have several times skimmed it fairly
thoroughly looking for relevant text.
>It seems that on the evidence presented so far, the verdict of forgery is
>ill founded ...
I'm certainly not prepred to say it is not a forgery. Its just that I
object to the "don't know" option being ignored. At the moment I think
it's a "don't know" situation but, if I had to commit myself to an
opinion, I would have to say that I think it is probably genuine. But
still, I don't really know that.
> ... unless Hall's self-defeating criteria can be quoted, and the
>position must still be open, particularly if there is a current review of
>the evidence in progress.
Oh, I think a current review of the evidence will always be in
progress. :-)
Eric Stevens
<barbm...@erols.com> wrote:
>
>Martha or Larry Athy wrote:
>
>> Hello Everybody:
>>
>> I note that Mr.____ is back from the bar and has joined Doug and his
>> collaborator, Brian, in the attack on Nielson's work.
>
>You are a bit confused, aren't you? It is Knirk, a recognized expert in the
>field of runeology that is "attacking" Nielsen's work. Doug merely reported
>that fact. Brian, Eric Stevens and I are discussing it.
>
>> We are getting a
>> lot of relatively meaningless postings from these three characters who
>> clearly have not read the most recent writings on this subject by
>> Nielsen, Hall, or Knirk. Isn't pseudo-science wonderful?
>
>Have read these works? Have you read Knirk's work?
Stop fudging. Have you read *any* of these works?
>
--- snip ----
>But being an "expert" on the Kensington Rune Stone is not really the issue, is
>it? The requisite expertise is in runeology, and the language(s) involved
>(linguistics).
Epigraphy has been suggested as a desirable skill.
>
>>
>>
>> Robert A Hall wrote a paper on this subject in 1980 and books in 1982
>> and 1995. Although he wrote other papers during that twenty years, it
>> is clear as to what his primary interest would have been.
>>
>
>>
>> Richard Nielsen has had papers published on this subject in 1986, 87,
>> 88, 89, 94, 95 & 98. I have served with him on a board of directors,
>> and there is no doubt in my mind as to what has been his primary
>> interest over the last fourteen years.
>
>>
>> I can not find that James P. Knirk has ever written a book or paper on
>> this subject; however, he has had reviews published in 1996 and 1997.
>> He may have spent several weeks on this subject, or even several months,
>> but could not know any more about the details of this stone than my
>> friend does about the details of "Hamlet", which she has no doubt read
>> and no doubt has opinions regarding details.
>>
>
>James P. Knirk spent however much time he had to spend to look at the product of
>Hall-Nielsen and comment that the evidence relied upon them was either wrongly
>interpreted or absent.
Excellent! Oh so true!!
But, so what?
>Rather than deal with that, you want to discuss how many
>papers have been written, whether anyone has read them all, and sprinkle in a
>large dose of ad hominems.
I thought the discussion was about backgrounds. expertise and general
experience. I don't see evidence of ad hominem unless of course you
count pointing out that "James P. Knirk has (n)ever written a book or
paper on this subject" etc as ad hominem.
>
>And Von Daniken wrote 5 or 6 books on the "Chariots of the Gods" themes. Would
>an expert in Eygptology, or Mayan art, have to write a book on the subjects
>encompassed in Von Daniken's works in order to accurately criticize Von
>Daniken's Egyptian or Mayan "evidence" that "space aliens" built the pyramids
>and are depicted in Mayan art?
To be taken seriously, yes. Otherwise they would not be
distinguishable from any other pompous amatuer.
>
>>
>> Not being a politicoarchy, I think that it is only right to be fair to
>> Dr. Knirks, a courtesy not so far extended to Hall and Nielson by the
>> archys. As is made clear by Nielsen in his 1998 paper, Knirk's various
>> criticisms by letter and publication have helped Nielsen to further
>> research and eliminate many of the weaker points of his paper. Although
>> Knirk has had to concede many points do to further research by Nielson,
>> there are still some points of disagreement. The relationship between
>> these three gentlemen appears to have been cooperative and professional.
>> It is unfortunate that such is not always the case when American
>> archaeologists working in Mexico are involved.
>>
>> Perhaps someone can explain to me how in 1898 a farmer, or linguist for
>> that matter, would have been able to have incorporated into a forgery of
>> a 1362 inscription alphabet and/or language details not used in 1898 and
>> not at that time known to have been used in 1362. Since some of these
>> details have subsequently been confirmed as to use in the 14th century,
>> the forger would have been far ahead of his time as a linguist. The
>> probability of this inscription being a forgery is thus very small
>> indeed. Thus we have here the same enigma that we have with the Pariaba
>> Stone found in Brazil in 1872. Both of these stones would have been
>> accepted as genuine years ago if it were not for politics.
>>
>
>Which specific details have been confirmed as to use in the 14th century, and
>what is the supporting evidence?
>
You will have to read a great deal to get to the bottom of this. I
recommend starting off with Hall and even the various articles that
Michael Zalar has posted in this news group.
Doug Weller
says...
>
> Doug Weller has advised me by email that Knirk may have been reviewing
> a publication other than the 1994 Jupiter edition which I own and
> which I thought was Hall's last word on the subject. Just this may be
> enough to cause confusions.
>
Robert A. Hall, Jr. The Kensington Rune-Stone, Authentic
and Important: A Critical Edition. Edward Sapir Monograph Series in
Language, Culture, and Cognition 19.
But in another part of the review, it mentions
Lake Bluff, IL: Jupiter Press, c. 1994., so it looks as though that's the one
you have.
But Amazon.com dates it to 1995 (and Jupiter press is in tiny letters, I missed
that the first time I looked).
Brian M. Scott
wrote:
>On Wed, 24 May 2000 08:12:48 GMT, sc...@math.csuohio.edu (Brian M.
>Scott) wrote:
>>On Wed, 24 May 2000 19:05:04 +1200, Eric Stevens <este...@ip.co.nz>
>>wrote:
>>>On Wed, 24 May 2000 04:03:14 GMT, sc...@math.csuohio.edu (Brian M.
>>>Scott) wrote:
>>[...]
>>>>>>>The relevant part of what Knirk actually wrote is:
>>>>>>> "Thus several of the arguments against the genuineness of the runes
>>>>>>> have not been answered, and, applying Hall's own criteria, the
>>>>>>> stone must still be considered a forgery."
>>>>>>Yes: APPLYING HALL'S OWN CRITERIA.
>>>>>You can apply all the capital letters you like but **I insist**
>>>>>HALL HAD NO SUCH CRITERIA.
>>>>Insist all you like. You may even be right, though I certainly
>>>>wouldn't bet on it, given your inability to read a straightforward
>>>>paragraph by Knirk correctly. You're still missing the point, which
>>>>is that it is simply dishonest to blame Knirk without at least
>>>>acknowledging that he thinks that he's applying criteria used by Hall.
>>>He MAY think he's applying criteria applied by Hall, but that is not
>>>what he says.
>>That is exactly what he says: '... applying Hall's own criteria ...'.
>>Your inability to understand those four words is truly bizarre.
>Don't be perverse. Of course I understand them. All along I have been
>saying that he is wrong to claim that he is "applying Hall's own
>criteria" or that if Hall had such criteria they only allowed a
>'genuine' or 'forgery' outcome.
No, that is not what you've been saying. Had it been, I'd have raised
different or no objections, depending on exactly what you said. Most
recently, for instance, you wrote the sentence three paragraphs up
(with 'MAY' in it), which is obviously false.
>>[...]
>>>Knirk has written as though therte are only two states. 'genuine' and
>>>'forgery'.
>>No, he has not. Try again. Pretend that you know absolutely nothing
>>about what is in Hall and take Knirk at his word.
>I did. 'genuine', as per Hall, or 'forgery', as per Knirk. What other
>alternative does Knirk allow? Please explain.
The point is that (on the face of it) it isn't Knirk who's doing the
allowing; it's Hall. Knirk may be misinterpreting Hall in this, but
what he says is in effect that if Hall were to apply his own criteria
to the corrected data, Hall himself would conclude that the KRS is a
forgery. Once again, he may be wrong in this; but it's the obvious
sense of what he wrote.
Brian M. Scott
Steve Marcus
> On Wed, 24 May 2000 05:44:02 -0700, Steve Marcus
> <barbm...@erols.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >Martha or Larry Athy wrote:
> >
> >> Hello Everybody:
> >>
> >> I note that Mr.____ is back from the bar and has joined Doug and his
> >> collaborator, Brian, in the attack on Nielson's work.
> >
> >You are a bit confused, aren't you? It is Knirk, a recognized expert in the
> >field of runeology that is "attacking" Nielsen's work. Doug merely reported
> >that fact. Brian, Eric Stevens and I are discussing it.
> >
> >> We are getting a
> >> lot of relatively meaningless postings from these three characters who
> >> clearly have not read the most recent writings on this subject by
> >> Nielsen, Hall, or Knirk. Isn't pseudo-science wonderful?
> >
> >Have read these works? Have you read Knirk's work?
>
> Stop fudging. Have you read *any* of these works?
>
Eric, for what it's worth, I've not read Nielsen. I read Hall's work years ago, and
remember little of the precise details. I read the review (or a portion of the whole
review if in fact only a portion was posted) posted by Doug.
And I find it disturbing that you are breaking in between Larry Athy and me with this
question. Mr. Athny stated that the "three characters" haven't read the writings in
question. I asked him if he did. You interposing a question for me is bad manners,
at best.
> >
> --- snip ----
>
> >But being an "expert" on the Kensington Rune Stone is not really the issue, is
> >it? The requisite expertise is in runeology, and the language(s) involved
> >(linguistics).
>
> Epigraphy has been suggested as a desirable skill.
Begging your pardon, but is expertise in runeology a requirement or not? If so, who
"owns" it among Nielsen, Hall and Knirk? If not, why not?
>
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> Robert A Hall wrote a paper on this subject in 1980 and books in 1982
> >> and 1995. Although he wrote other papers during that twenty years, it
> >> is clear as to what his primary interest would have been.
> >>
> >
> >>
> >> Richard Nielsen has had papers published on this subject in 1986, 87,
> >> 88, 89, 94, 95 & 98. I have served with him on a board of directors,
> >> and there is no doubt in my mind as to what has been his primary
> >> interest over the last fourteen years.
> >
> >>
> >> I can not find that James P. Knirk has ever written a book or paper on
> >> this subject; however, he has had reviews published in 1996 and 1997.
> >> He may have spent several weeks on this subject, or even several months,
> >> but could not know any more about the details of this stone than my
> >> friend does about the details of "Hamlet", which she has no doubt read
> >> and no doubt has opinions regarding details.
> >>
> >
> >James P. Knirk spent however much time he had to spend to look at the product of
> >Hall-Nielsen and comment that the evidence relied upon them was either wrongly
> >interpreted or absent.
>
> Excellent! Oh so true!!
>
> But, so what?
>
Eric, think before you write. Hall was, and Nielsen is, someone interested in
proving a point re the KRS. They have no reputation in the field to protect, and I'm
sure were satisfied with doing the best job that they are able to do. Knirk has an
enormous reputation in the field, and directs a center for Runic Research. When he
states, in print, that Hall-Nielsen rely on evidence that doesn't support what they
allege that it does, do you think that such a statement is lightly made? That it
carries no weight? That it is more likely to be inaccurate than the statements of
Hall-Nielsen? That it is being made, as Larry would have it, for political reasons?
>
> >Rather than deal with that, you want to discuss how many
> >papers have been written, whether anyone has read them all, and sprinkle in a
> >large dose of ad hominems.
>
> I thought the discussion was about backgrounds. expertise and general
> experience. I don't see evidence of ad hominem unless of course you
> count pointing out that "James P. Knirk has (n)ever written a book or
> paper on this subject" etc as ad hominem.
Re-read Mr. Athy's discription of Brian, Doug and myself.
>
> >
> >And Von Daniken wrote 5 or 6 books on the "Chariots of the Gods" themes. Would
> >an expert in Eygptology, or Mayan art, have to write a book on the subjects
> >encompassed in Von Daniken's works in order to accurately criticize Von
> >Daniken's Egyptian or Mayan "evidence" that "space aliens" built the pyramids
> >and are depicted in Mayan art?
>
> To be taken seriously, yes. Otherwise they would not be
> distinguishable from any other pompous amatuer.
Well sir, you have a strange view of things. I've read reviews of the Von Daniken
books, particularly the first one, and I've read articles about them too. For
example, I recall some written by experts in Egyptology, that simply stated that
Egyptians had ropes, whereas Von Daniken stated that they did not (and hence couldn't
have employed ropes in building the pyramids). Do you think that such statements by
experts weren't taken seriously? Do you think that other experts in the field, and
knowledgeable amateurs, required photos illustrating the ancient Egyptian carvings in
which ropes are clearly illustrated?
<snip a bit>
> >
> >Which specific details have been confirmed as to use in the 14th century, and
> >what is the supporting evidence?
> >
> You will have to read a great deal to get to the bottom of this. I
> recommend starting off with Hall and even the various articles that
> Michael Zalar has posted in this news group.
That's no answer, particularly since I didn't ask you the question. Regarding the
inscription on the KRS, Larry Athy wrote that it employs "...alphabet and/or language
details not used in 1898 and not at that time known to have been used in 1362. Since
some of these details have subsequently been confirmed as to use in the 14th
century...". I'm asking _him_ which such details have been confirmed, and for the
evidence that he bases this statement on. I specifically am not interested in
speculation about the word for "voyage of discovery" or "taking up of land" having
been from a dialect used in one small place in Sweden, or some such, when no other
word on the KRS is alleged to have come from that particular place. Nor am I
interested in hearing that umlauts have been used circa 1362 in other documents, and
then being ignored when I ask whether the useage is the same as appears on the KRS.
Neither does this involve the issue of who actually forged the KRS (if forgery there
was), since its status as a fake (if fake it is) has nothing to do with who created
it (as a review of the Piltdown Man forgery will confirm).
And I'm not interested in hearing that the voyage was one in which Paul Knutson was
commissioned to search for lost Greenlanders (especially since that doesn't appear on
the KRS, but "voyage of discovery" or "taking up of land" is alleged to). I'm
interested in reading about precisely which anachronisms and previously unknown runic
usages appearing on the KRS have now been confirmed as authentic as per Mr. Athy's
post. And again, I'm interested in hearing it from _him_, since _he_ has made the
claim. Then perhaps there will be an opportunity to pose the evidence to an expert
in runeology, who might then satisfy your unquenchable thirst for real evidence.
>
>
> Eric Stevens
<I snipped your sig file; I can't recall whether you objected to that or wanted it
done>
Eric Stevens
Scott) wrote:
>On Wed, 24 May 2000 21:39:35 +1200, Eric Stevens <este...@ip.co.nz>
>wrote:
>
>>On Wed, 24 May 2000 08:12:48 GMT, sc...@math.csuohio.edu (Brian M.
>>Scott) wrote:
>
>>>On Wed, 24 May 2000 19:05:04 +1200, Eric Stevens <este...@ip.co.nz>
>>>wrote:
>
>>>>On Wed, 24 May 2000 04:03:14 GMT, sc...@math.csuohio.edu (Brian M.
>>>>Scott) wrote:
>
>>>[...]
>
>>>>>>>>The relevant part of what Knirk actually wrote is:
>
>>>>>>>> "Thus several of the arguments against the genuineness of the runes
>>>>>>>> have not been answered, and, applying Hall's own criteria, the
>>>>>>>> stone must still be considered a forgery."
>
>>>>>>>Yes: APPLYING HALL'S OWN CRITERIA.
>
>>>>>>You can apply all the capital letters you like but **I insist**
>
>>>>>>HALL HAD NO SUCH CRITERIA.
>
>>>>>Insist all you like. You may even be right, though I certainly
>>>>>wouldn't bet on it, given your inability to read a straightforward
>>>>>paragraph by Knirk correctly. You're still missing the point, which
>>>>>is that it is simply dishonest to blame Knirk without at least
>>>>>acknowledging that he thinks that he's applying criteria used by Hall.
>
>>>>He MAY think he's applying criteria applied by Hall, but that is not
>>>>what he says.
>
>>>That is exactly what he says: '... applying Hall's own criteria ...'.
>>>Your inability to understand those four words is truly bizarre.
>
>>Don't be perverse. Of course I understand them. All along I have been
>>saying that he is wrong to claim that he is "applying Hall's own
>>criteria" or that if Hall had such criteria they only allowed a
>>'genuine' or 'forgery' outcome.
>
>No, that is not what you've been saying. Had it been, I'd have raised
>different or no objections, depending on exactly what you said.
It seems to me that the problem is that from the outset I have writtem
my articles on the basis that there is no basis in Hall for what Knirk
has said. You have read them on the basis that what Kirk has said is
correct and have regarded my writings to the contrary as illogical. We
have both been so wedded to our own points of view that neither has
properly identified that of the other.
My primary objection at the beginning of all this was to the reduction
of the conclusion of the analysis to 'genuine' or 'forgery', and while
I didn't much care whether this was due to Hall or Knirk but, having
read Hall, it was my opinion that it was Knirk. The ground then
shifted to whether that idea was Hall's or Knirk's and you quoted
Knirk as supporting the idea that it was Hall's concept.
At that point I made it clear that I could see nothing in Hall to
justify Knirk implying that his 'forgery' conclusion was based in
Hall.
>Most
>recently, for instance, you wrote the sentence three paragraphs up
>(with 'MAY' in it), which is obviously false.
>
>>>[...]
>
>>>>Knirk has written as though therte are only two states. 'genuine' and
>>>>'forgery'.
>
>>>No, he has not. Try again. Pretend that you know absolutely nothing
>>>about what is in Hall and take Knirk at his word.
>
>>I did. 'genuine', as per Hall, or 'forgery', as per Knirk. What other
>>alternative does Knirk allow? Please explain.
>
>The point is that (on the face of it) it isn't Knirk who's doing the
>allowing; it's Hall. Knirk may be misinterpreting Hall in this, but
>what he says is in effect that if Hall were to apply his own criteria
>to the corrected data, Hall himself would conclude that the KRS is a
>forgery. Once again, he may be wrong in this; but it's the obvious
>sense of what he wrote.
I've already explained that there is nothing in Hall to support such a
conclusion, even though there may be in Knirk.
The matter has now been complicated by Doug Weller telling me that
when I quoted from Hall's 1994 Jupiter publication, the quote from
Knirk that he produced in return was actually in response to something
else Hall wrote which was published by Sapir in 1995 and about the
content of which I have no idea.
It is probably appropriate to stop arguing about a misunderstanding,
now cleared up, based on Doug's monstrous (as in large) non-sequitur.
Eric Stevens
wrote:
>In article <478nisglg3k26rs23...@4ax.com>, este...@ip.co.nz
>says...
>>
>> Doug Weller has advised me by email that Knirk may have been reviewing
>> a publication other than the 1994 Jupiter edition which I own and
>> which I thought was Hall's last word on the subject. Just this may be
>> enough to cause confusions.
>>
>It's of
>Robert A. Hall, Jr. The Kensington Rune-Stone, Authentic
>and Important: A Critical Edition. Edward Sapir Monograph Series in
>Language, Culture, and Cognition 19.
>But in another part of the review, it mentions
>Lake Bluff, IL: Jupiter Press, c. 1994., so it looks as though that's the one
>you have.
>But Amazon.com dates it to 1995 (and Jupiter press is in tiny letters, I missed
>that the first time I looked).
It would be interesting to know what the differences are.
Eric Stevens
<barbm...@erols.com> wrote:
>Eric Stevens wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 24 May 2000 05:44:02 -0700, Steve Marcus
>> <barbm...@erols.com> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >Martha or Larry Athy wrote:
>> >
>> >> Hello Everybody:
>> >>
>> >> I note that Mr.____ is back from the bar and has joined Doug and his
>> >> collaborator, Brian, in the attack on Nielson's work.
>> >
>> >You are a bit confused, aren't you? It is Knirk, a recognized expert in the
>> >field of runeology that is "attacking" Nielsen's work. Doug merely reported
>> >that fact. Brian, Eric Stevens and I are discussing it.
>> >
>> >> We are getting a
>> >> lot of relatively meaningless postings from these three characters who
>> >> clearly have not read the most recent writings on this subject by
>> >> Nielsen, Hall, or Knirk. Isn't pseudo-science wonderful?
>> >
>> >Have read these works? Have you read Knirk's work?
>>
>> Stop fudging. Have you read *any* of these works?
>>
>
>Eric, for what it's worth, I've not read Nielsen. I read Hall's work years ago, and
>remember little of the precise details. I read the review (or a portion of the whole
>review if in fact only a portion was posted) posted by Doug.
The next question is, how long ago did you read Hall. This is relevent
as it will help determine which of Hall's books you may have read.
>
>And I find it disturbing that you are breaking in between Larry Athy and me with this
>question. Mr. Athny stated that the "three characters" haven't read the writings in
>question. I asked him if he did. You interposing a question for me is bad manners,
>at best.
May I suggest that if you want a private discussion you should use
email. Otherwise this is an open news group. My question was relevant,
particularly when I suspected it contained an element of bluff.
>> >
>> --- snip ----
>>
>> >But being an "expert" on the Kensington Rune Stone is not really the issue, is
>> >it? The requisite expertise is in runeology, and the language(s) involved
>> >(linguistics).
>>
>> Epigraphy has been suggested as a desirable skill.
>
>Begging your pardon, but is expertise in runeology a requirement or not? If so, who
>"owns" it among Nielsen, Hall and Knirk? If not, why not?
What on earth makes you think that these various skills are mutually
exclusive? They all have a part to play.
>
>>
>> >
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Robert A Hall wrote a paper on this subject in 1980 and books in 1982
>> >> and 1995. Although he wrote other papers during that twenty years, it
>> >> is clear as to what his primary interest would have been.
>> >>
>> >
>> >>
>> >> Richard Nielsen has had papers published on this subject in 1986, 87,
>> >> 88, 89, 94, 95 & 98. I have served with him on a board of directors,
>> >> and there is no doubt in my mind as to what has been his primary
>> >> interest over the last fourteen years.
>> >
>> >>
>> >> I can not find that James P. Knirk has ever written a book or paper on
>> >> this subject; however, he has had reviews published in 1996 and 1997.
>> >> He may have spent several weeks on this subject, or even several months,
>> >> but could not know any more about the details of this stone than my
>> >> friend does about the details of "Hamlet", which she has no doubt read
>> >> and no doubt has opinions regarding details.
>> >>
>> >
>> >James P. Knirk spent however much time he had to spend to look at the product of
>> >Hall-Nielsen and comment that the evidence relied upon them was either wrongly
>> >interpreted or absent.
>>
>> Excellent! Oh so true!!
>>
>> But, so what?
>>
>
>Eric, think before you write. Hall was, and Nielsen is, someone interested in
>proving a point re the KRS.
You are flailing around trying to score debating points in a subject
about which you know little. If you go back to the original article to
which I responded by interspersing the "Excellent! Oh so true!!"
sentence, you will see you were leading in the direction of a debate
using Von Daniken as an example. At least, now, you are getting back
to the point.
>They have no reputation in the field to protect,
That's a rather extraordinary statement with no basis.
>and I'm sure were satisfied with doing the best job that they are able to do.
And that is very condescending.
>Knirk has an
>enormous reputation in the field, and directs a center for Runic Research. When he
>states, in print, that Hall-Nielsen rely on evidence that doesn't support what they
>allege that it does, do you think that such a statement is lightly made? That it
>carries no weight? That it is more likely to be inaccurate than the statements of
>Hall-Nielsen? That it is being made, as Larry would have it, for political reasons?
Any of these are possible. I can have no opinion until I see the
evidence. But then, would you expect a professor of Classics from
Cornell who has spent one third of his life studying the KRS and
related matters to be ine error either? My conclusion is that there is
a problem which can only be resolved by seeing Hall's and Nielsen's
evidence for an X rune and then hearing Knirk's argument against them.
In that context I have come across the following URL
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:hum.gu.se/arkiv/ONN/1997/ONN.05/0679.html+james+knirk+&hl=en
which suggests Knirk is collecting examples of X runes. Unfortunately
all the links seem to have expired.
>
>>
>> >Rather than deal with that, you want to discuss how many
>> >papers have been written, whether anyone has read them all, and sprinkle in a
>> >large dose of ad hominems.
>>
>> I thought the discussion was about backgrounds. expertise and general
>> experience. I don't see evidence of ad hominem unless of course you
>> count pointing out that "James P. Knirk has (n)ever written a book or
>> paper on this subject" etc as ad hominem.
>
>Re-read Mr. Athy's discription of Brian, Doug and myself.
Would you mind quoting? I can't quite work out what he has said which
is an 'ad hominem'.
>
>>
>> >
>> >And Von Daniken wrote 5 or 6 books on the "Chariots of the Gods" themes. Would
>> >an expert in Eygptology, or Mayan art, have to write a book on the subjects
>> >encompassed in Von Daniken's works in order to accurately criticize Von
>> >Daniken's Egyptian or Mayan "evidence" that "space aliens" built the pyramids
>> >and are depicted in Mayan art?
>>
>> To be taken seriously, yes. Otherwise they would not be
>> distinguishable from any other pompous amatuer.
>
>Well sir, you have a strange view of things. I've read reviews of the Von Daniken
>books, particularly the first one, and I've read articles about them too. For
>example, I recall some written by experts in Egyptology, that simply stated that
>Egyptians had ropes, whereas Von Daniken stated that they did not (and hence couldn't
>have employed ropes in building the pyramids). Do you think that such statements by
>experts weren't taken seriously? Do you think that other experts in the field, and
>knowledgeable amateurs, required photos illustrating the ancient Egyptian carvings in
>which ropes are clearly illustrated?
You surely are not suggesting that either Hall or Nielsen are in the
same category as Von Daniken?
>
><snip a bit>
>
>> >
>> >Which specific details have been confirmed as to use in the 14th century, and
>> >what is the supporting evidence?
>> >
>> You will have to read a great deal to get to the bottom of this. I
>> recommend starting off with Hall and even the various articles that
>> Michael Zalar has posted in this news group.
>
>That's no answer, particularly since I didn't ask you the question.
That is my honest answer. You won't learn anything worth a damn by
going round asking questions as though you were trying to trip up
opposing witnesses in the witness box.
>Regarding the
>inscription on the KRS, Larry Athy wrote that it employs "...alphabet and/or language
>details not used in 1898 and not at that time known to have been used in 1362. Since
>some of these details have subsequently been confirmed as to use in the 14th
>century...". I'm asking _him_ which such details have been confirmed, and for the
>evidence that he bases this statement on. I specifically am not interested in
>speculation about the word for "voyage of discovery" or "taking up of land" having
>been from a dialect used in one small place in Sweden, or some such, when no other
>word on the KRS is alleged to have come from that particular place.
But how can you know that last?
>Nor am I
>interested in hearing that umlauts have been used circa 1362 in other documents, and
>then being ignored when I ask whether the useage is the same as appears on the KRS.
Examplse have already been quoted in this news group. I've even given
a URL which leads to an illustration.
>Neither does this involve the issue of who actually forged the KRS (if forgery there
>was), since its status as a fake (if fake it is) has nothing to do with who created
>it (as a review of the Piltdown Man forgery will confirm).
>
>And I'm not interested in hearing that the voyage was one in which Paul Knutson was
>commissioned to search for lost Greenlanders (especially since that doesn't appear on
>the KRS, but "voyage of discovery" or "taking up of land" is alleged to). I'm
>interested in reading about precisely which anachronisms and previously unknown runic
>usages appearing on the KRS have now been confirmed as authentic as per Mr. Athy's
>post. And again, I'm interested in hearing it from _him_, since _he_ has made the
>claim. Then perhaps there will be an opportunity to pose the evidence to an expert
>in runeology, who might then satisfy your unquenchable thirst for real evidence.
I suggest you relax. I've already established which runes are in the
disputed category and why, and I'm already well on the way to
establishing the multitudinous and conflicting views of the many
experts.
Brian M. Scott
wrote:
>On Wed, 24 May 2000 19:09:45 GMT, sc...@math.csuohio.edu (Brian M.
>Scott) wrote:
>
>>On Wed, 24 May 2000 21:39:35 +1200, Eric Stevens <este...@ip.co.nz>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>On Wed, 24 May 2000 08:12:48 GMT, sc...@math.csuohio.edu (Brian M.
>>>Scott) wrote:
>>
>>>>On Wed, 24 May 2000 19:05:04 +1200, Eric Stevens <este...@ip.co.nz>
>>>>wrote:
>>
>>>>>On Wed, 24 May 2000 04:03:14 GMT, sc...@math.csuohio.edu (Brian M.
>>>>>Scott) wrote:
>>
>>>>[...]
>>
>>>>>>>>>The relevant part of what Knirk actually wrote is:
>>
>>>>>>>>> "Thus several of the arguments against the genuineness of the runes
>>>>>>>>> have not been answered, and, applying Hall's own criteria, the
>>>>>>>>> stone must still be considered a forgery."
>>
>>>>>>>>Yes: APPLYING HALL'S OWN CRITERIA.
>>
>>>>>>>You can apply all the capital letters you like but **I insist**
>>
>>>>>>>HALL HAD NO SUCH CRITERIA.
>>
>>>>>>Insist all you like. You may even be right, though I certainly
>>>>>>wouldn't bet on it, given your inability to read a straightforward
>>>>>>paragraph by Knirk correctly. You're still missing the point, which
>>>>>>is that it is simply dishonest to blame Knirk without at least
>>>>>>acknowledging that he thinks that he's applying criteria used by Hall.
>>
>>>>>He MAY think he's applying criteria applied by Hall, but that is not
>>>>>what he says.
>>
>>>>That is exactly what he says: '... applying Hall's own criteria ...'.
>>>>Your inability to understand those four words is truly bizarre.
>>
>>>Don't be perverse. Of course I understand them. All along I have been
>>>saying that he is wrong to claim that he is "applying Hall's own
>>>criteria" or that if Hall had such criteria they only allowed a
>>>'genuine' or 'forgery' outcome.
>>
>>No, that is not what you've been saying. Had it been, I'd have raised
>>different or no objections, depending on exactly what you said.
>
>It seems to me that the problem is that from the outset I have writtem
>my articles on the basis that there is no basis in Hall for what Knirk
>has said. You have read them on the basis that what Kirk has said is
>correct and have regarded my writings to the contrary as illogical. We
>have both been so wedded to our own points of view that neither has
>properly identified that of the other.
No. While *I* have said repeatedly that Knirk may be wrong, *you*
have for the most part not even acknowledged that he claims to be
applying Hall's criteria.
>My primary objection at the beginning of all this was to the reduction
>of the conclusion of the analysis to 'genuine' or 'forgery', and while
>I didn't much care whether this was due to Hall or Knirk but, having
>read Hall, it was my opinion that it was Knirk.
And you fought to the bitter end against recognizing that one cannot
legitimately draw such a conclusion from the extract quoted here. It
is entirely consistent with that quotation that Knirk does not himself
believe that such a reduction is appropriate and is merely giving us
the view to which he thinks Hall's own arguments would have committed
Hall if Hall had had better evidence.
> The ground then
>shifted to whether that idea was Hall's or Knirk's and you quoted
>Knirk as supporting the idea that it was Hall's concept.
It's clear that Knirk thinks so.
>At that point I made it clear that I could see nothing in Hall to
>justify Knirk implying that his 'forgery' conclusion was based in
>Hall.
Which is fine. It is the misrepresentation of Knirk to which I
object.
>>Most
>>recently, for instance, you wrote the sentence three paragraphs up
>>(with 'MAY' in it), which is obviously false.
>>
>>>>[...]
>>
>>>>>Knirk has written as though therte are only two states. 'genuine' and
>>>>>'forgery'.
>>
>>>>No, he has not. Try again. Pretend that you know absolutely nothing
>>>>about what is in Hall and take Knirk at his word.
>>
>>>I did. 'genuine', as per Hall, or 'forgery', as per Knirk. What other
>>>alternative does Knirk allow? Please explain.
>>
>>The point is that (on the face of it) it isn't Knirk who's doing the
>>allowing; it's Hall. Knirk may be misinterpreting Hall in this, but
>>what he says is in effect that if Hall were to apply his own criteria
>>to the corrected data, Hall himself would conclude that the KRS is a
>>forgery. Once again, he may be wrong in this; but it's the obvious
>>sense of what he wrote.
>I've already explained that there is nothing in Hall to support such a
>conclusion, even though there may be in Knirk.
No, you've explained to me that you don't find anything in Hall to
support such a conclusion. I believe you, but I definitely can't
accept that as the same thing. More important, it's irrelevant.
Whether Knirk is right or not, you've still been misrepresenting him.
There is an enormous difference between the quotation at the top and
the following statement:
Thus, several of the arguments against the
genuineness of the runes have not been answered,
and therefore the stone clearly must still be
considered a forgery.
[...]
Brian M. Scott
Eric Stevens
Scott) wrote:
--- snip ----
>>It seems to me that the problem is that from the outset I have writtem
>>my articles on the basis that there is no basis in Hall for what Knirk
>>has said. You have read them on the basis that what Kirk has said is
>>correct and have regarded my writings to the contrary as illogical. We
>>have both been so wedded to our own points of view that neither has
>>properly identified that of the other.
>
>No. While *I* have said repeatedly that Knirk may be wrong, *you*
>have for the most part not even acknowledged that he claims to be
>applying Hall's criteria.
Then why do you think I have been saying that he is wrong to attribute
any part of that analysis to Hall?
>
>>My primary objection at the beginning of all this was to the reduction
>>of the conclusion of the analysis to 'genuine' or 'forgery', and while
>>I didn't much care whether this was due to Hall or Knirk but, having
>>read Hall, it was my opinion that it was Knirk.
>
>And you fought to the bitter end against recognizing that one cannot
>legitimately draw such a conclusion from the extract quoted here.
You can if you have read Hall.
>It
>is entirely consistent with that quotation that Knirk does not himself
>believe that such a reduction is appropriate ...
Please point me to the basis of that new claim.
> ... and is merely giving us
>the view to which he thinks Hall's own arguments would have committed
>Hall if Hall had had better evidence.
"... is merely giving us the view to which he SAYS Hall's own
arguments would have committed Hall if Hall had had better evidence" -
and if Hall had written anything which would support that view.
>
>> The ground then
>>shifted to whether that idea was Hall's or Knirk's and you quoted
>>Knirk as supporting the idea that it was Hall's concept.
>
>It's clear that Knirk thinks so.
Its clear that Knirk SAYS so. What Knirk actually thinks is another
matter.
>
>>At that point I made it clear that I could see nothing in Hall to
>>justify Knirk implying that his 'forgery' conclusion was based in
>>Hall.
>
>Which is fine. It is the misrepresentation of Knirk to which I
>object.
Which is fine. It is the misrepresentation of Hall to which I
object. In any case, I have never tried to deny that Knirk has said
what you say he has said. I have always said he is wrong in both fact
and logic. Hall never gave Knirk any basis to write what he did in
this respect and no matter the inspiration, reducing the matter to a
genuine/forgery dichotomy is logically wrong.
This is where we came in.
Please explain why it **MUST** be considered a forgery.
Nubkhas
http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start=1&q=http://minneapolis.about.com/libr
ary/weekly/aa121499a.htm&e=212
This is about the mystery novel "Sherlock Holmes and the Runestone Mystery" by
Larry Millet. I haven't read it, but I intend to. Larry is a Twin Cities
historian. I'm sure his book will be well-researched and will bring all the
opposing elements of the KRS into play.
Doug Weller
says...[SNIP]
> >it? The requisite expertise is in runeology, and the language(s) involved
> >(linguistics).
>
I'm not sure what you're saying here. Epigraphy is the study of inscriptions,
and runeology must involve a lot of studying of inscriptions, right?
[SNIP]
Doug Weller
> Eric, for what it's worth, I've not read Nielsen. I read Hall's work years ago, and
> remember little of the precise details. I read the review (or a portion of the whole
> review if in fact only a portion was posted) posted by Doug.
>
won't post the whole thing as it's copyright.
Doug Weller
says...
> The matter has now been complicated by Doug Weller telling me that
> when I quoted from Hall's 1994 Jupiter publication, the quote from
> Knirk that he produced in return was actually in response to something
> else Hall wrote which was published by Sapir in 1995 and about the
> content of which I have no idea.
>
> It is probably appropriate to stop arguing about a misunderstanding,
> now cleared up, based on Doug's monstrous (as in large) non-sequitur.
>
>
that there is any basic difference. Does yours not say Edward Sapir Monograph
Series in Language, Culture, and Cognition 19. WHy would
Jupiter publish 2 versions?
I don't think we are talking about 2 very different documents, at most, if there
is any difference, it is additional material in one. But Knirk reviewed a 1994
edition of Hall, and you have a 1994 edition of Hall, so I assumed it was the
same.
Sawfish
>On Thu, 25 May 2000 05:35:13 GMT, sc...@math.csuohio.edu (Brian M.
>Scott) wrote:
<HUGE SNIP>
>>
>>>I've already explained that there is nothing in Hall to support such a
>>>conclusion, even though there may be in Knirk.
>>
>>No, you've explained to me that you don't find anything in Hall to
>>support such a conclusion. I believe you, but I definitely can't
>>accept that as the same thing. More important, it's irrelevant.
>>Whether Knirk is right or not, you've still been misrepresenting him.
>>There is an enormous difference between the quotation at the top and
>>the following statement:
>>
>> Thus, several of the arguments against the
>> genuineness of the runes have not been answered,
>> and therefore the stone clearly must still be
>> considered a forgery.
>This is where we came in.
>Please explain why it **MUST** be considered a forgery.
Having been a self-flagellant in a previous life, I've followed this
seemingly endless loop fairly closely. A couple of exchanges past I
thought I got an inkling of what your objection is. Could it be this?
Hall states criteria for genuiness only.
YOU TAKE THIS TO MEAN, LTERALLY, THAT HALL SUPPORTS ONLY AN EXPLICIT
CONCLUSION OF "GENUINE" AND AN IMPLICIT CONCLUSION OF "NOT GENUINE."
"NOT GENUINE" MIGHT INCLUDE FORGED, MISPLACED BY LEGITIMATE OWNER, PLANTED
BY A CAPRICIOUS DEITY--ANY OF A NUMBER OF CONCLUSIONS OTHER THAN
"GENUINE."
When Knirk states that if Hall's criteria for "genuine" are not met, this
means definitively that the KRS is forged, you object to it on at least
two principal grounds:
1) Knirk is inaccurate in assuming that "not genuine" must mean
forged; and
2) Knirk is dishonestly (or sloppily) implying that Hall admits
that "forged" is the only alternative to "not genuine."
You and Brian are disagreeing over this issue because Brian will admit
into the discussion a priori that "not genuine" means "forged," and that
this would/should be jake with Hall, were he alive today. You won't.
Is this anything like what is going on in this pedantic knife-fight in a
dark closet, between two well-greased and naked adversaries?
:^)
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sawfish: He talks the talk...but does he walk the walk?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Brian M. Scott
wrote:
>On Thu, 25 May 2000 05:35:13 GMT, sc...@math.csuohio.edu (Brian M.
>Scott) wrote:
>>>It seems to me that the problem is that from the outset I have writtem
>>>my articles on the basis that there is no basis in Hall for what Knirk
>>>has said. You have read them on the basis that what Kirk has said is
>>>correct and have regarded my writings to the contrary as illogical. We
>>>have both been so wedded to our own points of view that neither has
>>>properly identified that of the other.
>>No. While *I* have said repeatedly that Knirk may be wrong, *you*
>>have for the most part not even acknowledged that he claims to be
>>applying Hall's criteria.
>Then why do you think I have been saying that he is wrong to attribute
>any part of that analysis to Hall?
You began by saying that it was Knirk's analysis. You did not
acknowledge in any way that according to K. it was the result of
applying Hall's own principles to better data than Hall had. As I
recall it took several exchanges to get you to admit that K. might
have thought that he was basing his analysis on H's methodological
principles, despite the fact that he very plainly says that he's doing
just that.
>>>My primary objection at the beginning of all this was to the reduction
>>>of the conclusion of the analysis to 'genuine' or 'forgery', and while
>>>I didn't much care whether this was due to Hall or Knirk but, having
>>>read Hall, it was my opinion that it was Knirk.
>>And you fought to the bitter end against recognizing that one cannot
>>legitimately draw such a conclusion from the extract quoted here.
>You can if you have read Hall.
Maybe. You may be right, but you're not very good at reading between
the lines. I may get sufficiently fed up to track down the damn'
thing and read it myself.
>>It
>>is entirely consistent with that quotation that Knirk does not himself
>>believe that such a reduction is appropriate ...
>Please point me to the basis of that new claim.
Simple logic and the ability to read English.
>> ... and is merely giving us
>>the view to which he thinks Hall's own arguments would have committed
>>Hall if Hall had had better evidence.
>"... is merely giving us the view to which he SAYS Hall's own
>arguments would have committed Hall if Hall had had better evidence" -
>and if Hall had written anything which would support that view.
So you're gratuitously assuming that K. is dishonest? How Yuri-like.
>>> The ground then
>>>shifted to whether that idea was Hall's or Knirk's and you quoted
>>>Knirk as supporting the idea that it was Hall's concept.
>>It's clear that Knirk thinks so.
>Its clear that Knirk SAYS so. What Knirk actually thinks is another
>matter.
See above.
>>>At that point I made it clear that I could see nothing in Hall to
>>>justify Knirk implying that his 'forgery' conclusion was based in
>>>Hall.
>>Which is fine. It is the misrepresentation of Knirk to which I
>>object.
>Which is fine. It is the misrepresentation of Hall to which I
>object.
That's not sufficient reason to misrepresent K.
> In any case, I have never tried to deny that Knirk has said
>what you say he has said. I have always said he is wrong in both fact
>and logic.
You've misrepresented (probably through misunderstanding) the tone of
his paper. You've tried your damnedest to make it sound as if K. were
deliberately and consciously imposing his views on H. I suspect that
you still don't understand what you're doing wrong (and I mean that in
both senses).
[...]
>>No, you've explained to me that you don't find anything in Hall to
>>support such a conclusion. I believe you, but I definitely can't
>>accept that as the same thing. More important, it's irrelevant.
>>Whether Knirk is right or not, you've still been misrepresenting him.
>>There is an enormous difference between the quotation at the top and
>>the following statement:
>> Thus, several of the arguments against the
>> genuineness of the runes have not been answered,
>> and therefore the stone clearly must still be
>> considered a forgery.
>This is where we came in.
>Please explain why it **MUST** be considered a forgery.
I didn't say that it must. You completely missed the point, which is
that you're acting as if K. had made the indented statement above,
when in fact he made a very different one.
Brian M. Scott
Martha or Larry Athy
It is of note that on the 24th Mr.____ returned from the bar long enough
to give us more of his expertise regarding the Kensington Rune Stone
(KRS). We are no doubt impressed by his admission that he has not read
Nielsen, remembers little of what he had read of Hall's work, and that
he has read only the portions of the review as were posted by Doug. That
he knows not about which he writes is understandable, since he has spent
the last 20 years at the bar.
Mr.____ claims to have asked me if I had read the writings in question.
Since I am not sure what he considers to be the writings in question on
a subject about which he knows nothing, I will give a general outline of
my background in the matter. Between 1989 and 1998, six of my papers on
the Ogam alphabet of the Celts were published. The Ogam alphabet may
well be formative for the Runes, a subject still open to debate. During
that time I followed Nielson's work, had lunch with him several times,
read a number of opinions regarding the KRS, but never got into the
details myself. The scope of my work on Ogam was limited, but not nearly
so limited as to be only on one inscription.
Our runic specialist at the bar asked "--but is expertise in runeology a
requirement or not? ------ If not, why not?" Fair enough!!
As I had explained previously, it is not necessary to be an expert in
runeology to be an expert on a specific runic inscription such as the
KRS. One can simply spend considerable time on the applicable time
frame. specific symbols, and specific language. An expert on growing
apples need not be an expert on growing oranges or any other fruit.
I checked yesterday with my English language and literature expert, who
confirms that she would be qualified to advise and criticise a paper on
Hamlet, but could not consider herself as an expert on Hamlet at any
where near the same level as she would consider a person who had spent
years on that subject alone.
"--Hall was, and Nielsen is, someone interested in proving a point re
the KRS." Well how interesting, are we to assume that Knirk is not
trying to prove a point??
Why in the world would Knirk's reputation be as stake in this matter? He
is taking a politically correct position and would only be at risk if he
agreed with Hall and Nielson, which could be the case if he were free to
speak freely. Everyone but politicoarchies should realize that he has
only offered criticism and advice that have been of great value to Hall
and Nielson. We should remember that the burden of proof in forgery lies
with he who shouts forgry. My signature is assumed to be genuine unless
proven otherwise, etc.
Why in the world does Mr.____ bring Von Daniken into this or any other
scientific subject. To do such a thing normally indicates the last gasps
of the archy. Von Daniken was no more or less than a popular author who
got his kicks by spoofing the establishment and counting his money on
the way to the bank. It is unfortunate that he sometimes made more sence
than do the politicoarchies.
Mr.____ used the last third of his message to explain to us what he is
not interested in hearing. Perhaps we are not interested in hearing of
what he is not interested in hearing. It appears that he has never been
interested in hearing the truth. Thus he would not be interested in
hearing what Nielsen, Hall, and Knirk said in ESOP , Vol. 23, 1998.
Since he clearly knows nothing about this subject, that would be a good
place for him to start.
I'm still interested in an opinion as to why anyone would go to the
trouble of carving an inscription on a stone (probably about 1820 since
it was found in 1898 under the roots of an 80 year old tree), burying
it, leaving this world, and never benefiting in terms of money or
reputation. Any explanations?
Regards, Larry Athy, P.E.
Brian M. Scott
or Larry Athy) wrote:
[...]
>I'm still interested in an opinion as to why anyone would go to the
>trouble of carving an inscription on a stone (probably about 1820 since
>it was found in 1898 under the roots of an 80 year old tree), burying
>it, leaving this world, and never benefiting in terms of money or
>reputation. Any explanations?
Piltdown Man.
Brian M. Scott
Brian M. Scott
or Larry Athy) wrote:
[...]
>As I had explained previously, it is not necessary to be an expert in
>runeology to be an expert on a specific runic inscription such as the
>KRS. One can simply spend considerable time on the applicable time
>frame. specific symbols, and specific language.
One will still need considerable background in runes and Scandinavian
linguistics generally.
> An expert on growing
>apples need not be an expert on growing oranges or any other fruit.
Your analogy is faulty -- apples and oranges, as it were.
>I checked yesterday with my English language and literature expert, who
>confirms that she would be qualified to advise and criticise a paper on
>Hamlet, but could not consider herself as an expert on Hamlet at any
>where near the same level as she would consider a person who had spent
>years on that subject alone.
So? By analogy Hall was qualified to advise and criticize.
[...]
>Why in the world would Knirk's reputation be as stake in this matter? He
>is taking a politically correct position and would only be at risk if he
>agreed with Hall and Nielson, which could be the case if he were free to
>speak freely.
Oh, you're another one of *those* idiots. Never mind.
[...]
Brian M. Scott
Buzzygirl (Jackie)
most likely still quite alive when the hoax was uncovered, IIRC from my
paleanthro studies.
Jackie
Brian M. Scott wrote in message <392db2f5...@nntp.stratos.net>...
>On Thu, 25 May 2000 17:17:25 -0500 (CDT), marth...@webtv.net (Martha
>or Larry Athy) wrote:
>
>
>[...]
>
Eric Stevens
wrote:
>In article <tsvoissd7fomtbikr...@4ax.com>, este...@ip.co.nz
>says...
>> The matter has now been complicated by Doug Weller telling me that
>> when I quoted from Hall's 1994 Jupiter publication, the quote from
>> Knirk that he produced in return was actually in response to something
>> else Hall wrote which was published by Sapir in 1995 and about the
>> content of which I have no idea.
>>
>> It is probably appropriate to stop arguing about a misunderstanding,
>> now cleared up, based on Doug's monstrous (as in large) non-sequitur.
>>
>>
>As I said, it is a Sapir monograph, but published by Jupiter. I'm not convinced
>that there is any basic difference. Does yours not say Edward Sapir Monograph
>Series in Language, Culture, and Cognition 19. WHy would
>Jupiter publish 2 versions?
Now we are getting somewhere. Mine does say "Edward Sapir Monograph
Series in Language, Culture, and Cognition" but in small print on only
one page. In large letters it is stated as being printed by "Jupiter
Press 1994" and that date, along with the name "Jupiter Press" is
repeated in a number of places. The situation seems to be the reverse
of your statement that it is the "Jupiter press (that) is in tiny
letters". Like you, I missed something, but several times round, and
in my case it was the 'Sapir'. I was also mislead by your reference to
the date 1995 when mine quite clearly (and in some cases
conspicuously) says 1994 in several places.
>
>I don't think we are talking about 2 very different documents, at most, if there
>is any difference, it is additional material in one. But Knirk reviewed a 1994
>edition of Hall, and you have a 1994 edition of Hall, so I assumed it was the
>same.
It seems likely that the book that Knirk reviewed is a reprint of the
one that I have. Do you have or can you point me to Knirk's full
review?
Eric Stevens
wrote:
>In article <pseniso4i2m57f16j...@4ax.com>, este...@ip.co.nz
>says...
>> On Wed, 24 May 2000 05:44:02 -0700, Steve Marcus
>> <barbm...@erols.com> wrote:
>>
>> >
>[SNIP]
>> >But being an "expert" on the Kensington Rune Stone is not really the issue, is
>> >it? The requisite expertise is in runeology, and the language(s) involved
>> >(linguistics).
>>
>> Epigraphy has been suggested as a desirable skill.
>
>I'm not sure what you're saying here. Epigraphy is the study of inscriptions,
>and runeology must involve a lot of studying of inscriptions, right?
True, but not all runes were inscribed. There are examples of
documents employing written runes.
Changing the subject slightly, there also seem to be examples of
documents using a mixture of both runes and the old (various) norse
alphabets. It would not surprise me to find a similar inscribed
mixture of runes and alphabetic characters as indeed is the case with
the KRS.
Eric Stevens
>>Please explain why it **MUST** be considered a forgery.
>
>Having been a self-flagellant in a previous life, I've followed this
>seemingly endless loop fairly closely. A couple of exchanges past I
>thought I got an inkling of what your objection is. Could it be this?
>
>Hall states criteria for genuiness only.
>
>YOU TAKE THIS TO MEAN, LTERALLY, THAT HALL SUPPORTS ONLY AN EXPLICIT
>CONCLUSION OF "GENUINE" AND AN IMPLICIT CONCLUSION OF "NOT GENUINE."
There are two problems in that statement as I see it.
First, I do not believe the limited choice of 'genuine' or 'forgery'
is logically defensible. The second is the root of the perpetual
circling. I do not believe there is anything in Hall to justify the
claim that this limited choice is based on Hall's own criteria. I was
more concerned with the first but Brian has shifted it to the second.
>
>"NOT GENUINE" MIGHT INCLUDE FORGED, MISPLACED BY LEGITIMATE OWNER, PLANTED
>BY A CAPRICIOUS DEITY--ANY OF A NUMBER OF CONCLUSIONS OTHER THAN
>"GENUINE."
>
>When Knirk states that if Hall's criteria for "genuine" are not met, this
>means definitively that the KRS is forged, you object to it on at least
>two principal grounds:
>
> 1) Knirk is inaccurate in assuming that "not genuine" must mean
>forged; and
Knirk is illogical ...
>
> 2) Knirk is dishonestly (or sloppily) implying that Hall admits
>that "forged" is the only alternative to "not genuine."
Knirk is dishonestly (or sloppily) implying that Hall gives any basis
for limiting the choice to "forged" or "genuine" or making that choice
if such a limited choice exists.
>
>You and Brian are disagreeing over this issue because Brian will admit
>into the discussion a priori that "not genuine" means "forged," and that
>this would/should be jake with Hall, were he alive today. You won't.
>
>Is this anything like what is going on in this pedantic knife-fight in a
>dark closet, between two well-greased and naked adversaries?
The problem is that it is possible to prove that something "isn't" in
only very limited circumstances. You can only do this if you can show
that you have all the information. You can safely claim that there is
no bald mouse sitting on a square on a chess board if you have the
chess board in front of you for full and complete inspection. That
admits a simple 'yes' or 'no', 'true' or false' answer.
However, you cannot properly claim that there is no bald mouse sitting
on a chess board anywhere unless you have all chess boards (or all
bald mice) available for your inspection. In the real world this is
not possible so the best that you can say is that while there are no
bald mice sitting on chess boards within your range of vision, you
can't speak for the rest of the world. In other words, you "don't
know".
This is the situation of the KRS. You cannot conclude that it is a
forgery unless you have conclusive evidence that it was forged. Mere
suspicion is not enough.
You can apply much the same argument to the conclusion that it is
genuine. You can only propose that it is genuine and then subject the
notion to every critical examination and test you can think of. Only
if it survives every examination and test that you throw at it can you
continue to claim that it is genuine.
The KRS is not in a situation where it is possible to claim that it
has survived every examination and test to which it has been
subjected. Certainly there seems to be an answer to every criticism
but whether or not the answer properly meets the criticism is in
dispute in a number of cases. The outcome therefore has yet to be
fully resolved so it is not yet possible to say that the KRS is
genuine. Here to, there remains a significant body of "don't know".
For this reason I believe that it is entirely inappropriate to reduce
the outcone to 'genuine' or 'forged'. As you say, there may be other
alternatives to 'forged' in the event that the KRS turns out to be
"not genuine", but that was not my point. My concern was the apparent
desire of Knirk to rush to a (final) judgement of "forged" as the only
alternative to "genuine". My point is that we just "don't know"
(although my sneaking suspicion is that it is slowly moving towards
"genuine").
Eric Stevens
Scott) wrote:
>On Thu, 25 May 2000 22:31:29 +1200, Eric Stevens <este...@ip.co.nz>
>wrote:
>
>>On Thu, 25 May 2000 05:35:13 GMT, sc...@math.csuohio.edu (Brian M.
>>Scott) wrote:
>
>>>>It seems to me that the problem is that from the outset I have writtem
>>>>my articles on the basis that there is no basis in Hall for what Knirk
>>>>has said. You have read them on the basis that what Kirk has said is
>>>>correct and have regarded my writings to the contrary as illogical. We
>>>>have both been so wedded to our own points of view that neither has
>>>>properly identified that of the other.
>
>>>No. While *I* have said repeatedly that Knirk may be wrong, *you*
>>>have for the most part not even acknowledged that he claims to be
>>>applying Hall's criteria.
>
>>Then why do you think I have been saying that he is wrong to attribute
>>any part of that analysis to Hall?
>
>You began by saying that it was Knirk's analysis. You did not
>acknowledge in any way that according to K. it was the result of
>applying Hall's own principles to better data than Hall had. As I
>recall it took several exchanges to get you to admit that K. might
>have thought that he was basing his analysis on H's methodological
>principles, despite the fact that he very plainly says that he's doing
>just that.
That last fact was so obvious - as you say Knirk had written to that
effect - that I took it as a given. It was also obvious that when I
wrote "In any case James Knirk is on logically shaky ground when he
writes as though there are only two verdicts for the provenance of the
KRS -'authentic' or a 'forgery'" I was again referring to something
written by Knirk.
When you pointed out of Knirk that "He says that he's applying Hall's
criteria" I further responded by saying "He is applying Hall's
criteria to a decision making process in which there are only two
outcomes - true or false. Apart from the fact that this is Knirk's own
analysis, I don't think Hall would have limited himself to just these
two". I later wrote "... I have read Hall. The entire work is devoted
to explaining why Hall thinks the KRS is genuine and important. he
says nothing about whether the alternative view should reconise the
possibility of "don't know". That ('genuine'/'forgery') is entirely a
construct of Knirk and I think it is unwarranted".
--- snip ----
Eric Stevens
Scott) wrote:
>On Thu, 25 May 2000 17:17:25 -0500 (CDT), marth...@webtv.net (Martha
>or Larry Athy) wrote:
>
>
>[...]
>
>>I'm still interested in an opinion as to why anyone would go to the
>>trouble of carving an inscription on a stone (probably about 1820 since
>>it was found in 1898 under the roots of an 80 year old tree), burying
>>it, leaving this world, and never benefiting in terms of money or
>>reputation. Any explanations?
>
>Piltdown Man.
>
Given that the perpetrator may have obtained some pleasure at the
thought of being able to laugh at us while sitting on a cloud
strumming his harp, the next question is 'how likely is it that there
was suitably qualified forger in the district at the time the forgery
must have occurred'?
Alternatively, who is likely to have gone into the area, found a lump
of suitable greywacke, packed it out (no roads remember) to a suitable
expert at a fledgling university, had the stone inscribed, and then
packed it back in again for burial followed by a tree planting
ceremony?
Alternatively, did someone have the idea, concoct a suitable text with
the aid of an expert, make their way into a tree covered wilderness,
find a suitable slab of stone, carve it, then bury it (with tree
planting) and make their way out again?
The thing about the Piltdown hoax was that the hoaxer could enjoy the
joke during his own lifetime. It seems most unlikely that a hoaxer
would engage in any of the above activities for the sake of a joke
which might never materialise and even if it did almost certainly
after he was dead. I don't think a Piltdown motive can apply.
Eric Stevens
Scott) wrote:
--- snip ----
>One will still need considerable background in runes and Scandinavian
>linguistics generally.
And Hall hadn't?
--- snip ----
>
>So? By analogy Hall was qualified to advise and criticize.
By a lifetime of educated devotion Hall was so qualified.
--- snip ----
Brian M. Scott
wrote:
>On Thu, 25 May 2000 23:15:54 GMT, sc...@math.csuohio.edu (Brian M.
>Scott) wrote:
> --- snip ----
>>One will still need considerable background in runes and Scandinavian
>>linguistics generally.
>And Hall hadn't?
Not as a specialist, no. His primary field was *Romance* linguistics.
[...]
Brian M. Scott