In 1928, She Visited The Site of A Stone Carved With Strange Inscriptions In Oklahoma, And It Was Then That Her Lifelong Investigation Into The Stone’s True Origins Began
One woman’s deep interest in unearthing the background of a stone carved with strange inscriptions led to it becoming a historical monument.
That stone is the Heavener Runestone, located in eastern Oklahoma. The massive slab of rock is ten feet by twelve feet and is inscribed with eight symbols.
It was first discovered in the 1830s by a group of Choctaw hunters. For a while, locals in the area referred to it as the “Indian Rock,” believing that the carvings were made by Native Americans. However, the Smithsonian Institution later determined the characters on the rock to be Scandinavian.
In 1928, a girl named Gloria Farley visited the site and became utterly fascinated by the markings on the stone. It was then that her lifelong investigation into the stone’s true origins began.
Throughout her life, she traveled across the United States and various other places to compare the stone’s carvings with different markings. After reaching out to the Smithsonian, she learned that the runes read “GNOMEDAL,” which translates to “monument valley” or “sundial.”
Farley became curious about whether Vikings from Scandinavia were able to sail to America and if they had been the ones to make the etchings on the rock.
She based her theory on the belief that a Norseman named Leif Erikson had made it to modern-day Canada 500 years before Columbus ever set foot in America.
If that was possible, then it was reasonable to think that they might’ve traveled up the Mississippi River and landed in what we now know to be Oklahoma. Her views were further supported when some locals encountered two more runestones a mile apart.
However, there were skeptics. Not everyone was convinced that Vikings had arrived in America before Columbus. One archaeologist specializing in the Viking period declared that the evidence linking the stone to be a Viking artifact was ambiguous.
Martha Marks – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only
Experts in the Nordic language also questioned the inscriptions’ authenticity, pointing out that they did not match the grammar or structure of the Old Norse language.
In fact, some asserted that the inscriptions were not rooted in the Viking language at all. Instead, they seemed to be a combination of Elder Futhark and Younger Futhark, which was a writing system that was used before Vikings started traveling.
And finally, another detail that debunks Farley’s theory is that researchers and historians have never found stone carvings in places where the presence of Vikings was confirmed, such as Iceland or Greenland. So, it seems unlikely that the inscriptions discovered in Oklahoma were made by Vikings.
Based on historical findings, it makes more sense for the markings to have been created by a nineteenth-century Scandinavian immigrant.
But authentic or not, the Heavener Runestone has become a tourist attraction where visitors can hike, enjoy the outdoors, and speculate over the inscriptions’ origins.
How do you think the inscriptions got there?
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