Re: Hooked 'X' Runes and where they have been found.

On Sat, 07 Feb 2009 15:47:22 +0000, "David B."
<tronospamchos@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Eric Stevens wrote:
[quote]
The Hooked X was found on the Kensington Runestone.
It was found on the Spirit Pond Runestone (the Mapstone).
It was found on the Narragansett, Rhode Island inscription stone
It has been found, with Niven's help, on an ancient Astrolabe held at
Oxford University dated c. 1350-1400 AD.
It has been found on the sigla of Christopher Columbus.
And (drum roll please) it was found in Rosslyn Chapel.

One very notable example is missing from the list above- the second
Larsson runerow, which consistently uses the hooked X for the variants
of "A".

This isn't surprising, if the Larsson runes trace their roots to some
earlier heritage.


Scott Wolter then set off in a search for other examples of the
'hooked X' and found it in at least one example of the signature of
Christopher Columbus! I don't know when it was identified on the
Narragansett inscription stone, or the astrolab or Rosslyn chapel.

The Columbus signature can be seen here:
http://www.humanities-interactive.org/newworld/fact_fict/768/ex036_04b.jpg
Note that Columbus also writes a hooked Y, suggesting that the hook is
just a little flourish for ending up-diagonal pen-strokes. Also the sign
here stands for "Ch", not for "A" as it does on the Kensington stone.

The Narragansett stone- tiny photo available here:
http://dsbrody.wordpress.com/
-has both the "hooked X" (theoretically meaning "A" as it's in a runic
context), and, right next to it, the downsloped F rune which signified
"A" in the traditional futhark.

A better image can be found at http://westfordknight.blogspot.com/

So far I haven't tracked down the Rosslyn example, but it's an easy
shape to carve as a mason's mark. As for the astrolabe, I'm not aware of
any such instruments at Oxford with runes on them, so this may be
another "Ch".

Perhaps it is? This may be a case where one has to apply a 'pesher'
reading technique. :-)


This seems to me to be sufficient to establish the 'hooked X' as a
real character but on the basis of the little that I know it gives no
clue as to its meaning. We don't even know if any of the various
examples are using it for something than its original purpose.

Unless it can be proved that the Spirit Pond and Narragansett examples
were known before the Kensington stone was unearthed, one cannot rule
out the possibility that they were carved by people who had seen
pictures of the Kensington text.

In fact this was an accusation that was levelled at them when they
were first found and used as evidence that they were fakes. Even if
the Spirit Pond and Narranganset stones were inscribed prior to the
KRS is still leaves open the claim that the KRS was copied from them.
In fact this argument remains no matter what date order you ascribe to
the various inscriptions. But is there any reason (other than custom)
to accuse any of these of being fakes?

(I strongly dispute the claim that
Wolter discovered the hooked X runes on the KRS- they show up very
clearly in all photos of the stone).

I should expand on this. To quote from Robert A. Hall writing in
1994:-

"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 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,
Narranganset). Most recently, similar shapes with a dot or a small
branch thus: [figure omitted] have been attested in Scandinavia
(cf. Nielsen [1987:10-13, with tables 3-5; Forthcoming-b1-12, with
six illustrations), so that this form of the 'a' rune can no longer
be dismissed as a North American forgery. Sound-value /a/."

From the earliest days the hooked-X on the KRS has been regarded as a
dotted-X. Those long in the tooth will remember the wars which raged
in this news group over the 'dotted-X'. Until very recent times it has
never been suggested that the Xs were anything other than dotted. It
was not until Scott Wolters macrophotography that it could be clearly
seen that the Xs were not dotted but had a deliberately cut short bar.
Note that even Richard Nielsen's discovery of the hooked-X in
scandinavia was not sufficient to enable the identification of such
runes on the KRS.



Eric Stevens
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Hooked X Runes and where they have been found.
    ... It was found on the Narragansett, Rhode Island inscription stone ... if the Larsson runes trace their roots to some ... inscription and in others discovered in North America (Spirit Pond, ... in this news group over the 'dotted-X'. ...
    (sci.archaeology)
  • Re: Kensington runestone in the Scandinavian press
    ... > "Wherever the characters of the inscription have not ... > of the letters have been scratched over with a sharp ... > instrument after the stone was unearthed. ... > was said to be due to the fact that the runes on the ...
    (sci.archaeology)
  • Re: Kensington runestone in the Scandinavian press
    ... cutting a stone in that shape ... It's about Larsson's runes being late ... >The inscription, dated in 1362, is quite a disturbing one -- in fact it's ... >coincidences associated with the Stone's message. ...
    (sci.archaeology)
  • Re: Kensington runestone in the Scandinavian press
    ... they have precisely the same color as the general surface of the stone. ... But as Professor Curme pointed out, it can be plainly seen, that most of the letters have been scratched over with a sharp ... The difference was said to be due to the fact that the runes on the edge had been filled with mud and had been cleaned out by scraping them with an iron nail. ... plainly that many years must have elapsed since the inscription ...
    (sci.archaeology)
  • Re: Kensington Runestone - Nielsen and Wolters.
    ... >>>message is identical to the message plainly inscribed on the stone, ... >>>presumably available to anyone who could read the runes. ... it is amazing that someone could allege that the dots on the KRS ... >No. I'm arguing from the fact that the KRS was inspected by Holand ...
    (sci.archaeology)
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