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The Heavener Runestone is a runestone found in Heavener, Oklahoma. The stone is located on Poteau Mountain just outside the town's limits. There is much speculation as to the origin and meaning of the ancient stone's runic carvings, and there is such an attraction that a state park has been erected around the mysterious rock. In addition to the stone itself, the park offers Ouachita hiking trails, playground equipment and a spectacular outlook over the Poteau River Valley.

Contents 1 Inscription Hypotheses 1.1 Other stones 1.2 Trivia 1.3 See also 1.4 External links

Local tradition attributes the inscription to wandering pre-Columbian Norsemen, however inscription has been rejected by Scandinavian philologists and runologists, who consider it to be modern (19th or 20th century)^{[citation needed]}. The reading should probably be "GNOMEDAL" (with a backwards L)--perhaps a Norwegian personal name "G. Numedal".^{[citation needed]}

The difficulty facing those who would use the Heavener Runestone to demonstrate that Viking explorers pushed down the Atlantic Coast, through the Gulf of Mexico, up the Mississippi River to the Arkansas River to the Poteau River to the ankle-depth watercourse at the site, is that only six of the eight characters are genuine Elder Futhark runes. A transliteration would read "G [not a rune] O M E D A [backwards L]".

The first proposed explanation (Monge, 1967)^{[citation needed]} is that the letters represent an elaborate cryptogram, using three runic alphabets, that decodes to "November 11, 1012".

In recent years, this theory has lost ground among local defenders in favor of the engineer Dr. Richard Nielsen's 1986 proposal^{[citation needed]} that the unknown Viking explorer hastily reversed the last letter and substituted a letter from the then-extinct Gothic alphabet in the second position. According to this interpretation, the inscription reads "GLOME DAL" -- the Valley of Glome.

Another recent interpretation by Rev. Lee Woodward that the inscription is an elaborate cryptogram marking the final resting place of René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle has yet to gain substantive support.^{[citation needed]}

Main articles: Shawnee Runestone and Poteau Runestone

Oklahoma has other, lesser known, runestones besides the one near Heavener, by Robbers Cave State Park. There are actually three stones near Heavener, one near Poteau, one in Shawnee, and one in Turley, north of Tulsa. In fact, the Tulsa area is alleged to have 4 of these rune stones along the Arkansas River on Turkey Mountain all with very similar characters, but one was destroyed in the ‘60s, and the specific locations of two others are unknown. In the 1970s scholars allegedly translated these stones.

The Heavener #2 is said to be the letter "R" and a "bind rune". This would be in the Anglo-Saxon character set since in the Norwegian this might be an "M" and a small cross. In the Elder Futhark, this could be an "R"/"Z" or a "T". It has also been given as "25 December, 1015" in that same "Norse Code" as the Heavener dating system.

The Heavener #3 is said to be the letters "G", "R" and "T". This could be in the Anglo-Saxon character set since in the Norwegian set this might be an "M", a "T" and the small cross COULD be an "N". This was translated as "30 December, 1022".

The Poteau stone was transliterated "G-L-O-I-A-L-L-W", which would assign different values to several of the same characters. If the character values from "G-N-O-M-E-D-A-L" are used, it would be "G-N-?-?-E-A-?-?. Expanding that in the Anglo Saxon rune set yields "G-?N-NG-I-E-A-L-?W". In Norse it is "?-A-?-I-?-?-?-?", with a number of characters that don’t exist in the Norwegian runes. In the Elder Futhark, this is "G-?-?-I- E-A-L-?". It was also translated as "11 November, 1017".

The Shawnee transliteration, using the characters from ”G-N-O-M-E-D-A-L" should be "M-?-D-O-?" . In the Anglo Saxon Runes it’s "M-?E-?D-?O-?". In the Elder Futhark, this is "M-?-D-O-K". In the Norse dating code it’s supposed to be "24 November, 1024".

The Turley stone is not given any sort of translation, except by one researcher with the "Norse code" who says it means 22 December, 1022, which would mean that this translation shares no characters in common with Heavener #3, except perhaps the X. None of these characters appear in the Norwegian runes. In the Elder Futhar, only the X is present, as "G". In the Anglo Saxon characters, it’s "G-?-?-?-?-S-?".

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

• Shawnee Runestone
• Poteau Runestone
• Kensington Runestone
• Nomans Land (Massachusetts)
• Bat Creek Inscription
• Turkey Mountain
• Viking Altar Rock
• Vinland map
• Mandan Indians
• Bryggen inscriptions
• Kingigtorssuaq Runestone

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