{"id":80846,"date":"2026-06-09T15:38:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T15:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/80846\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T15:38:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T15:38:11","slug":"archaeologists-find-mysterious-stone-slab-with-255-runes-in-canada-but-it-was-not-made-by-vikings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/80846\/","title":{"rendered":"Archaeologists Find Mysterious Stone Slab With 255 Runes in Canada. But It Was Not Made by Vikings"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The 250 runic characters carved into the rock spell out the Lord\u2019s Prayer. Credit: Ryan Primrose.<\/p>\n

Almost a decade ago, a storm in the forests of northern Ontario uprooted a tree. What it revealed was no ordinary patch of bedrock, but something far weirder: a carefully carved inscription of the Lord\u2019s Prayer \u2014 in Scandinavian runes of all things.<\/p>\n

The discovery, made near the remote town of Wawa and possibly the longest runic inscription in North America, has both baffled and fascinated archaeologists. Though the site is believed to date to the early 1800s, its craftsmanship, content, and context raise as many questions as they answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s certainly among the least expected discoveries of my career. It\u2019s absolutely fascinating,\u201d Ryan Primrose, president of the Ontario Centre for Archaeological Education, told CBC News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Primrose has been studying the site since 2018. Only now is the team ready to share what they\u2019ve learned \u2014 and what remains unexplained.<\/p>\n

A Prayer Carved in Stone<\/p>\n

\"Rock<\/a>Next to the prayer carving is a picture of a boat with 16 people on it, as well as 14 mysterious Xs. Credit: Ryan Primrose.<\/p>\n

The inscription measures roughly four by five feet. Within its chiseled border lie 255 runic symbols. But these were not Viking-era Elder Futhark, the oldest known runic alphabet used by Germanic peoples, particularly in Scandinavia and Anglo-Saxon England, from about the 3rd to the 13th centuries. Instead, it\u2019s a later runic system derived from Scandinavian tradition.<\/p>\n

Next to the prayer is a detailed depiction of a boat with 16 passengers. Fourteen \u201cX\u201d marks are carved nearby, their purpose unknown.<\/p>\n

The runes are deeply etched, suggesting days or even weeks of labor. <\/p>\n

But from the start, Primrose worried about misinterpretation.<\/p>\n

Given the ancient script, it would be easy to mistake the site as a relic of the Viking age. After all, Norse explorers did reach parts of modern-day Canada over 1,000 years ago<\/a>. The site at L\u2019Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, notably, remains the only confirmed Viking settlement in North America.<\/p>\n

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However, Primrose didn\u2019t take the bait and opted for a more cautious interpretation. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t want to release anything publicly until we had done as much analysis as possible,\u201d said Primrose.<\/p>\n

To that end, he reached out to Dr. Henrik Williams, a leading expert in runology and emeritus professor at Uppsala University in Sweden.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The directors of the Ontario Centre for Archaeological Education, David Gadzala and Ryan Primrose, left to right. Credit: Ryan Primrose.<\/p>\n

Williams traveled to the site in October, braving cold rain and northern winds to kneel beneath a tarpaulin with only a flashlight and years of expertise.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was under a tarpaulin for three hours with a flashlight, looking at the runes while others were freezing outside,\u201d Williams recalled. \u201cAnd I came out with this reading.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Henrik Williams spent hours under a tarp on a cold northern Ontario day reading the markings. Credit: Ryan Primrose.<\/p>\n

The symbols, he concluded, spell out the Lord\u2019s Prayer in modern Swedish \u2014 using a derivative runic script developed in the early 1600s by the Swedish scholar Johannes Bureus. Though the script had fallen out of popular use by the 1700s, it was republished in the 19th century.<\/p>\n

And that detail turned out to be crucial. For one, it immediately ruled out Vikings.<\/p>\n

So, if not Vikings, then who?<\/p>\n

Historical records offered a clue. In the 1800s, the Hudson\u2019s Bay Company employed Swedish laborers at various fur trading posts across Canada. One such post, Michipicoten, lies not far from where the carving was found.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis must have been a Swede,\u201d said Primrose. \u201cWere there any Swedes at all here?\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes, there were. Enough to support the emerging theory: that the carving was the work of a Swedish trader or employee, creating a personal \u2014 or communal \u2014 devotional site far from home.<\/p>\n

The site, buried beneath inches of soil, may have been intentionally concealed because the soil was disturbed in a way that differed from the thinner soil elsewhere on the outcrop. And yet, the researchers found no other artifacts nearby. No crosses, no tools, no personal effects. Only the chiseled prayer, boat drawing, and those puzzling X marks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy was it carved here? Why this text? There are no answers,\u201d Williams told PopSci<\/a>. \u201cAnd mysteries always draw people in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite its relatively recent age and the somewhat mild disappointment at the lack of Vikings, Williams considers the site extraordinary.<\/p>\n

\u201cCanada now has a total of eleven objects claimed to bear runes, but only five in fact do so,\u201d he wrote<\/a> in his report. \u201cThe Wawa stone is Ontario\u2019s first with actual runes, the longest runic inscription of any on the North American continent, and the only one in the world reproducing the Lord\u2019s Prayer.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Heritage Site in the Making<\/p>\n

Though some might be disappointed the carving is only 200 years old, archaeologists say its historical value is undiminished.<\/p>\n

It captures a moment \u2014 or perhaps a series of moments \u2014 of faith, identity, and effort, carved into cold stone in a northern forest thousands of miles away from home.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt must have taken days and days of work. They are really deeply carved into the rock,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n

So, what did the boat mean to represent? A voyage across the Atlantic? A biblical scene? Or a metaphor for the soul\u2019s journey? And what about the 14 X marks \u2014 could they be lost comrades, years spent away from home, or something deeper?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s difficult to tell what\u2019s going on,\u201d said Primrose. \u201cThe mystery doesn\u2019t fade just because it\u2019s younger than we hoped.\u201d<\/p>\n

Primrose and his team are now working with local landowners to protect the site. Plans are underway to secure a leasehold, apply for conservation funding, and construct a protective shelter. The hope is to open it to the public by summer\u2019s end.<\/p>\n

If successful, visitors could one day walk among the tall trees of Wawa and pause before a stone prayer whispered across centuries \u2014 a hidden message from a forgotten traveler, carved with care, now asking new questions of the present.<\/p>\n

\u201cMysteries, they do tend to attract people,\u201d said Williams. \u201cAnd this one will certainly do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared in June 2025 and was updated with new information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 250 runic characters carved into the rock spell out the Lord\u2019s Prayer. Credit: Ryan Primrose. Almost a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[17,31976,31977,31978],"class_list":["post-80846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-canada","tag-runes","tag-scandinavia","tag-vikings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}