Isle of Man Examiner, 3rd June 1935.
ARCHAEOLOGIST KILLED IN
ACCIDENT
It is with regret that the Isle of Man Examiner has to announce
the sudden death of one of Britain’s most eminent
archaeologists, Professor Ralph Carmichael.
Always a controversial character, Professor Carmichael was
studying Viking archaeology on the Isle of Man when he discovered
the so-called “Rune Stones of Pooilvaaish”. Some doubt
has been cast on the authenticity of these stones, and he was
reluctant to release them for independent analysis: perhaps now the
stones will have their provenance verified.
The Professor was also being investigated for alleged financial
misdemeanours, but it is thought that his death was an unfortunate
accident and there is no hint of suicide.
Isle of Man Examiner, 15th August 1935.
ARCHAEOLOGIST RUNE
MYSTERY
The mystery surrounding the death of archaeologist Professor
Ralph Carmichael has deepened following the revelation by police
that the ancient stones he was studying (the “Rune Stones of
Pooilvaaish”) had apparently been hidden by him just prior to
his accident.
An English archaeologist and friend of Prof. Carmichael, Prof.
George Westergaard, was looking forward to studying the stones in a
bid to verify their authenticity but it appears that they were not
found when Prof. Carmichael’s effects were cleared from his
Isle of Man residence. The only clue to their whereabouts is in
some runic texts which are in an ancient Danish script, but which
do not appear to give a complete or exact location.
Also, a couple of scraps of paper were found in Prof
Carmichael’s wallet with coded rune characters drawn on them
– Prof. Westergaard is convinced that these hold the clue, if
only the cipher can be understood.“Ralph was investigating
the landing places of Vikings in the south of the Island”
said Prof. Westergaard. “I believe he’d found one using
the coded rune stones as a guide and was looking for evidence of a
subsequent battle. He’d mentioned to me that he was going to
search the battle site for artefacts to prove that the rune stones
were genuine. I suspect he’d hidden the stones in case they
were stolen before he had finished with them.”.
The death of Prof. Carmichael has been confirmed as a bizarre
accident. It seems most likely that a freak wave caught the
Professor off balance when he was out on rocks near Strand Hall,
and he was drowned before his assistant could reach him. Although
it is alleged that he was illegally using research funds to buy
archaeological treasures for his own collection, Prof. Carmichael
always strenuously denied the charges and was not thought to be
worried about the ongoing police investigation.
The text on the scraps of paper was as follows:
1st stone:
N 54° 04.79a W 004°
4b.8cd.
ab: from decoding the first rune character to give two
digits.
cd: from the second rune character.
The second is at
N 54° 04.9e0 W 004°
44.0fg
ab: from decoding the first rune character on the stone to
give two digits.
cd: from the second rune character on the stone.
e=(a+b+c)
f=(a x 3),
g=(a+b+d)
On the stone at the cache, two further rune characters are to be
found. The Landing Place is at N 54°
04.edc where e=a+b (rune 1)
and cd=rune 2.