Markings of Vikings discovered in Lawrence?

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Amy Sweeney/Staff photo Al Sunskis found a piece of a broken pipe and a rock shaped like an arrow head as he was gardening in in his backyard on Maurice Avenue in Lawrence.
Amy Sweeney/Staff photo Al and Joyce Sunskis show the rock in their Maurice Avenue backyard in Lawrence that has unusual markings they think may date back to the Vikings.

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April 26, 2010

By Mark E. Vogler mvogler@eagletribune.com The Eagle Tribune Mon Apr 26, 2010, 09:41 AM EDT

LAWRENCE — Al and Joyce Sunskis think they have proof the Vikings passed through Tower Hill six centuries ago.

They believe a rock that sets in the backyard of their Maurice Avenue home next to an ancient wellspring bears markings that may have been carved or chiseled by Norsemen who sailed up and down the Merrimack River.

Representatives of the New England Antiquities Research Association are curious about the Sunskis' recent discovery and plan to visit them to inspect the rock.

The association is a non-profit organization which claims to be "dedicated to a better understanding of our historic and prehistoric past through the study and preservation of New England's stone sites in their cultural context."

If the association confirms the markings on the rock have historical significance, the Sunskis want to turn the rock over to the group.

"If the markings on the rock are authentic, they belong to those people who were here way before Columbus," Al Sunskis said.

"It could be absolute garbage. But I don't think so. I think the markings are some kind of Nordic sign," he said.

The Sunskis never gave much thought about the unusual markings on the stone until after watching a recent National Geographic television series that focused on exploration of North America and New England in the era before Christopher Columbus' voyages (1492-1504).

"For a long time, I felt like getting a bulldozer and clearing it off my property," Al Sunskis said of the stone behind his house.

"I always thought about getting rid of it. The holes were carved in there with precision. We always wondered why anyone would do that and just shrugged it off for years until we saw that series," he said.

But now Sunskis believes the three small rectangular holes and the cone-shaped carving may be the markings of the Vikings or some other pre-Columbian voyagers.

"In the 1390s, somebody did come up the Merrimack River," Sunskis said.

"Sometime before Columbus arrived in America, Leif Ericson's ancestors or somebody of Nordic ancestry was here in New England. And if they were, it's likely they would have left some of their markings up and down the Merrimack River," he said.

In addition to the unusual holes carved into the rock, the Sunskis see what they perceive to be a piece of Nordic art work.

"Joyce and I think it is a boat with a full sail. But again, we are not experts," he said.

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