Richard Nielsen

Richard Nielsen of Houston, Texas is an amateur researcher on the linguistics and runology of the Kensington Runestone.

Early life
Nielsen grew up in a Danish-speaking home in California and is the grandson of four Danish immigrants. He was educated at the Wilson Elementary School in Tulare and the Santa Cruz High School in California.

Nielsen studied naval architecture at the University of Michigan and then earned a Doctorate of Technology (Ship Structures) from the University of Denmark in Copenhagen at the direction of his then-employer, the U. S. Coast Guard.

The Kensington Runestone
Having developed an initial interest, as a child, in the Kensington Runestone, Nielsen developed a further interest while living in Scandinavia working as a consulting engineer.

When Nielsen returned to the USA in 1985, he pursued his interest on the Scandinavian runes, words, and dialects of the Kensington Runestone inscription.

Nielsen also suggested a possible translation of the Heavener Runestone in Oklahoma.

Minnesota Geologist Scott F. Wolter examined the Kensington Runestone surface and rune-carving extensively with an electron microscope and has written reports on his findings. In 2004 Nielsen and Wolter travelled with the Kensington Runestone to the historical museum in Stockholm, Sweden. Nielsen and Wolter co-authored and published "The Kensington Runestone: Compelling New Evidence" in 2005. Their analysis suggested that the Runestone included references to a "Grail" and surmised this was perhaps a reference to the Holy Grail. That claim has subsequently been repeated by Wolter elsewhere.

Since then, the co-authors have gone their "separate ways" and Nielsen has subsequently published his own analysis of the Kensington Runestone in which he suggests there is no evidence of a "Grail Code" in the Runestone text.