I recently had a chance to visit the Monhegan archipelago in the US state of Maine, and I heard about the supposed Viking inscription there. While I was on the island, due to a lack of time, I didn't get a chance to actually see the inscription myself, something which I'm kinda bummed about.
Since in addition to my Byzantine studies, I am very interested in Pre-Columbian New England and the Maritimes, I would like to know more about the academic consensus on the inscription. I have read that one guy (Barry Fell, who seems like a quack) argued it was Phoenician in origin, but that seems very unlikely to me. I definitely like the Viking theory better, but, having not seen an actual picture of the carving myself, nor seen it in person, I haven't been able judge whether it seems authentic or not. Anyone care to elaborate?
I was only able to find one photo of the Manana petroglyphs (more on the photo in a moment), which doesn't show the petroglyphs very well at all. There's also Hamlin's drawing from the 1800s. Looking at those, I don't see anything that couldn't fit into indigenous artistic trends in the area.
That's also the conclusion of this paper published by the Maine Archaeological Society in 2004. While I didn't realize it in my initial image search, that paper is also the source of the (apparently) only photo of the inscription online. While that paper is unfortunately very brief, it was the only attempt at a scholarly inspection of the site I could find that wasn't multiple-decades old.
