• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

The Vinland Map

A

Anonymous

Guest
Map of Vinland carbon dated

Scientists Determine Age of First New World Map; "Vinland Map" Parchment Predates Columbus' Arrival in North America

For the first time, scientists have ascribed a date - 1434 A.D., plus or minus 11 years - to the parchment of the controversial Vinland Map, possibly the first map of the North American continent. Collaborators from the Smithsonian Center for Materials Research and Education (SCMRE), Suitland, Md., the University of Arizona, Tucson, and the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, N.Y., used carbon-dating techniques to analyze the parchment on which the map is drawn. Their findings, published in the August edition of the journal Radiocarbon, place the parchment of the map 60 years ahead of Christopher Columbus' arrival in the West Indies, and provide compelling evidence that the map is authentic.

"Many scholars have agreed that if the Vinland Map is authentic,
it is the first cartographic representation of North America, and its date would be key in establishing the history of European knowledge of the lands bordering the western Atlantic Ocean," said Jacqueline S. Olin, assistant director for archaeometric research at SCMRE when the study began in 1995.

Olin and co-authors Douglas Donahue, a physicist at the University of Arizona and Garman Harbottle, a chemist at Brookhaven National Laboratory, along with SCMRE paper conservator Dianne Van Der Reyden, sampled the bottom right edge of the parchment for analysis. The dating was carried out at the National Science Foundation-University of Arizona Accelerator
Mass Spectrometer in Tucson. The unusually high precision of the date was possible because the Vinland Map's date fell in a very favorable region of the carbon-14 dating calibration curve.

The parchment analysis again indicates the map's connection with the Catholic Church's Council of Basel, convened between 1431 and 1449, first posited by R.A. Skelton, T.E. Marston and G.D. Painter, the scholars who undertook a six-year investigation of the Vinland Map and accompanying "Tartar Relation," and made
their argument for the map's authenticity in the book, The Vinland Map and the Tartar Relation, published in 1965 by Yale University Press. Paul A. Mellon had purchased the map and manuscript for
Scientists Determine Age of First New World Map; "Vinland Map" Parchment Predates Columbus' Arrival in North America

For the first time, scientists have ascribed a date - 1434 A.D., plus or minus 11 years - to the parchment of the controversial Vinland Map, possibly the first map of the North American continent. Collaborators from the Smithsonian Center for Materials Research and Education (SCMRE), Suitland, Md., the University of Arizona, Tucson, and the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, N.Y., used carbon-dating techniques to analyze the parchment on which the map is drawn. Their findings, published in the August edition of the journal Radiocarbon, place the parchment of the map 60 years ahead of Christopher Columbus' arrival in the West Indies, and provide compelling evidence that the map is authentic.

"Many scholars have agreed that if the Vinland Map is authentic,
it is the first cartographic representation of North America, and its date would be key in establishing the history of European knowledge of the lands bordering the western Atlantic Ocean," said Jacqueline S. Olin, assistant director for archaeometric research at SCMRE when the study began in 1995.

Olin and co-authors Douglas Donahue, a physicist at the University of Arizona and Garman Harbottle, a chemist at Brookhaven National Laboratory, along with SCMRE paper conservator Dianne Van Der Reyden, sampled the bottom right edge of the parchment for analysis. The dating was carried out at the National Science Foundation-University of Arizona Accelerator
Mass Spectrometer in Tucson. The unusually high precision of the date was possible because the Vinland Map's date fell in a very favorable region of the carbon-14 dating calibration curve.

The parchment analysis again indicates the map's connection with the Catholic Church's Council of Basel, convened between 1431 and 1449, first posited by R.A. Skelton, T.E. Marston and G.D. Painter, the scholars who undertook a six-year investigation of the Vinland Map and accompanying "Tartar Relation," and made
their argument for the map's authenticity in the book, The Vinland Map and the Tartar Relation, published in 1965 by Yale University Press. Paul A. Mellon had purchased the map and manuscript for $1 million in 1958, and requested the study after donating them to Yale.

The map came to light in Europe in the mid-1950s without any record of previous ownership or provenance in any library or collection. It is now in the collection of Yale's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library in New Haven, Conn. The name "Vinland" derives from text on the map that recounts Bjarni and Leif Eriksson discovering "a new land, extremely fertile and even having vines,--which island they named Vinland." The "Island of Vinland" appears on the map in the northwest Atlantic Ocean. Scholars postulate it may represent present-day Labrador, Newfoundland or Baffin Island. The map also shows Europe, Africa and Asia.

Several previous studies challenging the map's authenticity focused on the chemical composition of the ink used to draw it, and pointed to the presence of anatase, which was not produced commercially until the 20th century. But there are questions about how an ink containing anatase could have been formulated and used by a forger. More recently, the ink has been shown to contain carbon, which also has been presented as evidence of a forgery. However, carbon can be present in a medieval ink.
"Anatase may be a result of the chemical deterioration of the ink over the centuries, or may even have been present naturally in the ink used in medieval times," Olin said, adding, "The elemental composition of the ink is consistent with a medieval iron gall ink, based on historical evidence regarding ink production."

Present carbon-dating technology does not permit the analysis of samples as small as the actual ink lines on the map.

Concluded Olin, "While the date result itself cannot prove that
the map is authentic, it is an important piece of new evidence
that must be considered by those who argue that the map is a
forgery and without cartographic merit."
Click to expand...
million in 1958, and requested the study after donating them to Yale.

The map came to light in Europe in the mid-1950s without any record of previous ownership or provenance in any library or collection. It is now in the collection of Yale's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library in New Haven, Conn. The name "Vinland" derives from text on the map that recounts Bjarni and Leif Eriksson discovering "a new land, extremely fertile and even having vines,--which island they named Vinland." The "Island of Vinland" appears on the map in the northwest Atlantic Ocean. Scholars postulate it may represent present-day Labrador, Newfoundland or Baffin Island. The map also shows Europe, Africa and Asia.

Several previous studies challenging the map's authenticity focused on the chemical composition of the ink used to draw it, and pointed to the presence of anatase, which was not produced commercially until the 20th century. But there are questions about how an ink containing anatase could have been formulated and used by a forger. More recently, the ink has been shown to contain carbon, which also has been presented as evidence of a forgery. However, carbon can be present in a medieval ink.
"Anatase may be a result of the chemical deterioration of the ink over the centuries, or may even have been present naturally in the ink used in medieval times," Olin said, adding, "The elemental composition of the ink is consistent with a medieval iron gall ink, based on historical evidence regarding ink production."

Present carbon-dating technology does not permit the analysis of samples as small as the actual ink lines on the map.

Concluded Olin, "While the date result itself cannot prove that
the map is authentic, it is an important piece of new evidence
that must be considered by those who argue that the map is a
forgery and without cartographic merit."
Click to expand...

The article is available online at http://www.radiocarbon.org.
 
And, as usual, semi-literate US media trumpeted that this was surprising evidence that Columbus wasn't the first European to visit the Americas. I had thought that myth was long dead and buried, but apparently reporters and their writers haven't been reading, well, anything.
I wonder at all the fuss and bother over the map. We know the Norse were in North America for centuries, it's pretty clear Portugese fishermen were in the Grand Banks, and even the ancients surmised about a continent across the Western Ocean, so why is it a surprise that at least one person made a map?
 
Today's Breaking News has an article which says that the parchment seems to be medieval, but the ink is modern. That said, I'm not convinced by the arguments used to prove the ink isn't old. And as to where exactly a forger would find a piece of medieval parchment that hasn't been written on, I don't know.
 
More stuff in favour of the map being an original:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/6726/news.htm
Ms. Olin is a Harvard University degreed biochemist and spent much time examining the ink used for the map. In 1974 Dr. Walter McCrone found the chemical anatase on the map and claimed this was proof of forgery as that chemical was not introduced into inks until the 1920's. She explained that the process of making an ink in the 15th century often resulted in this chemical when the ore used was a titanium oxide of iron. She showed some slides of this chemical manufacturing process (as it was done in the 1400's) and the associated chemical equations, explaining that she had had doubts about Dr. McCrone's analysis for many years. Included were some very high magnification photos of anatase particle comparisons. Dr. McCrone still maintains that the entire map is a forgery. Several independent scholars have stated that the map is genuine based on their examination of the ink.
Scientists at the Crocker Nuclear Laboratory (University of California at Davis) have borrowed the map for an examination lasting 10 years. They found that the map has as much anatase as known authentic 15th century documents. Their conclusion was that it occurred naturally and that McCrone was mistaken. Ms. Olin stated that the McCrone methods and the Crocker lab methods were not comparable and that her work supported the Crocker analysis for authenticity. The anatase was not at all a sign of forgery, she insisted.
Click to expand...
http://www.shroud2000.com/ArticlesPapers/Article-VinlandMap.html
In 1972, the results of chemical analysis of the map's ink raised doubts about its authenticity. McCrone Associates' Walter McCrone removed and analyzed portions of the map's ink. McCrone concluded that the ink contained a significant amount of titanium anatase in it, a material scientists thought was invented after 1920.
In 1985, Dr Thomas Cahill of the University of California at Davis, was secretly given the map by Yale University for four days. Cahill analyzed the map and the ink using a new process called PIXE or Particle Induced X-ray Emission tests. The results were startling because Cahill found only a minute presence of titanium anatase, which scientists have since discovered occurs naturally
Cahill said, "The Vinland map does not in any way stand out from the 150 Medieval manuscripts already analyzed." Regarding the disparity between his findings and McCrone's, Cahill said, "The interpretation of the same data can be quite divergent."
Jacquelin Olin, a research chemist with the Smithsonian Center for Materials Research said, "I'm more and more convinced of the map's authenticity". She explained that titanium dioxide (anatase) in the ink would just as easily be there as a consequence of the deterioration of the ink. In medieval times, scholars made ink through a process that created green vitoral, the primary substance used for ink in the 15th and 16th centuries. The process also produced a by-product of titanium anatase which could have easily contaminated the ink solution.
Click to expand...
http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/96_05/vinland_map.html

And some interesting arguments against:
http://www.vikinganswerlady.org/vkhoaxes.htm
 
the BBC radio said it was a 20th century fake
 
More arguments against the authenticity of the map.
This new study is not conclusive concerning the authenticity of the Vinland Map. One should always consider the application of new information in the context of the entire body of literature concerning an object and also, especially when dealing with "discovered" artifacts with no provenance, one must keep in mind the history of forgeries. I have summarized this relationship and reviewed the literature with a case study in Mexicon, June 2000, v. 22, n. 3.

However, regarding this specific information about the Vinland Map one must be skeptical. It has long been suspected that the forger utilized an ancient piece of leather to execute his fake (see
Baynes-Cope, 1974). Further, any acceptance of an object as
authentic must be based on its physical characteristics being
consonant with known objects with provenance. The Vinland Map also failed this test by demonstrating under UV fluorescence different from that of both the Tartar Relation and the Speculum Historiale.

Thus a Carbon 14 date prior to Columbus' first voyage is not
significant. What is important is the nature of the media used in
the design of the map. Walter McCrone's exhaustive study of these materials leaves little doubt that the design is a forgery (McCrone, 1974, 1976 and 1988). McCrone used Small Particle Analysis in the 1976 study to show that the lines of the map were composed of two lines one devised to mimic degradation of a media (like that seen in old maps) and one to be the inked line. Use of TEM proved the presence of anatase and it is illogical that this pigment could have been produced as a degradation product as theorized by the authors of the new article.

An earlier study by Cahill, et al., 1987 attempted to explain the
"double score" line demonstrated by McCrone (1976) and the presence of anatase as a later redrawing of the image. However, McCrone, (1988) showed clearly that this is not only unlikely but physically impossible. The fact that there is no anatase on either of the other maps to which the Vinland Map is supposed to be contemporary is telling, as the degeneration hypothesis would seemingly apply to them as well. In fact, the variability of inks reported by Cahill, et al. 1987 is reminiscent of a suggestion made by Hapgood (1966:230) that the Vinland Map was a copy of authentic maps or a rather good pastiche. Cahill, et al. also proposed disproving McCrone on the basis of the fact that they could not always find anatase associated with the yellow underlines which they note is due to iron impurities. This line of reasoning by Cahill, et al. is based on the assumption that if the lines were originally drawn with anatase (TiO2) and then erased that some residual would be detectable by their methods. But this is not logically either given the idea that the lines might have been made separately or that erasure could preferentially remove the anatase (which they did not demonstrate experimentally). This argument and the findings reported by Cahill, et al. does support the idea of an original map altered to include a "new world" North Africa and Spain.
Identification of an original map that would be the prototype for
such a forgery would then be the next task. Hapgood (1966) suggests this would be an early copy of the Andrea Bianco map of 1436.

The present study's author's suggestion that the anatase is a
degradation product is like Cahill, et al. proposal that the two
components of the lines of the Vinland Map result from aging of two components of the original ink rather than the two applications demonstrated by McCrone. But this does not explain the differences clearly shown between the Vinland Map and the Tartar Relation and the Speculum Historiale. They all should show the same, or at least similar degradation characteristics.

What is not in dispute, however, is that the authors of the present study are ignorant of the fact of the nature of anatase and its commercial invention in the 1920s and how the anatase on the Vinland Map has been reported to be indistinguishable from those precipitated anatase pigments first made in the 1920s (McCrone, 1976). Further, anatase is a rare blue or light-yellow to brown mineral of Ti02; other forms of TiO2 include rutile, octahidrite, ilmenite and brookite. The discrepancy in distribution of the anatase by Cahill, et al. and McCrone may be the result of
differential solubilizing of the anatase during conservation
treatments, especially those performed during the first half of this
century using peroxides and the use of ammonia to remove varnishes or during "aging" processes by the forger. Anatase is relatively unstable and undergoes destruction by photocatalytic oxidation (Volz, et al., 1981) thus rather than result from degradation one might expect less present over time given exposure.

Niccolo Caldararo
Director and Chief Conservator
Conservation Art Service
Click to expand...
Having a copyright-paranoia moment. It's OK to quote this as long as I credit it to the author, right? If not, tell me and I'll remove it.
 
Just thought I'd post an update.

Basically, the "modern" pigments are a yellow and a black.
One of the first explanations was that the yellow was used to mimic the degradation mechanism of iron gall ink, which discolours - and quite often eats through - the paper or parchment support. This sounds like nonsense, because iron gall ink is easy to make and the fakery (?) would be really obvious.
But now, it seems that the yellow pigment was an "underdrawing", which is often used to sketch out the picture before it is drawn in black ink (or oils, for paintings).
So that makes more sense and is more believable.
 
Map Of Vinland Carbon Dated

I remember seeeig this on Author Clark's show there was a woman Mrs Sever? saying it must be a fake it can not be true like the virgan Birth which i taped it so i could see why she thinks it is a fake

Is there a site where a person can go to see why she thinks it is a fake?
Nebka
 
Vindication for Vinland map: New study supports authenticity
Recent conclusions that the storied Vinland Map is merely a clever forgery are based on a flawed understanding of the evidence, according to a scientist at the Smithsonian Institution. Results from last year's study debunking the map's authenticity can also be construed to boost the validity of its medieval origins, the scientist claims.
The report will appear in the Dec. 1 edition of Analytical Chemistry, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.

The Vinland Map is a drawing of Iceland, Greenland and the northeastern seaboard of North America that has been dated to the mid-15th century, suggesting that Norse explorers charted North America long before Columbus. The map, which has had a contentious history since its discovery in the 1950s, resides at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University. It has been valued at more than million.

"Many scholars have agreed that if the Vinland Map is authentic, it is the only existing cartographic representation of North America prior to Columbus," says Jacqueline Olin, a member of the advisory committee of the Smithsonian Center for Materials Research and Education in Washington, D.C. "Its date is important in establishing the history of European knowledge of the lands bordering the western North Atlantic, and the deeper question of Columbus's own possible awareness."

In July 2002, two papers about the Vinland Map were published simultaneously in separate scientific journals — one in Radiocarbon, which set a date for the map's parchment at about 1434 using carbon dating; and another in Analytical Chemistry, claiming that the map is really just a clever 20th-century forgery on medieval parchment.

Olin, who was involved in the Radiocarbon research, wrote the new Analytical Chemistry paper in response to the controversy sparked by last year's dueling papers.

Since the age of the parchment is not in dispute, Olin says, "The information needed to prove that the Vinland Map is medieval rests with the ink used to draw it."

Before the development of the printing press, manuscripts were written in either carbon-based inks or iron gallotannate inks. Erosion of the latter often leads to yellow staining - a feature exhibited by the Vinland Map.

In last year's Analytical Chemistry paper, British researchers analyzed the ink with Raman microprobe spectroscopy and claimed that it is made up of two parts: a yellowish line that adheres strongly to the parchment overlaid with a black line that appears to have flaked off.

Because they found the black line contained carbon, the researchers assumed the ink was not iron gallotannate, meaning there should be no yellow staining. They proposed that the yellow line was put there by a clever forger who knew it was a common feature of medieval manuscripts. This line contained anatase, a precipitated form of titanium dioxide. Since anatase was not synthesized until 1917, they considered this as evidence that the Vinland Map is a forgery.

To the contrary, the ink may help prove the map's authenticity, says Olin. "The presence of carbon in an ink is not evidence that the ink is a carbon ink," she says. "It could just as well have been iron gall ink to which carbon has been added as a colorant." Carbon was added to medieval iron gall inks to enable scribes to view their writing while the transparent ink mixture was reacting to form its black color.

"The source of the iron in medieval inks is green vitriol, an iron sulfate," Olin continues. "Green vitriol would include anatase if the iron source from which it was made included the iron-titanium mineral ilmenite."

Researchers have reported the absence of ilmenite in the ink of the Vinland Map, but that would only mean it was not present in the sulfate used to make the ink, Olin says. In earlier work, she made a simulated 15th century ink using ilmenite for the preparation of green vitriol. The resulting ink contained anatase, and no ilmenite.

There has also been no discussion about the significance of the other elements found in the ink, Olin says. She used archaeological reports to show that the presence of copper, aluminum and zinc — all found in the Vinland Map's ink — would be consistent with medieval production methods from green vitriol. Additionally, these elements raise serious doubts about the possibility of forgery, because 20th century iron gall inks would not be produced using medieval hydrometallurgy, which is responsible for the presence of these elements. No forger in the first half of the 20th century could be expected to know about these extra components, according to Olin.
Click to expand...
 
Vinland row rumbles on

In the latest issue of Analytical Chemistry (volume 76 (3), 26 January 2004), Kenneth Towe of the Smithsonian Institution presents a rebuttal of Olin's last paper, accusing her of
a "rehash" that is too often biased, misleading, or inaccurate
Click to expand...
I don't know if the media will pick up on this, as I suspect they're going to get a bit bored of the to-and-fro, but I thought I'd keep you all updated.
 
THis is not a period of history that I have much experience in, but does anyone know if there is a precedence for such maps?

Are Viking maps that common a historical document?

Anyone know?

I can find little reference to them in all the usual sources (the earliest maps of Iceland in the National Museum of Iceland Cartography section are from the 1500s).

I would be very suspicious if the only extant map from a period when few maps survive relate to such a controversial subject. Bit like the old Hitlers' Diaries hoax - poeople were so caught up in the idea that they missed the obvious.

Rossetta stones are very rare, although all historians dream of finding them.
 
Without offering any opinion as to its authenticity (though lordshiva makes an excellent point), I would say that in my eyes the late Walter McCrone, one of the main players in this argument, has some definite credibilty problems.

It's very unfortunate, as he was a well-respected scientist, but in the last thirty or years of his life had become essentially a shill for the CISCOP crowd. Start by "knowing" something is impossible then finding the data to "prove" that position. A debunker rather than a sceptic.

And in the process using some very sloppy reasoning, not to mention science, to get there. And I must say, engaging in extremely unprofessional rhetoric. Not to say that he was ultimately not correct (it's from the early 20th century), but I think he took some sorry routes to get there.

Like so many of things we discuss on this board, I seriously doubt it will ever be resolved to anyones satisfaction, except of course those who are already in one camp or another.
 
Emperor said:
You appear to have access to a copy - fancy dropping in the conclusion (if it isn't too long or too much hassle)?
Click to expand...
Whoops, missed this until now. Yes, I do have access to the paper. It doesn't really add much new, it just criticises the last Olin paper on several points of accuracy and interpretation of the previous data and references.

If I get a moment, I'll have a proper read of it, but it may require going back to the other papers, and it's essentially rather technical nit-picking. But we'll see.
 
JamesM: OK cool.

More news:

Norse Map or German Hoax? Still No Rest for Vinland


By Guy Gugliotta
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 16, 2004; Page A12

When it surfaced in 1957, it was too good to be true: a purported 15th-century world map depicting an island to the far west labeled Vinilandia Insula -- the fabled Vinland -- proof positive, it seemed, that Norse explorers had reached North America long before Columbus.




Thanks -- but no thanks -- the British Museum told the intermediary who offered to sell it to them. It's a phony.

Later that year, however, New Haven, Conn., book dealer Lawrence Witten bought the map and an accompanying medieval manuscript for his wife, paying ,500. Soon after, he visited Yale University Library to view a seemingly unrelated manuscript fragment purchased by Thomas E. Marston, the library's curator of medieval and renaissance literature. Witten asked to borrow it.

That night, Marston got an excited call from Witten. Marston's manuscript, Witten's manuscript and the map were all written in the same hand, Witten said. Furthermore, worm holes in all three works matched up. They apparently had been bound together, with Marston's manuscript as the meat in the sandwich. The map had to be real.

Thus began the affair of the "Vinland Map," a 13-by-19-inch sheet of parchment depicting not only Vinland, but also remarkably detailed renderings of Iceland and, especially, of Greenland, which -- if the map is real -- is portrayed as an island for the first time in history.

Forty-five years after the map's "discovery," its authenticity remains a subject of fierce debate. In the last two months, the journal Analytical Chemistry has published two articles by front-line combatants in the dispute.

One, by retired Smithsonian research chemist Jacqueline Olin, argued that the presence of anatase, or titanium oxide, in the ink did not mean the ink was modern, as had been alleged in earlier research. She suggested the ink may well have been medieval, made from a simple leaching process from the titanium-rich mineral ilmenite.

The other, by Kenneth Towe, also a retired Smithsonian analyst, reminded readers that the map's anatase had a crystalline structure identical to commercial anatase, a ubiquitous synthetic compound used to enhance colors in paint. Olin's analysis, Towe charged, was "a 'rehash' that is too often biased, misleading or inaccurate."

In May, Danish businessman Jorgen Siemonsen, a well-known debunker of Viking frauds who is agnostic on the map, will sponsor a debate between believers and skeptics as part of a conference on the "Dynamics of Northern Societies."

And coming a month later will be a book-length study titled "Maps, Myths and Men, the Story of the Vinland Map," which will make the case that it is a 1930s forgery by a German Jesuit priest intent on making the Nazis look like fools.

At this juncture, a preponderance of evidence points toward forgery, but the argument is not over, and the stakes are high. If it is authentic, the map is priceless, the oldest known depiction of North America. Yale's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the map's current resting place, at one point reportedly insured it for million. If it is not authentic, however, it is an amusing curiosity -- worth what Witten paid for it, perhaps, but not much more.

The Yale library refused a request to discuss the map except to say that it takes no position on its authenticity.

"It's going back and forth, and it will continue going back and forth," said William W. Fitzhugh, director of the Smithsonian Institution's Arctic Studies Center. "The people who made the studies are defending them, and I don't think it will ever be solved."

For 15 years after the Witten phone call, belief in the map's authenticity was ascendant. The British Museum's skeptics became believers. Philanthropist Paul Mellon bought the map and gave it to Yale. Then in 1960 a Norwegian husband and wife team discovered remains of a Norse encampment in Newfoundland, proving that Greenlanders had, in fact, reached North America.

There was dissent, however. Researchers were furious with Yale for keeping the map out of sight until Columbus Day 1965, choosing public relations pizzazz when orthodoxy called for prompt publication of scientific analyses. A team of British investigators questioned whether the ink was medieval. Paleographers questioned the handwriting.

And then there was the fact of the map itself. "The Norse never made maps," said Norwegian-born historian Kirsten Seaver, author of "Maps, Myths and Men." "When you are Norwegian and you see something like that, you say it is so fake, there's no use bothering with it. And how would a 15th-century mapmaker know Greenland was an island?"

"There was a medieval warm period" that may have allowed the Icelanders to colonize Greenland in the 10th century, but "it wasn't that much warmer" than today, Seaver said. "You'd be hard put to sail around Greenland today."

Still, the debate did not turn until 1973, when chemist Walter C. McCrone analyzed the map with polarized light microscopy and found that the yellow "aging stain" seeping from beneath the map's lines was made of synthetic anatase, a substance patented in 1917.

"That seemed to put it in the grave," Fitzhugh recalled.

But others disagreed. Olin made anatase from ilmenite, using a process that would have worked for medieval scribes. "There have been too few medieval inks analyzed" to make categorical statements about them, Olin said in an interview, responding to criticisms by McCrone, and later, Towe, that her anatase did not match the map's.

The case for authenticity was strengthened in 1987, when a University of California at Davis team led by Thomas Cahill reanalyzed the map using X-rays and concluded that titanium was present, but only in minute quantities, calling into question McCrone's analysis. Yale trumpeted these results in a 1995 revision of its original report on the map.

McCrone, who died in 2002, never wavered in dismissing it as a fraud. And that year a British team from University College, London, used laser analysis of the stain to draw conclusions identical to McCrone's. "I'm not taking any glamour away from McCrone," said chemist Robin J.H. Clark, co-author of the British study. "We used a completely different technique to obtain the same conclusion. I think the matter is over."

Not quite. At the same time, an Olin-led team published results from radiocarbon testing that dated the parchment to 1434 A.D. -- proof that the paper was old enough, even if the map wasn't.

And it isn't, Seaver said. Fascinated, she read everything written about Norse exploration since the 18th century and gradually homed in on the Rev. Josef Fischer, a German Jesuit cartographer and prolific Norse historian who died in 1944, as her chief suspect.

Seaver theorizes that Fischer, upset at Nazi persecution of the Catholic Church, drew the map in the late 1930s and deliberately larded it with religious references. "The Nazis loved to talk about a Nordic heritage, and the map was great for them," Seaver said, "except that it also told the story of how the Roman Church had been there from the start. It presented them with a wonderful dilemma."
Click to expand...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A44387-2004Feb15

Emps
 
D'oh! Totally forgot about reading that paper. Again. I'll see how far back I can follow the paper trail. If I can get access to most of the recentish papers, I'll see if I can make a decent fist of summarising the last few salvoes. That is, if it's not too boring and technical.
 
JamesM said:
D'oh! Totally forgot about reading that paper. Again. I'll see how far back I can follow the paper trail. If I can get access to most of the recentish papers, I'll see if I can make a decent fist of summarising the last few salvoes. That is, if it's not too boring and technical.
Click to expand...

LOL - thats OK I forgot to hassle you about it ;)

Emps
 
It's all very interesting.

Nice point about McCrone - always worth looking at the background of people making claims about historical evidence and events.
 
I have now read several of the papers, and was thinking of cobbling together an overview, but then I found this site, which looks pretty comprehensive from a technical point of view, and has been updated to include the last Towe paper from this year. So there's probably no point. But I do suggest a perusal of the link above.
 
Arguements about the authenticity of this map are frivalous at best. Why does it matter when its well documented that Vinland was a thriving colony for a good part of the 11th century. it's not like this map can make or break the case for pre-columbian europeans in the New World; there is a big norse colony in Canada.
 
If the map is a fake it is perhaps a little fortean that it was used to support funding for the successful searches for Norse North American settlements?
 
JamesM said:
I have now read several of the papers, and was thinking of cobbling together an overview, but then I found this site, which looks pretty comprehensive from a technical point of view, and has been updated to include the last Towe paper from this year. So there's probably no point. But I do suggest a perusal of the link above.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that - lots of interesting reading there, JamesM.
 
Search said:
Arguements about the authenticity of this map are frivalous at best. Why does it matter when its well documented that Vinland was a thriving colony for a good part of the 11th century. it's not like this map can make or break the case for pre-columbian europeans in the New World; there is a big norse colony in Canada.
Click to expand...

Does anybody have any links for any of these documents?
 
Yes I'd be interested to hear any evidence on that as I was of the udnerstanding that it was equivocal at best.

Anyway the latest Sci Am has an article:

March 01, 2004


Drawing the Lines

Is a pre-Columbus map of North America truly a hoax?

By Charles Choi



In a Yale University library sits a map depicting the New World that predates the landing of Columbus by 60 years--if it isn't a fake. Although the lines on the so-called Vinland map are faded, those between scientists on the controversy are sharp. New salvos regarding its authenticity now come from both sides.

The parchment map, about 11 by 16 inches large, was uncovered in a Geneva bookshop in 1957 with no records of prior ownership. To the west of the inscriptions of Europe, Africa and the Far East are the words "a new land, extremely fertile and even having vines." The writing also says the crew of Leif Eriksson named the land "Vinland."

In 2002 Jacqueline S. Olin, retired from the Smithsonian Center for Materials Research and Education in Suitland, Md., and her colleagues reported results of carbon dating indicating that the map dates from 1434, give or take 11 years. That finding bolstered three decades of speculation linking it to the Council of Basel, convened in Switzerland by the Catholic Church from 1431 to 1449. There scholars from around Europe assembled to discuss important affairs, such as the rift in the papacy and the possible reunion of the Eastern and Western Churches. "The fact that it existed in the 15th century certainly presents the very real possibility of Columbus, or someone in contact with him, having some knowledge of the map," Olin says.

But since the map's discovery, critics have called it a clever fake. What lies in dispute is not the pre-Columbian age of the parchment but that of the map drawn on it. At the same time Olin and colleagues dated the map's parchment, chemists Katherine Brown and Robin Clark of University College London argued that the map's ink dated from after 1923. The ink contained jagged yellow crystals of anatase, a titanium-bearing mineral rarely found in nature that became commercially available in 20th-century printing ink. "The whole points to an elaborate forgery," Clark states.

Dueling papers appeared again in recent months. With medieval methods, Olin made iron gall inks, which were used before the printing press. She found that her inks contained anatase, results she discusses in the December 1, 2003, issue of Analytical Chemistry. She adds that the anatase crystals in the map and her inks were the same size, citing the electron microscope work of geologist Kenneth M. Towe, retired from the Smithsonian Institution. Those crystals found in modern inks should be about 10 times as large.

Towe vociferously disagrees with Olin's interpretation of his work in a report appearing online in January in Analytical Chemistry. He concludes that the map's anatase crystals look modern in size. Moreover, he notes that whereas a map drawn with iron gall inks would reasonably be expected to contain iron, "there's hardly any there."

Olin responds by suggesting that iron might have disappeared as the inks deteriorated. Regarding the anatase crystal sizes, she concurs with Towe but says many other inks contain titanium and should be researched further to see what sizes are present. She adds that the presence of copper, zinc, aluminum and gold in the map's ink are also consistent with medieval manufacturing.

Historian Kirsten A. Seaver, a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in London, states that the map's writing contains historical anachronisms such as mention of Bishop Eirik of Greenland of the early 12th century reporting to superiors, although he would have had none, because Greenland had not yet become part of the Church hierarchy. "This map absolutely screams 'fake,'" Seaver remarks. In fact, she believes she has found the culprit--a German Jesuit priest, Father Josef Fischer, a specialist in mid-15th-century world maps. Her theory is that Fischer created the map in the 1930s to tease the Nazis, playing on their claims of early Norse dominion of the Americas and on their loathing of Roman Catholic Church authority. The map, she supposes, vanished during postwar looting. Seaver's book on her search will appear this June.
Click to expand...

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa004&articleID=00069D8F-B5FC-101E-B40D83414B7F0000
 
I think the best evidence of Vikings in North America is at Anse aux Meadows
http://collections.ic.gc.ca/vikings/
in Newfoundland;

there is almost nothing else in the rest of the continent outside Greenland.

There are unfortunately lots and lots of fakes;
practically every other piece of Norse paraphanalia from North America has been made in the last two hundred years for fun and profit.

This map is just one more.
 
I think if a person was willing to got to the length of finding a bit of parchment of the right age, they would use authentic inks too.

Also note that Greenland is too far north; In Nansens very interesting book, `True north` he mentions that in medieval times many were wrecked upon the dangerous east coast because they did not realise the island extended so far south.
 
and I've read

among the problems with the map is that Iceland is mapped too perfectly - it is thought to be a copy from a modern map.

You would wonder - if Greenland and America are vague representations, why are Iceland's fjords geographically correct?
 
Iceland would have been well known and populated for a lot longer. Practically you need to have good maps of your local region if you are belong to a seagoing culture. It doesn't seem ridiculous to me that iceland would be well mapped by the time the Vinland map is supposed to date from.
 
Thats what I thought, your home area could be well mapped.

Compare maps from classical times and `memory` maps drawn by different people
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top