In the early 1960s, something called the “Vinland map” was uncovered. It became famous because it proved that Vikings came to America before Columbus. It seemed to be a map of the North Atlantic as drawn from Scandinavian discoveries between 800 and 1100 CE, well before western Europe’s great Age of Exploration that began in 1400. It was announced by Yale University in the early 1960s, receiving much fanfare, and much skepticism.

The Vinland map is claimed to be a 15th century mappa mundi with unique information about Norse exploration of America, but is most likely to be a 20th century imitation. It is very well known because of the marketing campaign which accompanied its revelation to the public as a “genuine” pre-Columbian map in 1965. In addition to showing Africa, Asia and Europe, the map depicts a landmass south-west of Greenland in the Atlantic labelled as Vinland; the map describes this region as having been visited by Europeans in the 11th century. Although it was presented to the world in 1965 with an accompanying scholarly book written by British Museum and Yale University librarians, historians of geography and medieval document specialists began finding evidence that the map was a fake as soon as photographs of it became available,and chemical analyses have identified one of the major ink ingredients as a 20th century artificial pigment. However, individual pieces of evidence continue to be challenged, most recently at a 2009 conference.

Controversy has swirled around the map since it came to light in the 1950s, many scholars suspecting it was a hoax meant to prove that Vikings were the first Europeans to land in North America — a claim confirmed by a 1960 archaeological find.

Doubts about the map lingered even after the use of carbon dating as a way of establishing the age of an object.

Timeline of Vinland Map Debate

1957
A New Haven, Conn., rare-book dealer buys the Vinland Map from an Italian book seller for $3.6K. Provenance suspicious but this is normal for discoveries of this sort.

1965
After 7 years of study, map scholars from the British Museum and from Yale declare the map to be genuine, in articles published in The Vinland Map and the Tartar Relation, Yale University Press 1965. The The Beinecke Library at Yale University acquires the map, with Paul Mellon providing the purchase price (reputed to be $1M).

1966
An international conference, organized at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, reviews the authenticity of the Map extensively and recommends that it be studied scientifically.

1974
Yale engages the leading analytical chemist Walter McCrone to study the Map. McCrone presents a report to the Yale Library, summarizing his study, by polarized light microscopy, of microsamples taken from the Map. He found anatase (titanium dioxide) in the ink, in a form available only after 1920. On the basis of the McCrone Report, the Yale Library announces that “the famous Vinland Map may be a forgery.”

1976
McCrone publishes a brief account of his 1974 study in Anal. Chem.

1982
A report to the Yale Library by Kenneth Towe (a geologist at the Smithsonian) raises questions about the McCrone study but does not challenge its conclusions.

1987
Yale seeks a second opinion, using a different technique. At U.C.Davis, Cahill subjects the map to an elemental analysis using PIXE (particle-induced X-ray emission), finding only trace amounts of titanium and challenging McCrone’s findings in an article in Anal. Chem.

1988
McCrone publishes a full account of his 1974 study in Anal. Chem. and argues that Cahill’s findings do not invalidate McCrone’s conclusions.

1990
Towe reviews the McCrone and Cahill studies in Accounts of Chemical Research and argues that Cahill’s study supports McCrone’s conclusions.

1996
A second edition of The Vinland Map and the Tartar Relation is published by the Yale University Press. It contains a contribution from Cahill but McCrone was not invited to contribute. The new edition stops just short of declaring the map to be genuine.

A symposium is convened at Yale to discuss the map to which McCrone is not invited. He shows up anyway and hands out copies of the report he would have given had he been asked: The Vinland Map, Still a 20th-Century Fake.

An article, Tales of the Un-Fake, in the May issue of the Yale Alumni Magazine rehabilitates the map. “The reputation of a map donated to the Beinecke Library and later suspected of being a fraud has been rehabilitated …”

July, 2002
A study backs the Yale expert’s belief the map is a fake. [Brown and Clark in Analytical Chemistry]

August, 2002
A study uses carbon dating to analyze the parchment, and concludes the parchment is authentic.

November, 2003
A study considers the methods of medieval ink makers, and concludes the map is authentic.

sources:

wikipedia

The Vinland Map

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