Every few years I post an update about the
Vinland Map (a map, supposedly from the early 15th century, showing part of North America). In
2002 I posted that an analysis of the map's ink proved it was a fake, but in
2003 I wrote that a new study indicated it might be genuine. And in 2004 I linked to a
Scientific American article that described historian Kirsten Seaver's theory that the map was created in the 1930s by a German Jesuit priest, Father Josef Fischer, in order to tease the Nazis by "playing on their claims of early Norse dominion of the Americas and on their loathing of Roman Catholic Church authority."
Now a scholar, Rene Larsen of the School of Conservation under the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, says that the
map is genuine:
Larsen said his team carried out studies of the ink, writing, wormholes and parchment of the map, which is housed at Yale University in the United States.
He said wormholes, caused by wood beetles, were consistent with wormholes in the books with which the map was bound.
He said claims the ink was too recent because it contained a substance called anatase titanium dioxide could be rejected because medieval maps have been found with the same substance, which probably came from sand used to dry wet ink.
I don't expect Larsen's arguments will end the debate, since the opposing sides in the controversy seem to be pretty well entrenched.
Comments
In terms of the map itself, it's the inaccuracy of Britain I find most obviously anachronistic.
"This latest work seems to be motivated by indirect proof (materials) rather than the more important points about the content of the map."
The composition of the ink trumps any and all other points. Those who believe that the Vinland Map is authentic must explain this anomalous composition with a consistent scenario. To date, no such scenario has been offered that makes sense.
"...as well as historically plausible ink formulae"
The standard ink of the period was iron-gallotannate. The ink on the Vinland Map is not such an ink. It contains little or no iron and has none of the characteristics one would expect from an iron-gall ink. It is, therefore, historically implausible.
So we'll see what other experts have to say about the anatase titanium dioxide and sand and other documents from the Medieval period having it in their ink.