MAP IS BACK: A Danish researcher suggests that the Vinland Map, possibly the first depiction of North America, is authentic after all, but experts are still not convinced.
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Here we go again.
A Danish art conservator claims that the controversial Vinland Map of America, published prior to Christopher Columbus's landfall, may not be a forgery after all.
"We have so far found no reason to believe that the Vinland Map is the result of a modern forgery," says René Larsen of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. Reuters first publicized his results last week but provided none of the skepticism being voiced by veterans in the field.
The map mysteriously emerged in a Geneva bookshop in 1957 depicting a "new" and "fertile" land to the west that Viking explorer Leif Eriksson had christened Vinland. Eriksson's 11th-century voyages to Newfoundland are well-known today, but they were thought to be unknown to 15th-century Europeans. The Vinland map could represent the earliest cartographic record of North America and prove that Europeans were aware of the continent prior to Columbus's voyage.
But scientific experts have bickered over the map's authenticity since the 1970s, as described in a 2004 Scientific American article. The map's parchment dates to circa 1434, but scientists say that the underlying yellow-brown ink has a chemical component, anatase, that indicates a 20th-century origin.
In the new study, presented at the 2009 International Conference on the History of Cartography in Copenhagen, Larsen proposed a possible explanation for the ink's anatase. He suggested the mineral comes from gneiss rocks in the Binnenthal area of Switzerland, which have long been used for sand production. Sand, he explains, was commonly used to dry ink prior to the introduction of blotter paper: "You often find remains of it in old books and manuscripts."
But Kenneth Towe, a retired geologist from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., who has followed the issue for many years, says that Larsen is a "serious" researcher but his explanation is "bogus."
"The problem is if the anatase…came out of gneiss or any other natural source, it is going to have a totally different appearance than the anatase that appears on the Vinland map ink," he notes. Towe says the Vinland ink has small round crystals produced chemically, whereas sand would have larger fractured crystals from grinding along with other minerals like quartz. "Even if sand has been found on other maps," he adds, "it still has never been found on the Vinland Map."
Larsen responds he has not looked at the crystals himself but suggests that the sand has been through a "cleaning" that leaves only the smallest crystals. He also claims that the yellow-brown marks are actually a residue left behind after black ink flaked off the map, calling into question the findings that the anatase was only found in yellow ink.
The only thing that is certain, Towe says, is this won't be the end of the Vinland controversy. "This thing has a life of it's own," he says.
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55 Comments
Add CommentWho cares, we've all got GPS now! LOL!!! Just kidding!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI hope they're able to get to the bottom of this mystery someday. I love the beauty and detail of maps created throughout the historical record, and I am fascinated particularly by cartography of the age of western European exploration (since it is the one I know best), maps with terra incognita and misshapen but still recognizable islands and continents. Fascinating to look back on how people saw or imagined the face of our planet.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen are you people gonna realize the world is Flat!!!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe 2004 SciAm article describes the map's offending crystals as jagged, not round as this article quotes a skeptic. Just saying.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSadly, KendoBoSai is correct... "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. " Problem is that the reporter Choi, got it wrong! A major goof on his part! I wrote to him at the time (Feb. 2004)...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDear Charles:
I have now seen a copy of your article. I do not know if you had your manuscript reviewed prior to submission, but unfortunately, you made a couple of serious errors that may, as a result, become "embedded" by some who will read your work and take it as “gospel”. You state: "The ink contained jagged yellow crystals of anatase..." This is completely incorrect. The crystals in the ink are rounded, not jagged. This is not a minor point because were they jagged this would indicate a ground-up material and it would not be confused with modern commercial anatase crystals.
The "fruit" of his error has now ripened.
Yeah, it's real! They traced it from their satellite photo recon.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBesides it is the very map used by Basil Vasquez when he led the slaughter of Bering People in 1401-3. Makes this map very valuable. Museum quality. I'll buy two of 'em. Yup.
I don't think Dr Larsen has appreciated the scale of the anatase titanium dioxide crystals in the Vinland Map. Photos published in Analytical Chemistry (May 15, 1988) show that the anatase crystals in the Vinland Map ink were typically just a few nanometers across (and indeed round, not jagged!). Drying sand is used by tipping it from a pot over the writing, so crystals that small would blow away in the slightest breeze, and form a most unpleasant cloud even in perfectly still air.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, contrary to the impression given by the article, a small percentage of the black component of the ink still survives as a crust on top of the yellow-brown, and has been analyzed more than once (see also Analytical Chemistry, August 2002). It contains negligible quantities of titanium, far less than the underlying yellow- the exact reverse of the situation you would expect if the anatase had been tipped on top of the ink as a drying agent. Also, the element silicon was found only in negligible quantities in any component of the ink- very odd if the source of the anatase was sand.
It will be interesting to finally come to a conclusion about this map. But even if it is fake, there is much physical evidence that Europeans (as well as Asians) were here long before Columbus; I don't find a whole lot is resting on this one map in that respect. I personally feel that it's genuine, and I would love to see it with my own eyes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs far as GPS and Flat Earth...my imagination soars... "Turn left at huge Iceburg. Approaching Earth's edge in 200 miles; be prepared to stop... Be prepared to stop... Stop! STOP, I say! AGHHHHHHHHHHH!!"
"The map's parchment dates to circa 1434, but scientists say that the underlying yellow-brown ink has a chemical component, anatase, that indicates a 20th-century origin."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOK... so let's see, somebody went through all the trouble to obtain [where from?] a parchment guaranteed to be from 1434. And then screwed up by using "modern ink". What is the probability of that happening? There must have been countless "educated" people in Northern Europe who knew that the Vikings had reached Greenland and North America. This was NOT a secret exactly! At the time, some 4,000 people on Greenland knew this. Consequently, the probability of somebody knowing all this having made this map is greater than the probability of somebody having dug up an old "clean" piece of parchment from the 15th century. Disprove that anatase titanium dioxide crystals are NOT there naturally -- for some reason. This cannot be done.
Koltrast, the probability of finding a clean piece of parchment guaranteed to be from 1434 (ish) on which to draw the Vinland Map was actually not far off 100%- because the book within which the map, according to the wormholes, must once have been (a volume from the "Speculum Historiale") now lacks several dozen pages from the beginning- some parchment, some paper- plus possibly some endpapers. A forger would not even have to find a blank double-page, because, as Dr Larsen's team confirmed in 2005, the two halves of the Vinland Map are completely separate, held together only by a strip glued on the back, and whoever drew it made sure to avoid writing across the divide, or even drawing lines that went across it at an awkward angle.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, the "modern ink" was not a huge screw up. By the time the Vinland Map appeared on the market in the 1950s, experts could tell pretty well how old a conventional "iron gall" ink was, because it reacts chemically with the parchment on which it is written- but a unique ink, which is what we find on the Vinland Map, would be a different matter. The only catch was, the ink maker probably didn't realise that anatase, though indeed naturally available in Switzerland, which watermarks indicate is also the source of the paper for the "Speculum" volume, comes in different forms- and the form that has been available from pigment suppliers since the 1920s looks very different under a microscope from the natural version. Hence Dr Towe's irritation at Charles Choi's mistake, referred to above- the regular shape and small size range of the crystals is what declares them to be artificial and modern.
Koltrast asserts: "Disprove that anatase titanium dioxide crystals are NOT there naturally -- for some reason. This cannot be done." Sorry, bit it has been done. Clearly, Koltrast has not read many (any?) of the primary peer-reviewed papers because this objection has already been dealt with, repeatedly. It is NOT simply "titanium dioxide crystals" but anatase crystals having a size, shape and size distribution (no big ones, all rounded with no jagged edges like those ground up) that can only be made consistent with industrial modified precipitated titanium dioxide (commercial anatase). This is THE critical issue. And, add to this that the ink is not an iron-gallotannate ink... the virtual staple ink of the period in Europe according to the British Museum experts who studied the Vinland Map in 1967 and you have a BIG problem for authenticity. Furthermore, no significant amount of other natural minerals (e.g. clay minerals like kaolinite) are present in the ink. Certainly, if the anatase came from a natural source other minerals would be expected. Where are they? Only minor, probable contamination, traces have been found. To make the Vinland Map genuine one must explain the size, shape and size distribution of the anatase, free of clay minerals, present on the Map. This cannot be done. This is THE critical issue.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDamned those latter-day Vikings, tearing pages out of a book to draw their map on. I guess this was never done before or after. [Just kidding.] But, if the ink analysis is so absolutely perfect, why this continued controversy? Nonetheless, northern navigators still knew there was "land over there". Columbus was a fast-talking con artist, who sailed in the wrong direction to reach India, using the wrong calculations of the wrong Greek.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisKoltrast, the continued controversy, ultimately, is due to the decision, back in the 1980s, to get a second (or rather third) opinion, using a new technique, particle-induced X-ray emission (PIXE). One team, under Thomas Cahill at UC Davis, had started applying this technique to the analysis of historic ink, and was invited to test the Vinland Map. They reported in 1985 that the amount of titanium in the Vinland Map ink was negligible, hence the anatase was presumably just contamination from modern dust. Despite counter-claims that negligible quantities of anatase could not have been detected by some of the methods used in the previous analyses, and that the anatase was not just on the surface of the ink, this, made public in Analytical Chemistry (March 15, 1987) and repeated in the second edition of the official book "The Vinland Map and the Tartar Relation" (1995) was treated as an official vindication of the map's authenticity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat nobody noticed at the time was that, in effect, the Cahill team had found that the amount of EVERY element they detected was negligible. In particular, when testing the iron gall inks of the accompanying "Speculum Historiale" and "Tartar Relation" volumes, they detected iron at a level of around 25 nanograms per square centimetre on average. Over the decades since 1985, old iron gall inks have been studied by various labs around the world, with PIXE and other recently developed techniques, and it turns out that, although the iron content in iron gall inks varies greatly, by about two orders of magnitude, 25 ng/sq cm is about three orders of magnitude smaller than the worldwide average- yet visually, the "Speculum" and "Tartar Relation" ink appears, if anything, to be on the strong side, a rich dark colour, not pale brown. In short, the evidence (as briefly explained in Archaeometry, vol 50, no 5, 2008) indicates that all the Cahill figures are at least 1000 times smaller than they should be, and hence the argument that the Vinland Map ink can only contain negligible, contamination-level quantities of anatase is incorrect.
"But, if the ink analysis is so absolutely perfect, why this continued controversy?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisExcellent question! Adding to what Trochos has said, those who have accepted as "gospel" the results of the Cahill group's 1985 PIXE analysis are required (a) to accept that the anatase is a 20th century contamination and (b) they must ignore some amazing statistical probability. McCrone (1974) found anatase in 21 of his ink samples. Brown And Clark (2002) found anatase in five separate ink locations, some in the same location as Cahill chose. Yet, Cahill's group never found even ONE piece of anatase in 159 locations? Not even by chance? Cahill, however, did find that that titanium was the most frequently found element in the ink, something that is NEVER found in undisputed medieval inks. So, putting it all together it is clear that Cahill's PIXE analysis while qualitatively accurate was quantitatively wrong, as Trochos has explained (see Archaeometry, vol. 50, p. 887-893, 2008). In fact, the Cahill group DID find the anatase the two others had found, they just messed up the amount by being about three orders of magnitude too low.The Larsen group, as well as other "believers", need to understand this, something they all seem to ignore.
I spoke with Larsen Friday, who says he doesn't want to release his full article at present, lest it jeopardize its publishability. Meanwhile, he has made a press release public, which I have posted over at <a href = "http://historymedren.about.com/b/2009/07/22/vinland-map-is-genuine-or-is-it.htm">About.com:Medieval History</a>.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHe writes, "The paper presents our findings about the ink, writing, wormholes, the parchment and other relevant issues pertaining to the authenticity of VM....
On this background and limited to the areas we have investigated we have so far found no reason to believe that the VM is the result of a modern forgery."
We'll have to wait for the published version to see what he says about most of these issues. Meanwhile, however, I'm afraid his suggestion that the VM anatase comes from sand ground, perhaps from Binnental gneiss rocks, doesn't work, since, as has been pointed out by Broadlands and Trochos above, the VM anatase crystallites are rounded and relatively uniform in size (averaging 0.15 micron), whereas crushed anatase would be jagged and very diverse in size (contrary to the statement by Charles Choi in the 2004 Sci. Am. article cited by Brendan Borrell above).
What is not well appreciated is that anatase crystallites similar in size and shape to those found by the McCrones in the VM ink do appear naturally, in kaolin clays. See Weaver 1976 and my webpage at <a href = "http://www.econ.ohio-state.edu/jhm/arch/vinland/vinland.htm">http://www.econ.ohio-state.edu/jhm/arch/vinland/vinland.htm"</a> for references and more detailed discussion. This is why Broadlands (#11 above) cryptically mentions kaolinite and clay.
The anatase the McCrones found in the VM ink was in isolated particles about 5 to 10 micron in dimension. They located these and initially identified them as anatase-rich using Polarized Light Microscopy (PLM), and then confirmed anatase with X-ray diffraction patterns. 16 such particles were typically 20-30% TiO2. 13 of these contained aluminum, with a median content of 1-2%, and each contained at least as much silicon as Al. PLM also detected low-refractive index particles in the ink which they said were "probably ... minerals like quartz, <i>clays</i>, feldspars, etc." (emphasis added)
As it happens, the anatase crystallites Weaver found in kaolin clay often were often in aggregates composed of tightly packed anatase pellets, about 5 or 10 micron in dimension, the same size as the anatase-rich particles found in the VM ink.
Weaver has commented that he would not be surprised if similar anatase particles appeared in other clays formed by weathering. Deelman (1979) has shown that VM-sized anatase can be produced from amorphous TiO2 at 25dC, by means of repeated wet and dry cycles. This is presumably the mechanism that causes the kaolin anatase crystallites. Garman Harbottle (2008) has suggested that lateritic earth pigments such as umbers, sienas, and ochres may also contain such particles.
Kenneth Towe (2008 with Clark and Seaver) argues that the natural anatase in kaolin or other clays or earths could not be freed from the predominant clay or iron oxides without treatments such as those used by Weaver to centrifuge the particles from a slurry of clay, namely Calgon, ultrasonic treatment, blenders, and magnets.
What the anatase issue comes down to, then, is not whether VM-type anatase appears in nature, but whether it can be freed from other materials without such measures.
I would submit that plain water would achieve such a separation. My limited experience is that if a little clay is mixed with a lot of water, the clay does not sink immediately to the bottom, but instead stays suspended in the water for hours or even days. If a drop of this milky water is placed on a slide and evaporated, the slide is smoothly (if unevenly) covered with horizontal clay flakes, indicating that the separation is at the individual flake level. If the concentration of the clay is such that the film is only 1 micron deep on average, sand crystals on the order of 5-10 micron stand out relatively clean of clay flakes.
So the ultimate question is whether the 5-10 micron anatase clusters present in kaolinite clays (or similar anatase-bearing earths) would a) remain intact in a water suspension or fall apart, and b) be relatively clean of clay flakes and locatable with PLM, or hidden inside larger balls of clay flakes and hence not locatable with PLM.
Towe has objected that any kaolinite flakes would have shown up in McCrone's XRD films, yet did not. But how much kaolinite does it take to show up in XRD, and how much clay does really does adhere to water-separated anatase aggregates? If all the aluminum and silicon found by the McCrones in their anatase-rich particles were kaolinite, the particles would be 5-10% kaolinite.
Weaver was looking for commercially viable ways of removing anatase from kaolinite clay by centrifuging slurries, etc. Diluting the clay 1000 to 1 with water, evaporating it to a depth of 1 micron, and then removing each anatase cluster under a microscope as the McCrones did with the VM ink, would not be commercially practical. But this doesn't mean it can't be done.
Hu McCulloch has been attempting for many years to persuade his readers that the separation of clay-originated rounded anatase crystals from their associated clay minerals could, by some speculative but not scientifically demonstrated mechanism, have generated the anatase found on the Vinland Map. Such "one-chance-in-a-million" claims are central to the continued controversy over the Vinland Map, and, in effect to nearly all other fringe theories about easily explicable phenomena. Everything we know about the Vinland Map can most easily be explained by the theory that it is a mid-20th-century hoax, yet the promotion of unlikely "medieval origin" explanations for just a few of the Map's many peculiarities magically generates [(c) Terry Pratchett, to whom I send my best wishes] a high probability that the multi-disciplinary consensus is mistaken.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn this specific point, McCulloch fails to mention that, although mineralogical analyses (re-checked to answer this very question since the original McCrone tests) have failed to find significant quantities of clay minerals in the Vinland Map ink, they have found feldspar, the most obvious non-clay source of aluminum and silicon.
The obvious strangeness of the Vinland Map was enough to make nearly all scholars avoid using it in as evidence in discussions of medieval exploration, almost from the moment it was unveiled in 1965. In that sense, the continuing pseudo-scientific controversy is itself an illusion.
Well Well Well. I'm glad someone finally discovered this continent. It was unpopulated with no human civilization. Thankfully the world was conquered by the Male European Aggressive Gene?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy people didn't need a map to find this place.
WE LIVE HERE!!!
McCulloch writes: "As it happens, the anatase crystallites Weaver found in kaolin clay often were often in aggregates composed of tightly packed anatase pellets, about 5 or 10 micron in dimension, the same size as the anatase-rich particles found in the VM ink. What the anatase issue comes down to, then, is not whether VM-type anatase appears in nature, but whether it can be freed from other materials without such measures. "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSome backgtround: Dr. McCulloch is an economist with his own private non-peer-reviewed webpage that cannot be challenged or corrected except by his own hand. Critics of any of it need not apply. No rebuttals accepted. He has been trotting out this absurd clay scenario perennially for many years...at least 10. What he has failed to make known here is the fact that kaolin clays contain only 0.2 to 2.5% anatase (TiO2). Kaolinite and amorphous aluminosilicates make up most of the rest of the clay. Anatase is always a trivial component... a needle in the haystack. He loves to cite Charles Weaver's 1976 paper (29 times!)... but always rather selectively. Let's see what Dr. Weaver actually wrote about this anatase, not just what McCulloch wants us to know, emphasis added...
In discussing the TiO2-aggregates dispersed in Calgon followed by intense sonic treatment, Weaver ('76, p 216) wrote: "There is some suggestion that the particles are CEMENTED". On page 218: In kaolin deposits these [anatase] pellets are BONDED TO EACH OTHER AND TO KAOLINITE PLATES. The bonding may be electrostatic and/or chemical . Even in his abstract, Weaver wrote: An amorphous Si-Al compound may be present and ACT AS A CEMENT. And "As [the aggregates, those not attracted to a magnet] were prepared by relatively intense mixing in a blender, THE KAOLINITE MUST BE STRONGLY BONDED TO THE ANATASE." Also: Most of the TiO2-rich particles, which are concentrated by gravity settling, contain MORE kaolinite than those removed by the magnet. Weaver further wrote (p. 218): ...large aggregates which are composed of Ti pellets ALWAYS CONTAIN SOME SI AND AL WHICH IS NOT ALWAYS ON THE SURFACE. Weavers work shows clearly that to simply suspend a 0.2 to 2.5% TiO2 containing kaolin in plain water does not leave these quantitatively minor Ti-containing aggregates free of kaolinite...not even relatively free, not even close!
McCulloch has written on his non-rebuttable Finer Points page that ...if it [clay] were suspended in aqueous ink, Weavers anatase aggregates could EASILY have become separated from the bulk of the kaolinite overburden. And later: ...anatase aggregates of the 5-10 micron size found by the McCrones could EASILY be separated from the bulk of the clay through the action of water. And "...anatase-bearing clay dust could EASILY have blown in an open window and accidentally settled on the parchment." "These particles could as EASILY have been medieval as modern...
Easily? In addition to what has been cited above, Weaver (1976) wrote this (p. 218): The pellets and aggregates can be mobilized in slurries by chemical and physical treatment. THE APPLICATION OF ENERGY IS ESSENTIAL." Weaver used sonic treatment followed by centrifugation in attempting to more effectively separate the particles. Not exactly what a medieval scribe might be doing...and certainly not easily.
I have visited and spoken to Dr. Weaver. We are both trained clay mineralogists and Past-presidents of the Clay Minerals Society. We discussed the myriad anatase-from-natural sources theories for the Vinland Map ink. To be polite and charitable, he finds them to be nonsense and to have no merit whatsoever.
McCulloch has pleaded that he doesnt have the equipment or expertise to address some of his experimental ideas. Yet, he is a member of the faculty (Economics Department) at the Ohio State University. I have suggested, several times over the years, that he to go over to the School of Earth Sciences (or to the Department of Soil Sciences) at Ohio State and discuss his various theories and experiments with some of the mineralogists on the staff. They do have the equipment and the expertise! To my knowledge he has not done so.
He needs to either "put up or shut up". His continued speculation serves little purpose and is EASILY getting tiresome.
gatestribe- you are of course absolutely right. America had little to fear from the first person to discover it, or the second, or even probably the thousandth. The real problem was the LAST person to discover it, the man who gave away the secret...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFootnote: In a neat twist to a discussion largely concerned with scientific mistakes, it has been pointed out to me that my description of the Vinland Map anatase particles as "just a few nanometers across" is wrong by an order of magnitude or so: "a few dozen nanometers across" would be closer to the mark- but still very very small ...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReminds me of: http://www.sacred-texts.com/piri/index.htm
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe difference between the Piri map and the Vinland Map is that Piri Reis, a well-known early 16th-century mariner, made numerous other identifiable maps (both accurate and beautiful) including a revised version of the famous map, a portion of which survives showing how he corrected his depiction of the Caribbean islands. Every element of the Piri map can be explained without recourse to science fiction- in fact he helped by listing the sources he consulted!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe comments of my friend Ken Towe are off the mark when he continues to talk about anatase in the ink of the Vinland Map Only problem is, it aint there in any significant amount. Never was. The work of Tom Cahill, explored in the "NOVA" on the Vinland Map showed conclusively that anatase that is there is (1) only 1/10,000 of the amount "found" by McCrone, who Towe continues to defend in the face of all odds, and (2) about the level that Cahill sees on dozens of other, unrelated, unchallenged medieval documents. In my Archaeometry paper (I will be glad to send a copy email to anyone who requests it) I also show that (1) the presence of calcite in the ink joined to the supposed anatase crystals is incompatible with the industrial process for manyfacturing anatase, which involves concentrated sulfuric acid. Calcite would be destroyed instantly in that process.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisKirsten Seaver obtained some real anatase dating to the early 1920's. Guess what; it is totally unlike the supposed anatase white pigment supposedly used on the VM. forgery.
Get real folks. The Vinland map may be a forgery though I personally dont think so. Our carbon 14 dates were exactly what an authentic map would have had. The watermark is right, etc. I also think that too much damage was done to the VM in the 1950's "conservation" for any laboratory work, or for superficial examinations like those of Larsen et al. to yield any useful data as to its authenticity. We need to find other maps or copies from the same era hidden in some obscure library, somewhere.
But Ken is right about one thingL the argunment goes on
My book "Vikings in America" was published four days ago (Birlinn, Edinburgh ISBN 9781841587011 and includes an assessment of the Vinland Map - written before Larsen and his team published their findings. I conclude "The jury remains out on the Vinland Map, and while an observer of the court case will predict a guilty verdict, it is within the bounds of possibility that it will one day come to be accepted as genuine".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the Vinland Map is a forgery it is a spectacularly good one. We have to assume a forger with very high language skills, a superb knowledge of mediaeval cartography, the manual skills to use well the tools available to a mediaeval scribe and produce convincing handwriting of the time, and access to a blank piece of parchment of the right age. If the map we have did not include Vinland I don't think anyone would have ever doubted its authenticity.
The only true problem is the anatase in the ink. We could even live with some anatase as the substance is found naturally and has been noted in some other manuscripts of the period - anatase is of course a pigment, and therefore a suitable substance for an ink. However the crystals of natural anatase look different from synthetic anatase - basically the latter are more regular. Infuriatingly the Vinland Map doesn't display absolutely characteristic crystals of either natural or synthetic anatase, but rather falls somewhere in the middle.
It may be that Larsen has weakened his argument by putting forward an explanation as to how the anatase got there. I think he could reasonably have said that the anatase got there in a way not known. Possibilities are:
1) The ink, in common with the inks of some manuscripts agreed to be genuine, uses natural anatase - by chance a natural anatase with unusually regular crystals.
2) Anatase was introduced in some other way in the mediaeval period or subsequently. The idea of anatase from sand is a new one to me - maybe.
3) We know that Ferrajoli tampered with the map prior to selling it, and that his tampering introduced a lot of 1950s contaminants (indeed Carbon-14 shows both 1430s and 1950s as dates). It is possible that some of his tampering introduced the anatase. That the map contains 1950s anatase doesn't make it a fake
I think Larsen has taken the argument forward in pointing out that from the basis of his discipline the map looks genuine. It is up to the scientists to consider a mechanism by which anatase of the type found may have got onto the map. Even if Ferrajoli put it there the map can still be genuine.
archaeometrist and Graemedavis are both very wrong. As indicated in the response to archaeometrist's paper in "Archaeometry" last year, the Cahill PIXE figures for all elements in the Vinland Map and its related documents are too low by a factor of at least 1,000 (and as it happens there are further methodological flaws in the Cahill analyses which specifically relate to the "headline figures" for percentages of titanium in the ink). archaeometrist seems also to have ignored the very thorough refutation of his claim about calcite being "joined" to the anatase crystals- the evidence clearly shows that the calcite is only "in the ink" because the ink has soaked into the calcite which is present all over the surface of the parchment (a standard medieval procedure to obtain a good writing surface).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd Graemedavis repeats another myth- that the Vinland Map is a "spectacularly good" forgery. Not so; what was spectacular was the chain of events over the first eight years of the Map's known history, from 1957 to 1965, which resulted in the production of a scholarly book agreeing in almost every respect with the "research" conducted by the dealer who brought the Map to America (who had, in turn, almost certainly been primed by a European dealer, who sold the Map to him in 1957 and is generally believed to be the person who had the linked "Speculum Historiale" volume rebound, hiding vital clues under the endpapers). Also, I can't emphasise strongly enough the simple point that not one scientist was allowed to study the Map until 1967- and the first scientists who did spotted major problems almost instantly. Finally, the anatase is far from the only problem, and as Paul Saenger of the Newberry Library observed over ten years ago, it is most regrettable that the media focus on that issue has sidelined a great deal of other damning evidence, across a wide range of disciplines.
Very few people today have the skills necessary to forge a Vinland Map. To do so would almost certainly need a team rather than one individual. Yes I think it would be possible to produce a fake fifteenth century mappa mundi, but one that would stand up to even the most casual expert scrutiny would be a significant achievement.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Vinland Map received considerable academic support in the years immediately following 1957. It has had its supporters subsequently. Now in 2009, in the face of a scholarly consensus that it is fake, Larsen and his team report that it does not seem to be a forgery. That in 2009 serious scholars from a manuscript conservation department are in effect saying that the Vinland Map is genuine suggests either that it is genuine, or that it is a superb example of the forger's art.
My (published) view is that on balance the Vinland Map is probably a forgery. But the quality of a forgery which has deceived so many cannot simply be ignored, and the possibility that we may one day need to revise views on the status of the Vinland Map cannot wholly be ruled out. It is possible for the Vinland Map to include ink added in the 1950s and still be a genuine map. The "conservation" that the map underwent at this time may well have introduced 1950s ink as part of a process of improving the map prior to sale. Finding synthetic anatase does not automatically prove the map to be a fake. Or there may just possibly be an explanation for how an anatase that looks synthetic could have been added in the fifteenth century.
My view remains that the Vinland Map is probably a fake. But it is a good one, and Larsen has reminded us just how good. Larsen has also reminded us that from the perspective of his discipline it looks genuine. What we have is a clash of disciplines, with two different disciplines producing conflicting results and both looking foolish when they try to explain away the findings of the other. I continue to regard the Vinland Map as probably a fake, but Larsen seems to have made a contribution (we all await a full publication) that makes the view that the Vinland Map is fake a little bit harder to hold.
Graeme, your statement "The Vinland Map received considerable academic support in the years immediately following 1957" is utterly wrong. Experts on medieval manuscripts at the British Museum dismissed it as a fake in summer 1957. From then until 1965, apart from the authors of the official book (whose research basically followed the trail of candy left for them by the book-dealer Laurence Witten) only two academics had the chance to study it- Lawrence C. Wroth in the US and Eva Taylor in the UK. They too strongly suspected it to be a fake.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe academics who studied the Vinland Map during its first decade in America were not experts on document faking (and nor indeed is Dr. Larsen). The British Museum staff who rejected it in 1957, and their scientific colleagues who rejected it again in 1967, were experts on document faking, but their testimony was "buried"- and do bear in mind that it had nothing to do with anatase.
Thanks to Trochos, the totally absurd post by the archaeometrist (Garmon Harbottle) has been adequately addressed. Professor Harbottle is, apparently, unable to accept that his novel calcite-anatase composite theory (put forward in a review article no less) is without merit. Any objective comparison of his "review" with our rebuttal should reveal that clearly. It is noteworthy that Graemedavis chose not to mention it and his posts show that he hasn't read it, at least with any understanding.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisExample. It is irritating that Graemedavis repeats here a commonly held but totally erroneous assertion, which is also one of the "facts" offered by Dr. Larsen: "anatase...has been noted in some other manuscripts of the period." This is patently false. No other medieval document, not even one, has been found with ANATASE in the ink. Those who claim that (Graemedavis; Dr. Harbottle; Dr. Larsen) have not been able to appreciate (or choose to ignore) that there is an important difference between finding the element titanium (Ti) and finding the mineral anatase (TiO2). It is certainly true that the element titanium has been found in the iron-gallotannate inks of numerous medieval documents. But, none, repeat none, of these documents has ever been found with anatase and, importantly, none has been found titanium as the most frequently found element. Cahill et al. wrote that they found titanium as the most frequently found element, 65% of the time. Titanium, never mind anatase, is NEVER the most frequently found element in any medieval ink. And, to make the case even stronger, the ink on the Vinland Map is not even an iron-gall ink, something Graemedavis also failed to address in his pronouncement that it is WE who look foolish.
Graemedavis adds further foolishness of his own when he states "the Vinland Map doesn't display absolutely characteristic crystals of either natural or synthetic anatase, but rather falls somewhere in the middle." To assert this one has to ignore (or fail to have read?) that Walter McCrone showed that, in addition to the anatase having rounded rather than jagged, angular shapes, the particle size distribution of the anatase on the Map is completely different from that of natural anatase. Anatase in sands (Larsen's postulate) is totally different in this respect.
Graemedavis states: "Finding synthetic anatase does not automatically prove the map to be a fake. Or there may just possibly be an explanation for how an anatase that looks synthetic could have been added in the fifteenth century."
Both of these bits of wishful thinking are among the few straws left to hold onto. The burden of proof rests with those who can explain in a plausible fashion: A 15th century map (a) with a non-iron gall ink, one unlike any ever seen and (b) a mineral that is unlike any natural source in particle shape, particle size, and particle size distribution, free of natural accessory minerals, clays, iron oxides.
Graemedavis ends by saying "Larsen has also reminded us that from the perspective of his discipline it looks genuine." Larsen's statements about the authenticity of the Map were not part of his formal presentation and both are pure speculation given to a reporter. Both have been shown to be wrong, regardless of discipline.
The original authentification team was two British Museum curators and one Yale librarian.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRaleigh Ashlin Skelton was Deputy Keeper, Department of Printed Books, British Museum, as well as Superintendant of the British Museum Map Room. During the period of the authentification he was Acting Map Curator, Widener Library Harvard. His esteem indicators include FSA and two Royal Geographic Society medals. He was a serious scholar with knowledge of mediaeval maps and of manuscripts and conservation. George Painter, also a British Museum curator, was a classicist and appropriately qualified to give a view on the documents associated with the Vinland Map (ie Tartar Relation and Speculum) - and his conclusion that these are genuine documents stands up. Thomas Marston was a Yale librarian. It was of course the British Museum that originally declined to authenticate the Vinland Map, so going to the British Museum was a way of involving what may have been expected to be the toughest critics. Yes there has been criticism that the original authentification was done in camera so that Yale could surprise the world with the statement that they had a pre-Columban map showing America, and yes with the benefit of hindsight this was a mistake as it presented a wider consultation. Notwithstanding these are three solid scholars, and their 1965 book represents substantial academic support for the idea that the map is genuine.
We all know that severe doubts were expressed after 1965 and have continued to be expressed subsequently. My view remains that the Vinland Map is probably a fake - but I dislike the certainty with which proponents of either side of the argument put forward their case.
On 13th February 1996 the "New York Times" reported that the Vinland Map was valued by its insurers at $25m. Presumably the underlying calculation is something like the notional value of the map if proved genuine times the chance that it is genuine. It would be fascinating to know what calculation was applied.
Skelton et al in 1965, Larsen today, and a host of other specialists over the year have found in favour of the Vinland Map. There are substantial objections (and not only the anatase issue) but neither side has absolutely proved their case. I'm not qualified to judge Larsen's suggestion that the anatase might come from sand. Maybe it is up to the chemists rather than Larsen to think of a way that the anatase might have got onto what a conservatonist says is a genuine map.
Broadlands - your certainty is amazing. The study of the Vinland Map has involved very many different disciplines from both Arts and Sciences, and none of us are specialists in all of them. Results from different disciplines do not agree with one another. Nor is there necessarily a settled view from all working within one discipline. You will see from my posts that I hold the view that the Vinland Map is probably a forgery. But the case is not so absolutely settled that there need be no further consideration of the evidence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn 1996 Wilcomb Washburn curator of the Smithsonian stated “I think the evidence is clearly on the side of authenticity" and also stated that the inks in the Speculum and Tartar Relation show traces of anatase - and no one doubts the authenticity of these. In 2005 Garman Harbottle of Brookhaven National Laboratory (a chemist) stated "If it's a fake, it was done by a master of forgery". There are a lot of people with some qualification to speak on the matter who have tended to view the map as genuine.
I repeat that my own (published) view is that it is probably a forgery. But I do think we all have to make an effort to evaluate evidence which is from multiple academic disciplines, which inevitably means that we have to look at disciplines which are not our own. Some chemists seem convinced that there is synthetic anatase in the map - though there are published views that the anatase is natural, or that it could be either synthetic or natural. Can the chemists (or anyone) suggest how synthetic or synthetic-looking anatase might have got onto a genuine map? Or do we really have the knock out blow that proves the Vinland Map to be a forgery? If the chemists are convinced it is a forgery and the conservationists are convinced it is genuine who do we say is right?
I think the map is probably a fake. But I also think that with the mass of conflicting evidence out there the one view that is demonstrably untenable is certainty on the matter one way or the other. I'm deeply attached to the probably. Probably fake. Just possibly genuine.
An interesting experiment would be to try to create a fake Mappa Mundi. If the Vinland Map is a fake it was presumably created by a talented individual - Josef Fischer has been suggested. Can we find someone today who with modest funding and resources could produce a map of this type that would take in the academic world for even five minutes? I suggest it would be difficult.
Graeme, here's another surprise for you. The "original authentication team" did not know they were an authentication team! It's clear from statements made by Skelton et al. at the 1966 Vinland Map Conference that they thought they were hired to write a book about something which had already been authenticated, simply explaining how the Map could fit in a medieval context. They were not even aware that Paul Mellon intended to donate the Map to Yale- which he did at the end of 1964, as soon as he got his hands on proofs of the book.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs for "going to the British Museum was a way of involving what may have been expected to be the toughest critics"- no again. By no miracle at all, the British Museum staff asked to contribute to the book were the ones who had been most enthusiastic about it in 1957. Being employed in the Department of Printed Books rather than the Department of Manuscripts, they had not had the experience necessary to detect problems with the Map as a "15th century" manuscript.
Actually, George Painter was not even part of the team originally; he was brought in because Marston wasn't up to the job of interpreting the Tartar Relation. Being the sort of chap who considered himself an expert on a variety of subjects (from medieval language to modern fiction) Painter then persuaded Yale to let him add his own interpretation of the problems associated with the Map, and he remained the strongest supporter of authenticity to his dying day.
By the way, "Broadlands" is very well qualified to judge Larsen's suggestions about the anatase. He's a chemist and mineralogist, who has reviewed the original analytical data on the Map. Larsen isn't.
Trochos - this is exactly the problem. They are all experts!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBroadlands is an expert in his discipline who has come to one conclusion. There are chemists who appear to have sound qualifications who have published completely different conclusions. Which expert do we believe?
Larsens is an expert in his field. He's not a chemist (perhaps it would have been better for his case if he had not commented on the anatase). Skelton et al are experts. So are Washburn and Harbottle. So are most people who have expressed a published view on the Vinland Map. Take your pick - for any view you want to hold on the Vinland Map you can find an expert to support it. And they are often from different disciplines, so we can't even play the game of my expert is a bigger expert than your expert.
The team that does the insurance valuation for the map may well represent our closest approach to an impartial evaluation of the chance that the Vinland Map is genuine. Presumably Larsen's findings will impact on their calculations, and I would be confident that the insurance valuation of the map will go up. If the critics argue their case adequately it will go down again. If Broadlands really can prove his case then the insurance valuation of the Vinland Map will fall to close to zero. The point is that however certain he is from the background of his discipline his view has not received universal agreement. My view is that Broadlands is probably right - but I don't have the chemistry to check the findings, and I know there are chemists who disagree, so it is no more than probably right. Anyway whatever conclusion chemists might reach other disciplines have found otherwise, which might suggest that there is a fundamental conceptual problem with one or more of the disciplines.
Like most things connected with the Vinland Map, Broadlands' certainty is not as amazing as it seems, when all relevant information is considered. The basis for claiming authenticity relies entirely on unlikely and apparently unrepeatable possibilities. Among other problems, claims of anatase in the Speculum and Tartar Relation manuscripts are simply untrue- so why is there so much in the ink of their alleged longtime companion, the Vuimland Map?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour stipulation of "modest funding and resources" to create a fake mappamundi is not fair- the Vinland Map succeeded because it was promoted with vast funding and resources- and cunning.
"My view remains that the Vinland Map is probably a fake - but I dislike the certainty with which proponents of either side of the argument put forward their case."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"If the chemists are convinced it is a forgery and the conservationists are convinced it is genuine who do we say is right? "
"I think the map is probably a fake....I'm deeply attached to the probably. Probably fake. Just possibly genuine."
Perhaps Graemedavis should consider applying Ockham's Razor here? And if not, perhaps he could share with us what evidence would convince him with the certainty he deeply lacks....apart from the resurrection of a medieval scribe or the sworn court testimony of the forger(s)?
He says: "I'm not qualified to judge Larsen's suggestion that the anatase might come from sand. Maybe it is up to the chemists rather than Larsen to think of a way that the anatase might have got onto what a conservatonist says is a genuine map."
Not qualified to judge? But he just did! Perhaps I am qualified? I have a PhD in Geology (Clay Mineralogy, Sedimentology) with a minor in Chemistry (Electron Microscopy and X-ray Diffraction)? The anatase seen on the Vinland Map could not have come from a sand. Larsen suggests that the anatase might have come from a sandbar where the jagged crystals were rounded by abrasion. Ignoring the fact that this would not create the appropriate size distribution anyhow...
Pettijohn's SEDIMENTARY ROCKS (2nd Ed.) on page 63 says this (emphasis added): "There is a marked correlation between roundness and size. The larger sizes of any given natural sand or gravel are much better rounded than the smaller grades." On the following page there is a discussion of the lower limit of rounding. Theoretically, there is no lower limit of rounding but the experimental data imply that the theoretical law (y = mx^b) breaks down near 0.1 mm ( = 100 microns... a long way from 0.15 microns!). This seems to be the lower limit of rounding in water. But. even if there was no lower limit, the size distribution would never come out to be even close to that of the anatase seen on the VM or in industrial preparations.
There is no anatase in the ink of any other medieval document... none!
There is no chance that the anatase seen on the Map could have come from sand.
Thus, the two arguments of the conservationist who says the Map is genuine, and who has received the acceptance of Graemedavis, lack any substance.
I'm not a scientist, but I was still able, without prompting, to identify correctly several serious problems with Harbottle's 2008 paper on the Vinland Map. There is no piece of research claiming authenticity which has not been shown to contain fundamental errors- but pointing out errors isn't as newsworthy as publishing "new" research.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLarsen has not yet actually published - we're all reacting to a press release. I think the Vinland Map is probably fake, but I think his thesis is going to be worth reading nonetheless. I'm only guessing of course, but I guess he has very little to say about anatase and lots to say in those areas where he can reasonably be regarded as an expert.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWashburn has stated the view that there is anatase in the Speculum and Tartar Relation (and there are others who have made such statements, and also said there is anatase in other manuscripts). Broadlands states in this thread that there is no anatase in any mediaeval document. As far as I can see one of them must be wrong, and my thought is that it is probably Washburn - but I cannot be sure of this. Nor can I wholly rule out the possibility that the anatase has somehow been added in the 1950s "conservation", and the whole area is a red herring. Sorry Broadlands but you can be 100% right and still not win your case.
To an extent I'm playing devil's advocate. My view is that the strong balance of probabilities is that the map is fake. But I do feel that the critics often gloss over the prodigious difficulties in creating a forgery (as opposed to marketing a fake, which might well be easier). There aren't a whole lot of forged mediaeval manuscripts around as their value would usually not justify the time and cost of creating a forgery. We don't therefore have a pool of talented forgers of manuscripts. And there is a difference between forging something crude which would be spotted quickly and something of the quality of the Vinland Map - and the fact that we are discussing it now demonstrates its quality.
What evidence would solve the matter? Possibly some new evidence about Fischer might emerge, and if we could bolster the argument that he is the forger it would carry the argument forward. Possibly some technique will be found that enables the ink (as opposed to the parchment) to be dated. Just possibly Larsen has an argument so powerful that it is worth his while risking his career to put forward a view which at present has the academic respectability of seeing the Loch Ness Monster. There is a degree of marketing in his presentation - a press release to get us all talking, and the publication to follow - which might suggest he has an idea which he believes is a knock out blow. I want to see what he has to say.
Well, to be precise, some of us are reacting to a press release, three interviews, and direct reports by people who attended Larsen's conference presentation in Denmark.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you read the three separate reports on chemical analyses of the Speculum and Tartar Relation, you can see for yourself that claims of anatase (or any other titanium compound) in their inks are false: to quote the very plain English of the 1987 report, for example: "we found no titanium in the Tartar Relation or the Speculum Historiale above the minimum detectable limit." Also, comparing that report (PIXE analyses through the whole of the ink and parchment) with the 2002 report (Raman spectroscopy of the surface) it becomes apparent that the titanium-rich mineral, identified by Raman as anatase, is as abundant- in fact very slightly more abundant- beneath the remnants of the upper carbon layer of the ink as on the exposed surface of the yellow layer, meaning that the anatase had to have been introduced before the upper carbon layer.
I've said this before, and I'll keep on saying it: the Vinland Map IS "something crude which would be spotted quickly". Whenever it was presented to people trained to identify document forgery, they did spot it quickly, and the key to its success was keeping it away from such people (not very difficult in 1950s America, given that there was no significant corpus of medieval manuscripts of known provenance in the country, and thus no possibility of acquiring the sort of expertise that existed within the British Museum's Department of Manuscripts and Scientific Laboratory). When the Map was revealed in 1965, American comments tended to be positive (although Yale staff with relevant expertise who had carefully not been consulted were grimly taciturn)- European comments tended to be decidedly hostile.
As an example of mediaeval cartography, the Vinland Map is indeed crude. We have some far more elaborate and ornamental world maps from a similar period.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut as a forgery I don't think it can be called crude. There is a lot that is right with it - the Latin (yes I'm aware of debates, but taken in the round the language is right), the calligraphy, the cartography (including showing both Greenland and Vinland as islands) and the association of the parchment with the Speculum and Tartar Relation. Indeed more than 50 years after its discovery a Danish conservator has staked his reputation (and job?) on the view that it is not a forgery - and this after five years of work on it. Since 1957 people have not reacted to the map as if it is a crude forgery. A forgery certainly, but not crude.
Try this train of thought. Around 1957 The British Musuem was unwilling to authenticate two American maps. One is the Vinland Map; the other the Waldseemuller Map (which says America takes its name from Amerigo Vespucci). Both had problems of provenance, which was the main stumbling block. Ferrajoli could not offer a proper provenance for the Vinland Map. The Waldseemuller map had been discovered by Josef Fischer in 1901, also with a dodgy provenance. (We have the odd situation where the most likely forger of the Vinland Map - Fischer - is the finder of the earliest genuine map to name America.) If initial rejection by the British Library is evidence of a crude forgery then we should be raising doubts about the Waldseemuller Map also - but the Library of Congress bought it in 2001 for $10m, and I don't think anyone is doubting the Waldseemuller Map is genuine.
Now if the first map to name America is worth $10m, what would a genuine Vinland Map be worth? $100m? I'm plucking figures from the air, but surely not more. Now if an (old) insurance valuation is $25m does this suggest a financiers' assessment that there is a 25% chance the Vinland Map is genuine? I've made it clear that I think the Vinland Map is probably fake, but there is some big money out there that thinks there is a significant possibilty that it is genuine (and will think that whatever is discovered about anatase). Whatever premium does Yale pay every year on insurance at this level?
"Larsen has not yet actually published - we're all reacting to a press release. I think the Vinland Map is probably fake, but I think his thesis is going to be worth reading nonetheless. I'm only guessing of course, but I guess he has very little to say about anatase and lots to say in those areas where he can reasonably be regarded as an expert." and "Just possibly Larsen has an argument so powerful that it is worth his while risking his career to put forward a view which at present has the academic respectability of seeing the Loch Ness Monster. There is a degree of marketing in his presentation - a press release to get us all talking, and the publication to follow - which might suggest he has an idea which he believes is a knock out blow."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf Larsen indeed has something to say in his yet-to-be published opus that is a 'knock out blow' relevant to the debate over the authenticity of the Vinland Map he chose not to say it at the conference in front of his colleagues. All must agree that this a most unusual tactic. One has to wonder why an expert would assert that a document is genuine to a reporter, offering two demonstrably false statements to support this opinion, yet say nothing at all about it at the conference. Very strange.
"Washburn has stated the view that there is anatase in the Speculum and Tartar Relation (and there are others who have made such statements, and also said there is anatase in other manuscripts)." and earlier... "In 1996 Wilcomb Washburn curator of the Smithsonian stated “I think the evidence is clearly on the side of authenticity" and also stated that the inks in the Speculum and Tartar Relation show traces of anatase - and no one doubts the authenticity of these."
Graemedavis is correct, but has failed to grasp my earlier post (10:50 AM) on an important distinction. Following the infamous Vinland Map "Vindication" conference at the Yale University Press on Saturday, February 10, 1996 Wilcomb Washburn did indeed state in an interview on the PBS News Hour of February 13th that other medieval maps and documents contained anatase. On March 4th I wrote an extensive letter to Wilcomb about the entire conference, with copies to the major participants and to Paul Mellon. Herewith, in part, excerpts from my comment on his PBS interview...
"Wilcomb, [in your interview] by using the word 'anatase' instead of 'titanium' you made a serious and critically important scientific error. You must have known that this was an absolutely false statement because I asked Tom Cahill in the presence of everyone at the Saturday meeting (all of which was recorded I believe) about the titanium that he asserted he had found in about 50 other medieval documents (one-third of 150). I asked him how many of these documents that contained titanium also contained anatase. Because his PIXE technique is able to identify elements, but is unable to identify compounds, his answer was that he couldn't say. In other words, Cahill's reply made it very clear that none of them did. As every mineralogist knows a chemical analysis and a mineralogical analysis are not one and the same."
As I tried to point out earlier, apparently unsuccessfully, this common error has been repeatedly made. Unfortunately, Graemedavis is here adding to this misconception, in the same way as Mr. Choi's error has become a fact in the minds of many who read his brief article. Please! Stop compounding this error. And it might help if Graemedavis would actually read some of the peer-reviewed literature.
Most of the Latin that is "right" on the Vinland Map is borrowed from unlikely parts of the Tartar Relation; elsewhere there are serious problems of schoolboy errors, and anachronisms; the handwriting, on close examination, is very clearly different from that of the associated volumes, and the failure of Marston in particular to see this is one of Witten's greatest psychological triumphs. And why on earth was it was it good to show Greenland and Vinland as islands?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGiven that Larsen is employed as a conservator, and that his Vinland Map research is fully funded by a private sponsor, I doubt that he risks much with his theories.
Where did you get the information about the Waldseemuller Map provenance problem? My understanding was that its provenance was about as solid as you can get. On a related topic- the main reason why Fischer is "the most likely forger of the Vinland Map" is precisely because he was the discoverer of the Waldsemuller 1507 map; Kirsten Seaver's theory does not bear close scrutiny, and your earlier suggestion that the Vinland Map was produced by a team is actually more likely.
As for insurance valuations- there's not much point insuring something irreplaceable, and that $25 million was probably just a valuation for PR purposes (i.e. more psychological trickery).
The Latin does not show schoolboy errors though it might possibly show the "errors" typical of mediaeval Latin. Leif Eiriksson is "leiphus erissonius" which suggests that the writer had not realised that -son was a patronymic. "Vinilanda" has an intrusive -i- and it has not been translated, say as "terra lambruscarum". I see no reason why the handwriting on the map should be the same as the associated manuscripts - drawing a map would have been perceived as a specialist task, while the lengthy texts were scribal drudgery, and different hands for these tasks are likely. The mediaeval world picture saw the world as three continents joined at Jerusalem and everything else as an island, so where just one shore was known a guessed line was continued to make an island, a process which we see on genuine mediaeval maps. I've no specialist knowledge of the Waldsemuller map but the Library of Congress website states that it was "uncovered and revealed to the world in 1901 by the Jesuit priest Josef Fischer". The idea is that it had spent nearly four centuries in a German castle without being catalogued - which is probably correct, but not a brilliant provenance.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWithout the evidence of sythetic anatase the world would accept the Vinland Map as genuine. The anatase issue points to a forgery, but in other areas the map is right.
My view remains that the Vinland Map is a forgery, but there is something very odd about it. To me the hypothesis that would fit the evidence is if Ferrajoli had found a genuine Vinland Map in very poor condition and hit upon the idea of copying it to create a more marketable item. If you've got an original then producing a copy isn't so very difficult. It also avoids the probable need to use a team to produce a forgery, something which would probably have leaked. The Vinland Map we have could be a fake which is evidence of the existence of a genuine map - a situation analogous to the copies of the Skalholt Map being evidence of the existence of the now lost original Skalholt Map. Of course the difference is that the Vinland Map was presented as genuine, while the Skalholt copies are honest copies.
The first person to report "schoolboy errors" on the Vinland Map was the late Bertram Schofield, Keeper of Manuscripts at the British Museum, back in 1957. The reason why it matters that the handwriting of the Map differs from that of the associated manuscripts is because Marston claimed, in the official Yale book, that it was the same, thus bolstering the apparent evidence for the Map's authenticity. Greenland and Vinland as islands, without any of the other neighbouring "islands" reported in early medieval sources, make no sense. The Waldseemuller map only remained unnoticed for centuries because it was not a finished display version but a set of prints from the individual plates, bound into a book with many other oddments.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI repeat (yet again) that the academic world was suspicious of the Vinland Map from the start. The anatase may be the _proof_ that it is a fake, but it is by no means the only _evidence_: and most of that evidence points to the Map being a 20th century creation, based on pictures of the Bianco round world map of 1436, and the "Cantino" map of about 1501, with information from the Tartar Relation, and sources available in academic libraries such as the Catholic Encyclopaedia.
I also repeat (yet again in this thread) that I think the Vinland Map is probably a fake and I've gone into print saying this. However I think we need to avoid completely closing the door on the possibility that the map is in some way significant.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe argument from synthetic anatase is clearly powerful. It would be more powerful were there complete agreement from all that the anatase is synthetic and added in the twentieth century - and as this thread alone has demonstrated there is not complete agreement on this, and people who appear to have appropriate qualifications can be cited who have reached different conclusions. However as a non-chemist who has taken an interest in the published materials my impression is that the synthetic anatase argument is convincing. In many ways I'm in agreement with Trochos and other critics of Larsen posting in this thread.
Where I differ is in the interpretation of other features of the map. There are debates about every feature, and for every response there is a reply. You mention issues around tha Latin - concordancing of mediaeval Latin texts has given a tool which has developed our knowledge of what mediaeval Latin was really like, and Schofield's comments of 1957 would certainly now need to be revisited. A map should show similarities with other maps of around the same time, and if we couldn't find them we might feel that is evidence that the map is a fake.
The challenge is to find a way of reconciling the conflicting and confused results from different disciplines. We've got a bit of fifteenth century parchment which had something pretty drastic done to it in the twentieth century. It may be that this is the creation from scratch of a fake - this is the simplest explanation. However such a forgery needed either a very talented individual or a team of forgers in order to produce a document such that 60 years later Larsen can be reported as saying he can find no evidence of it being a forgery.
We do not have certainty. It is probably a forgery, but there has to be a probably in there. There are other explanations which would fit the evidence. If you want one there is the idea I put forward (above) that Ferrajoli copied a genuine map. Yes I know as an idea this is a big stretch, but it would explain why we have no evidence of a team of forgers, and why we have synthetic anatase on the Vinland Map. And no, I don't believe this idea is right, but it is at least in theory possible - and if the Vinland Map were this sort of copy it would nonetheless be a significant document.
Graeme, I think your comment "We do not have certainty" gets to the heart of our problem. There isn't a lot of absolute certainty in any study of past events, which means it's all-too-easy to generate unjustified doubt (most famously in the "irreducible complexity" argument against evolutionary theory). Your mention of concordancing introduces a particular aspect of this problem, seen also in the study of the Kensington Runestone- large databases need to be used with great care, because they will include all sorts of rare/unique incidences that can be matched to the disputed artifact if, for example, one ignores the minor detail that the match for one peculiarity comes from Germany in the 12th century, while the match for another comes from Italy around a hundred years later.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"There are other explanations which would fit the evidence" is thus a gateway to all sorts of follies, unless the people doing the explaining actually understand the true nature of the evidence, and how to use it. If evidence from different disciplines appears "conflicting and confused," the reason is likely to be because evidence is being confused with interpretation- which I think will turn out to be the case with Dr. Larsen's study. The more actual evidence you study, about the Vinland Map as about any other mystery, the less conflicting and confused it becomes.
Trochos - I'ld like to suggest that we are not really disagreeing. We both think the Vinland Map is a fake. However we differ in the degree of certainty we have. I understand that you are certain it is a fake. I don't share your certainty - I'll go for probability.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Kensington Runestone presents similar inter-disciplinary conflicts. For the record I think this too is probably a fake. Curiously it is the scentists - here the geologists - who put up a case for it being genuine, and the linguists who are generally of the view that it is a forgery (seemingly reversing the broad science/arts disciplinary difference with the Vinland Map). The 2004 study of the Kensington Runestone at Uppsala university has the phrase in its conclusion that the issue "requires further study", which strikes me as an almost comic scholarly hedge. Proponents of both views on the Runestone feel absolute conviction in their views.
With both the Vinland Map and the Kensington Runestone we have evidence advanced from completely different disciplines, with the result that it is very hard for any individual to offer a synthesis. Larsen has made comments about anatase that I gather many feel make basic errors - it may be that he is out of his depth here. Similarly those from pure science disciplines trespass at their peril in linguistics. I guess we need a committee to agree a view, but committees tend to break down into individuals arguing from their own discipline. Indeed I suspect a committee looking at the Vinland Map would end up with a degree of hedging as has the team looking at the Kensington Runestone. I also think the hedging is right in both cases as the evidence available does not all point in the same direction. I don't think the doubts are unjustified with either - rather the doubts are substantial, not an intellectual game of doubting. With the Vinland Map we need to know who forged it, why, how, how they made as good a stab at a fake as they did, how Ferrajoli got hold of it - ie we need a provenance of a forgery just as much as we need a provenance of a genuine item. There are a similar set of questions around the Kensington Runestone.
Presumably after Larsen publishes someone will write a criticism of his work. We need this - but we need measured criticism which looks at the merits as well as the demerits of Larsen's case. I have a sense that he will instead receive all out criticism which will have the effect of taking us further from a scholarly consensus on the Vinland Map.
To be more precise, I am 99.999% certain that the Vinland Map is a fake. The debating positions on the Kensington Runestone are not the reverse of those for the Vinland Map, and that you think so is probably significant, because it suggests that you are basing your understanding on insufficient evidence. In reality both artifacts have small but vociferous [lectures, media interviews etc.] groups of supporters across several disciplines. The Upppsala suggestion is actually not comic, because there is a genuine need for better understanding of the ways in which age can be simulated on stone artifacts.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhile any one individual may find it difficult to offer a synthesis of cross-disciplinary knowledge, it is not impossible, given cross-disciplinary co-operation such as that which led to the Towe / Seaver / Brown paper in Archaeometry last year.
We do not need to know who created the Vinland Map in order to be 99.999% certain that it is a fake, any more than one needs to know who committed a murder in order to be 99.999% certain that a murder has been committed. We just need to accept that every piece of evidence tells us the truth about something, but that we have to work out what that something is in each case.
Trochos - You are only 99.999% certain it is a fake? We need to work on that chink of doubt!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm aware of the logic behind the Uppsala suggestion. Notwithstanding it is exactly the sort of academic conclusion that is satirised by the"Times Higher Education Supplement" (The UK academic newspaper) in its weekly account of the University of Poppleton. Or it could be a research finding in Terry Pratchett's "Unseen University". It is a serious result, but it is also a hoot! I'm also aware of the complexities of the arguments around the Kensington Runestone. Within the character constraints of these postings it is hardly possible to do more than make broad-brush comments. And yes I'm aware of fruitful multi-disciplinary research.
Larsen is quoted as saying he can find no evidence that the Vinland Map is a fake. I think he is facing the sort of critical reception which turns academic discussion into a bloodsport, and I think this is likely to be damaging to him, his prestigious institution and the willingness of academics even to debate certain issues. If I wanted to publish a scholarly article pointing to shortcomings in the Latin of the Vinland Map I would be confident of a good reception. If I wanted to publish such an article setting out that the Latin was right I would be condemned before anyone had even bothered to read it. It would be possibly to support either argument from the evidence available. This problem of reception is not a healthy situation. If someone one day works out a way in which seemingly-synthetic anatase could be on the map (and that it is genuine) they will probably keep quiet about it. For that matter if someone digs up a runestone somewhere in America if they've got any sense they will bury it again and forget about it.
I use the term "Schr�dinger's Macguffin" to denote topics which are studied by many different researchers in succession without any definitive conclusion being reached.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn a closely related topic: your last paragraph misses an important point. The academic kudos may go to the critics, but the cash goes to the likes of Erich von D�niken, Gavin Menzies and anybody who can think of a way to connect something with the Knights Templar!
A major and serious publisher rejected my "Vikings in America" and when I asked them why said that "now we know the Chinese discovered America in 1421 there is no interest in the Vikings".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDidn't the Templars dig up a pot of anatase in Jerusalem? - something made by the Egyptians I think - and King Solomon has to be in there somewhere. Now there has to be a paper in that - maybe we should write it!
It seems the serious scientists have digressed to silliness. How about the topic of the VM being a copy of an older map, so the is value in what it depicts even if it is not truely a a "real" map.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the VM really contained information from the Middle Ages which was found nowhere else (which is precisely the case with the accompanying manuscript called the "Tartar Relation", except that another older copy of that, without map, was subsequently discovered) then it would indeed be tremendously valuable. In reality, however, it can be shown beyond reasonable doubt that some of its textual information is based on a late 19th century history of Christianity in medieval Greenland and its vicinity. We therefore cannot trust any information from the Vinland Map.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI did advance this idea (that the VM is a copy of a genuine map) in this thread as something which is in theory possible. I think the probability is very low, though as an idea it both explains sythetic anatase and explains the difficulties of forging such a map from scratch. Copying is far easier than an orginal creation. Such a copy would of course still have value. Many mediaeval texts are known only from copies, and even the genuine Skalholt Map is in fact a number of copies of a lost original.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't see how the idea could be tested, and short of finding the hypothetical original map or some sort of statement that this was done I don't see any possible proof.
Notwithstanding I think the idea is interesting. What the idea does do is try to break through the argument which goes:
a) there is synthetic anatase on the map which is modern, therefore the map is a fake.
b) because the map is a fake any comments from any other disciplines which suggest it is genuine must be bad scholarship, and any statement that there is something wrong with the map must be right.
The impact of (b) is academically troublesome. A measured response to issues other than anatase has to be that while there are oddities there is a lot that is right. We can find comparable oddities in most genuine maps and manuscripts. Weighing the issues from arts-based disciplines is subjective. What Larsen seems to have done is weighed them and come out with the view of not a forgery. This is a subjective view as are all judgments in the disciplines he represents, and has been made by a specialist supported by a team as part of a lengthy study. He will be torn to shreds by the critics, but that doesn't mean he hasn't honestly reported findings from his discipline. My personal view is that he is probably wrong, but I'm intrigued by his results.
It may even be that asking "Is the Vinland Map fake?" is the wrong question. Maybe we should see it as a creation of the twentieth century which evidences an earlier work. There is some slight suggestion of a now lost document which was known in the nineteenth century and which dealt with Greenland and Vinland - and I'm not even opening this can of worms with only 300ish characters left on this posting. The Vinland Map is odd, and we need an exlanation which explains the oddities.
"We need an exlanation which explains the oddities"? I gave you an explanation which explains the oddities earlier in this discussion:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The anatase may be the _proof_ that it is a fake, but it is by no means the only _evidence_: and most of that evidence points to the Map being a 20th century creation, based on pictures of the Bianco round world map of 1436, and the "Cantino" map of about 1501, with information from the Tartar Relation, and sources available in academic libraries such as the Catholic Encyclopaedia."
What you need to do is see how well that explanation works- and you'll find that the answer is, with a few curious exceptions like the date of Bishop Eirik's voyage to Vinland, that it works very well indeed, to the extent that you can even see how the outline of the Old World on the Vinland Map was probably created by projecting a publicity photo of the top portion of the Bianco map onto two half-sheets of blank parchment held in place by a frame with a crudely cut oval aperture.
A forgery based on maps created 1436 and 1501 is precisely the sort of area that Larsen is qualified to comment on - and it is a pretty obvious area to look at. I assume there is a reason why the explanation you have put forward is not convincing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRene Larsen's outline CV is available (in Danish) on www.kons.dk He has serious credentials and publications. He is not a crank who thinks the Martians built the pyramids. It is unlikely that he is making much or any money from his statements - indeed he may suffer financial loss if his career is damaged.
I happen to think his views (as set out in the press report) are wrong, and I'm in print with the view that VM is "probably a forgery". But I see no way of absolutely rejecting the views of Larsen (especially as his paper is not yet out).
The point about "a forgery based on maps created 1436 and 1501" is that it was one of the first suggestions made by experts on the history of cartography in the weeks after the Vinland Map was unveiled, and remains the accepted academic paradigm (see, for example, pp262-5 of "Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga")- incidentally, it's also a good clue that the wormholes are likely to have been placed deliberately. To the best of my knowledge, Larsen (who is not an expert on the history of cartography) has not investigated this aspect of the Map at all. As for Larsen's finances- his research over the past five years has been sponsored by Danish businessman J�rgen D. Siemonsen, which no doubt is making his employers quite happy. I agree that there is "no way of absolutely rejecting" his views, precisely because his paper has not yet been published- all I can say is that he needs to raise his game if Swiss anatase is the best he can offer so far.
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