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Detail of the map: Is the Greenland outline too
good~
Mapmaker monk
still defended
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By David Blundy
TELLING evidence that the Vino ink was indisti~gu.ishable from
land map, hailed only- 10 years modern cOI?me~cIa:l I?k.
.
ago as the greatest cartographic
Yale UmversIt.y Llbrary, WhlCh
discovery of the century,. is a fake owns the map, sald that the process
has left the British expert on the had only recently been .developed
subject unmoved. The. ~ap w~s and that tw~ other an~lent .docu­
said to prove that the Vlkmgs dlS' menús were, In fac~, ve~lfi.ed m the
covered America many years be· tests. The Ya:le.rJÍ'brar~~, Ruther·
fOTd Rogers, smd tlhe f~rgery ap­
fore Columbus.
.
.,.
peared to be the work of two
But. last week sClentIsts m skil'led meno "One was an histor­
Amer!ca who .have spent two years ian of the medieval penod and
studymg the mk used on the map the other an expert in medieval
claimed that it was draw~, not as handwriting.
originally thought by a SWISS naonk
Rogers points out however that
in 1440~52 years before Columbus the d'i'scovery does ri'ot arIter ,,'w'hat
l~ft Spam-but by a forger some· seems to be the historical fact"
tIme aíter 1920.
.
that Leif Ericson discovered the
The Brt't'ish expert is sceptlcal Norlh American main'1'and about
abotit the new evidence, however. 500 years befare Columbus.
"l. am not. s'haken," say~ George
The map's sign'ificance iÍs that it
Pamter, aSslstant keeper m charge shows not only the known medieval
of Fifrteent?:clSntury printed b.ooks world but aa:so Ice1and, Greenl~and
at the Brr'tish Museum.. Pamter and a long island to the west of
was part of a team v.;hlC? spent Iceland called Vinlanda lrisula. This
several years authentlcatmg the was claimed by experts to repre­
Vinland. map. "l. ",:?uld stand RY sent the north-east coast of
everythmg we s~ld, ?e says., 1 America, with a crude interpreta­
woU'1d regard thl'S. as Just another Hon of tJhe Hudson and St Law.
episode in th~ dl~ogue between rence Rivers. If the map is
sch?lars. 'and mveshgators.,. Y~le genuine, it also shows that Norse.
Umverslty m~de a lo~ ?f sClenhfic men sai'led aH the way round
tests and so dld the ~rItIS'h Museum Greenil1and _ a fact hotly disputed
laboratory.. OUr ev~dence v.;as th~t . by scho[lars.
the map IS genume.. LIttle IS
The map first carne to light
~nown about the mediieva!. use of when an Italian book dealer living
mks. There were many Qiffer~nt in Spain, Enzo Ferrajoli, sold it to
types even on the same manuscnpt. Laurence Witten a book dealer
A monk might .welil. lea~ across an.d atNew Haven, Connecticut, who
borrow some dlfferent mk from hlS in turn sold it to the Yale Library
chum's inkwell. .
for f\l.00,000 in 1957. A te'am of
What no one disputes is that the experts. includ'ing Mr Painter and
Hin. by 16in. map was drawn.oI,l American scholars, was set up to
paper made in the Upper Rhme· examine the manuscript. After
lana about 1440. But Wa;lter seven years of painstaking research,
McCrone AssoC'iates, an Amen~an they pronounced it genlSine in 1965.
group of experts in sma!lil. parhcle
In Britain the first challenge
analysis, claims that the brownish· carne from G. R. Crone, map cura·
ye'l1ow ink used contains a titanium tor of the National Geographical
dioxide pigment not deve~oped Society, who called the map a fake .
. un'til 1920.
But the Vinland map remains a
The McCrone experts took 29 ink mystery. If it is a forgery, who
samples from nine areas of the forged it? Any ,~orge~ would. have
map and subjected them to had to have
~ mconce!,vable
advanced electronic tests. They knowledge of medIeval maps, says
concluded that the Vinland map, Mr Painter.