Shopping on line can be easy, simple and save you lots of money. It can also take a lot of your time, frustrate you, and result in unwanted purchases. Now the same can be said for regular high street shopping, but with the vast opportunity presented by the Internet it will pay you to spend a few minutes reading this and understanding how to better optimize your Vinland Map shopping experience:
1. Compare - without doubt the biggest advantage that the Vinland Map offers shoppers today is the ability to compare thousands of Vinland Map at a time. This is a great thing, but not necessarily all the time! Too much can be daunting at times so take advantage of the great comparison sites and where possible let them do the hard work for you.
2. Research - if it has been said it will be on the internet. Ignorance is no longer a justifiable reason for buying the wrong thing. Take the time to research in detail everything that you could possible want to know about
3. Testimonials - don't know anybody that has bought a Vinland Map? Wrong! If the Vinland Map is good the internet will let you know. Use the Internet as a friend and get testimonials before you buy.
4. Questions - Got a question about Vinland Map then search the Forums, FAQ's, Blogs etc. Don't be afraid to ask .....
5. Reputation - Never heard of the company selling Vinland Map? Don't worry, no reason why you should know every company in the world, but you know someone that does! Use the internet to find out what people are saying about Vinland Map and build up a picture of their reputation for sales, returns, customer service, delivery etc.
6. Returns - still worried that even after all of the above your Vinland Map wont be what you want? Check out the returns policy. There is so much competition now that someone, somewhere is bound to offer the terms that you are comfortable with.
7. Feedback - happy with your Vinland Map then let people know, after all you are depending on others people input in your buying decision, so why not give a little back.
8. Security - check for the yellow padlock on the Vinland Map site before you buy, and the s after http:/ /i.e. https:// = a secure site
9. Contact - got a question about Vinland Map, or want to leave a comment then check out the sites contact page. Reputable companies have them and respond.
10. Payment - ready to pay for your Vinland Map, then use your credit card or PayPal! Be aware of companies that don't accept them, there may be genuine reasons but given the huge amount of choice you have when buying online there is no reason at all not to buy via credit card or PayPal.
The
Vinland map is purportedly a
15th century Mappa mundi, redrawn from a
13th century original. In addition to showing
Africa,
Asia and Europe, the map depicts a large island west of
Greenland in the
Atlantic Ocean called
Vinland; the map describes this region as having been visited in the
11th century. If authentic, such evidence is an important addition to archeological findings such as the L'Anse aux Meadows site, documenting pre-Columbian Norse travels to the
Americas. To date it is not definitely decided if the map is fake or authentic, but most scholars tend to believe that it is a fake, especially since tests found round anatase crystals in the ink; although the parchment may be original.
The map was discovered bound together with a codex,
Historia Tartarorum ("Description of the
Tartars," sometimes referred to as the
Tartar Relation). The
Historia is a manuscript of undoubted authenticity that was at some point bound with the Vinland Map. It is a description of the history and manners of the
Mongols that appears to be an early version of the memoir of
Giovanni da Pian del Carpine (
q.v. for full details), an Italian
Franciscan friar who in 1245 made a trip to the supreme
khan at
Karakoram. Carpine went on to write a more robust account of his travels, but the shorter "Tartar Relation" survived until the
15th century by being included as an addendum to a volume of Vincent of Beauvais's encyclopedic "Historical Mirror" (
Speculum historiale).
The map first came to light in 1957 (three years before the discovery of the Norse site at L'Anse aux Meadows in 1960) and was offered to Yale University by an alumnus who had become an antiquarian book dealer. Unable to afford the asking price, and concerned that the dealer refused to reveal the provenance of the item, Yale contacted another alumnus,
Paul Mellon, who agreed to buy it and donate it to the university if it could be authenticated. Recognising its potential importance as the earliest map to show America, Mellon insisted that the authentication, conducted by two British Museum curators and a Yale librarian, must be carried out in secret. This was to prove controversial, as the trio were unable to consult specialists. After years of study they decided the map was authentic, Mellon donated it to Yale, and it was revealed to the world in
1965, simultaneously with the publication of the team's research findings as an elegant book,
The Vinland Map and Tartar Relation by Dr.
Raleigh Ashlin Skelton et al. In
1995 Yale released a second edition of the book, including new articles arguing that the map is authentic. The
New York Times reported that insurers valued the map at $25 million.
Authenticity
In the absence of a clear provenance for the map, there have been claims that it is a forgery (somewhat strengthened by the 1957 dealer's admission, printed in the second edition of the Skelton book, that he had told lies during the authentication process) and examinations by a number of institutions have returned conflicting results.
Dating of parchment
Radiocarbon dating, performed by physicist Douglass Donahue and chemists Jacqueline Olin and Garman Harbottle, place the origin of the
parchment somewhere between 1423 and
1445, although the entire map appears to have been coated with an unknown substance sometime in the
1950s. This could have been part of a previously undocumented attempt at preservation, or could have been done by a forger as part of the process of drawing a new map on a previously-used piece of 15th century parchment. It is unclear whether the ink on the map is on top of this more recent layer of material or not.
Dating of ink (a Controversy)
Detailed examination of the map at the British Museum in 1967 revealed that the ink was unlike anything the scientific staff there had ever seen. In 1974, with new technology becoming available, Yale sent the map for chemical analysis by forensic specialist Walter McCrone whose team dated the ink to after
1923 due to the presence of
anatase (titanium dioxide) –in a rounded crystalline form manufactured for use in pale pigments since the 1920s, which suggests that the "yellowing" of ink on the map was faked. Although in 1992 Dr. Thomas Cahill of
University of California, Davis found natural anatase in a variety of medieval manuscripts, the rounded crystals in the ink from the map were characteristic of the synthetic product. In July 2002, the authenticity of the map was again challenged. Using
Raman spectroscopy, the small remaining traces of black pigment in the ink were confirmed to be carbon-based, which should not have generated the yellowish residue (superficially characteristic of the decay of an iron-based ink) which is all that now survives over most of the length of the map's lines.
All of the other pages of the
Historia Tartorum and
Speculum historiale were written using standard medieval
iron gall ink. Nevertheless, chemist Jacqueline Olin, a retired researcher with the Smithsonian Institution, has conducted experiments which suggest a chain of circumstances that could conceivably have led to the production of the map ink in medieval times (though she herself did not produce finished ink).
Content of map
Finally, there are a number of questions about the actual content of the map. The original authentication team recognised that it bore strong resemblances to a map made in the 1430s by Italian mariner
Andrea Bianco (oddly, even to the extent of cutting off Africa where Bianco's map has a page fold) but with changes of shape, and major revisions in the far east and west. The most surprising thing about the revisions is that the map depicts Greenland as an island of the correct size and shape (while Norway, of which Greenland was just a colony, is wildly inaccurate) although most contemporary Scandinavian accounts– including a rare map from 1427– depict Greenland as a peninsula joined to northern Russia. For practical purposes, the Polar ice cap made this description true, and Greenland is not known to have been successfully circumnavigated until the
20th century. Skelton wondered also whether the revisions in the far east were meant to represent Japan, which would be another remarkable achievement for 14th century cartography. In addition, the text uses a
Latin form of Leif Eriksson's name ("Erissonius") more consistent with
17th century norms and with transmission through a French or Italian source. Thirdly, the Latin captions include several usages of the diphthong
æ; this was almost unknown in later medieval times (a simple
e was written instead) and although the diphthong was revived by Italian humanist scholars in the early 1400s, it is found only in documents of deliberately classicising style produced by Italian scribes, and never in conjunction with a Gothic style of script such as we see in the Map.
Other evidence for Vinland
Regardless of whether or not the map is genuine, it has been independently proven to general satisfaction that Greenland was settled by Vikings around
970, a settlement which lasted until the 15th century. In regards to the Americas, the archaeology finds in
L'Anse aux Meadows in present day
Newfoundland (island), Canada, show that there was a Viking settlement which predates
Christopher Columbus and his finding of the New World in 1492. The "Skalholt" map (marked 1570) depicts what can only be northern Newfoundland and calls it "Promontorium Winlandia", at the exact position of the L'Anse aux Meadows Norse site and parallel to England. Also note how the "finger" of Newfoundland (on a modern map) "points" in the direction of southern Greenland and is so depicted on the Skalholt map.
See also
External links
- Vinlanda: The Vinland Map on the Web Comprehensive and balanced guide to the Vinland map on the web, including recent developments in the controversies.
- An article by the BBC on the date of the Vinland map
- Archaeological Forgeries
- Carpini's voyage to the great khan.
- 2003-11-28, Science Daily: Vindication For Vinland Map: New Study Supports Authenticity Quote: "...Recent conclusions that the storied Vinland Map is merely a clever forgery are based on a flawed understanding of the evidence...Norse explorers charted North America long before Columbus...these elements raise serious doubts about the possibility of forgery..."
- Brookhaven National Laboratory: Scientists Determine Age of New World Map. “Vinland Map”, “Vinland Map” hi-res image of the map,2.5 Mb Quote: "...date of 1434 A.D. plus or minus 11 years...Recent testing, however, only revealed trace quantities of titanium, whose presence may be a result of contamination, the chemical deterioration of the ink over the centuries, or may even have been present naturally in the ink used in medieval times. Another recent study detected carbon, which has also been presented as evidence of a forgery. However, carbon can also be found in medieval ink. Current carbon-dating technology does not permit the dating of samples as small as the actual ink lines on the map...."
- Nature, 1 August 2002: New fight over old map. Debate over oldest map of America flares again
- Welcome to The Ohio State Univ. Department of Economics: The Vinland Map, Some "Finer Points" of the Debate, J. Huston McCulloch, March, 2005
- "The Viking Deception", an episode of Nova (TV series), first aired on Public Broadcasting Service on February 8, 2005
- "Vinland Re-read" by Paul Saenger (Newberry Library), particularly focussing on details of the map purchase
- Review of Kirsten Seaver's book (see Sources) suggesting that the Map was created by the German Jesuit cartographical historian Josef Fischer in the 1930s
- Skalholt Map
Sources
- Charles Choi, " Drawing the Lines. Is a pre-Columbus map of North America truly a hoax?", Scientific American, 2004 March. Popular science article about Olin's findings.
The
Vinland map is purportedly a
15th century Mappa mundi, redrawn from a 13th century original. In addition to showing
Africa, Asia and
Europe, the map depicts a large island west of Greenland in the Atlantic Ocean called
Vinland; the map describes this region as having been visited in the 11th century. If authentic, such evidence is an important addition to archeological findings such as the
L'Anse aux Meadows site, documenting pre-Columbian Norse travels to the
Americas. To date it is not definitely decided if the map is fake or authentic, but most scholars tend to believe that it is a fake, especially since tests found round anatase crystals in the ink; although the parchment may be original.
The map was discovered bound together with a
codex,
Historia Tartarorum ("Description of the Tartars," sometimes referred to as the
Tartar Relation). The
Historia is a manuscript of undoubted authenticity that was at some point bound with the Vinland Map. It is a description of the history and manners of the Mongols that appears to be an early version of the memoir of Giovanni da Pian del Carpine (
q.v. for full details), an Italian Franciscan friar who in
1245 made a trip to the supreme
khan at
Karakoram. Carpine went on to write a more robust account of his travels, but the shorter "Tartar Relation" survived until the 15th century by being included as an addendum to a volume of
Vincent of Beauvais's encyclopedic "Historical Mirror" (
Speculum historiale).
The map first came to light in 1957 (three years before the discovery of the Norse site at L'Anse aux Meadows in 1960) and was offered to Yale University by an alumnus who had become an antiquarian book dealer. Unable to afford the asking price, and concerned that the dealer refused to reveal the provenance of the item, Yale contacted another alumnus,
Paul Mellon, who agreed to buy it and donate it to the university if it could be authenticated. Recognising its potential importance as the earliest map to show America, Mellon insisted that the authentication, conducted by two British Museum curators and a Yale librarian, must be carried out in secret. This was to prove controversial, as the trio were unable to consult specialists. After years of study they decided the map was authentic, Mellon donated it to Yale, and it was revealed to the world in
1965, simultaneously with the publication of the team's research findings as an elegant book,
The Vinland Map and Tartar Relation by Dr. Raleigh Ashlin Skelton et al. In
1995 Yale released a second edition of the book, including new articles arguing that the map is authentic. The
New York Times reported that insurers valued the map at $25 million.
Authenticity
In the absence of a clear provenance for the map, there have been claims that it is a forgery (somewhat strengthened by the 1957 dealer's admission, printed in the second edition of the Skelton book, that he had told lies during the authentication process) and examinations by a number of institutions have returned conflicting results.
Dating of parchment
Radiocarbon dating, performed by physicist Douglass Donahue and chemists Jacqueline Olin and Garman Harbottle, place the origin of the
parchment somewhere between
1423 and 1445, although the entire map appears to have been coated with an unknown substance sometime in the 1950s. This could have been part of a previously undocumented attempt at preservation, or could have been done by a forger as part of the process of drawing a new map on a previously-used piece of 15th century parchment. It is unclear whether the ink on the map is on top of this more recent layer of material or not.
Dating of ink (a Controversy)
Detailed examination of the map at the British Museum in 1967 revealed that the ink was unlike anything the scientific staff there had ever seen. In 1974, with new technology becoming available, Yale sent the map for chemical analysis by forensic specialist Walter McCrone whose team dated the ink to after 1923 due to the presence of anatase (titanium dioxide) –in a rounded crystalline form manufactured for use in pale pigments since the 1920s, which suggests that the "yellowing" of ink on the map was faked. Although in 1992 Dr. Thomas Cahill of University of California, Davis found natural anatase in a variety of medieval manuscripts, the rounded crystals in the ink from the map were characteristic of the synthetic product. In July
2002, the authenticity of the map was again challenged. Using Raman spectroscopy, the small remaining traces of black pigment in the ink were confirmed to be carbon-based, which should not have generated the yellowish residue (superficially characteristic of the decay of an iron-based ink) which is all that now survives over most of the length of the map's lines.
All of the other pages of the
Historia Tartorum and
Speculum historiale were written using standard medieval iron gall ink. Nevertheless, chemist Jacqueline Olin, a retired researcher with the Smithsonian Institution, has conducted experiments which suggest a chain of circumstances that could conceivably have led to the production of the map ink in medieval times (though she herself did not produce finished ink).
Content of map
Finally, there are a number of questions about the actual content of the map. The original authentication team recognised that it bore strong resemblances to a map made in the 1430s by Italian mariner Andrea Bianco (oddly, even to the extent of cutting off Africa where Bianco's map has a page fold) but with changes of shape, and major revisions in the far east and west. The most surprising thing about the revisions is that the map depicts Greenland as an island of the correct size and shape (while Norway, of which Greenland was just a colony, is wildly inaccurate) although most contemporary Scandinavian accounts– including a rare map from 1427– depict Greenland as a peninsula joined to northern Russia. For practical purposes, the
Polar ice cap made this description true, and Greenland is not known to have been successfully circumnavigated until the 20th century. Skelton wondered also whether the revisions in the far east were meant to represent Japan, which would be another remarkable achievement for 14th century cartography. In addition, the text uses a Latin form of Leif Eriksson's name ("Erissonius") more consistent with 17th century norms and with transmission through a French or Italian source. Thirdly, the Latin captions include several usages of the diphthong
æ; this was almost unknown in later medieval times (a simple
e was written instead) and although the diphthong was revived by Italian humanist scholars in the early 1400s, it is found only in documents of deliberately classicising style produced by Italian scribes, and never in conjunction with a Gothic style of script such as we see in the Map.
Other evidence for Vinland
Regardless of whether or not the map is genuine, it has been independently proven to general satisfaction that
Greenland was settled by
Vikings around
970, a settlement which lasted until the
15th century. In regards to the Americas, the archaeology finds in L'Anse aux Meadows in present day Newfoundland (island),
Canada, show that there was a Viking settlement which predates Christopher Columbus and his finding of the New World in 1492. The "Skalholt" map (marked 1570) depicts what can only be northern Newfoundland and calls it "Promontorium Winlandia", at the exact position of the L'Anse aux Meadows Norse site and parallel to England. Also note how the "finger" of Newfoundland (on a modern map) "points" in the direction of southern Greenland and is so depicted on the Skalholt map.
See also
External links
- Vinlanda: The Vinland Map on the Web Comprehensive and balanced guide to the Vinland map on the web, including recent developments in the controversies.
- An article by the BBC on the date of the Vinland map
- Archaeological Forgeries
- Carpini's voyage to the great khan.
- 2003-11-28, Science Daily: Vindication For Vinland Map: New Study Supports Authenticity Quote: "...Recent conclusions that the storied Vinland Map is merely a clever forgery are based on a flawed understanding of the evidence...Norse explorers charted North America long before Columbus...these elements raise serious doubts about the possibility of forgery..."
- Brookhaven National Laboratory: Scientists Determine Age of New World Map. “Vinland Map”, “Vinland Map” hi-res image of the map,2.5 Mb Quote: "...date of 1434 A.D. plus or minus 11 years...Recent testing, however, only revealed trace quantities of titanium, whose presence may be a result of contamination, the chemical deterioration of the ink over the centuries, or may even have been present naturally in the ink used in medieval times. Another recent study detected carbon, which has also been presented as evidence of a forgery. However, carbon can also be found in medieval ink. Current carbon-dating technology does not permit the dating of samples as small as the actual ink lines on the map...."
- Nature, 1 August 2002: New fight over old map. Debate over oldest map of America flares again
- Welcome to The Ohio State Univ. Department of Economics: The Vinland Map, Some "Finer Points" of the Debate, J. Huston McCulloch, March, 2005
- "The Viking Deception", an episode of Nova (TV series), first aired on Public Broadcasting Service on February 8, 2005
- "Vinland Re-read" by Paul Saenger (Newberry Library), particularly focussing on details of the map purchase
- Review of Kirsten Seaver's book (see Sources) suggesting that the Map was created by the German Jesuit cartographical historian Josef Fischer in the 1930s
- Skalholt Map
Sources
- Charles Choi, " Drawing the Lines. Is a pre-Columbus map of North America truly a hoax?", Scientific American, 2004 March. Popular science article about Olin's findings.
PastPresented: The Vinland Map
Comparisons of the cartography of the Vinland Map with other maps. In another universe, the experts who studied the Vinland Map after its initial discovery chose to be completely ...
Channel 4 - History - The Vinland Map
From ancient Britons to 20th Century conflict, get a different angle on history from Channel 4's History section.
243 The Vinland Map
Slide #243. The Vinland Map, circa 1440 [?]
Vinland map - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Vinland map is purportedly a 15th-century mappa mundi, redrawn from a 13th-century original. In addition to showing Africa, Asia and Europe, the map depicts a large island west ...
Analyzing the Vinland Map : Is it a fake?
Interactive presentation of evidence in chemistry, cartography, pigments, and archeology, bearing on the question of the authenticity (or lack of it) of the allegedly 15th-century ...
PastPresented: The Vinland Map
Mercifully for long-time Vinland Map followers, only a few pages of the book are about anatase. One major theme is the consistent distortion evident when comparing the Vinland Map ...
243A The Vinland Map, detail: Vinland
Slide #243A. The Vinland Map, detail: Vinland
Vinland Map
The Vinland Map -- Some "Finer Points" of the Debate J. Huston McCulloch March 2005 with updates Sept. 2008. Figure 1 The Vinland Map Oct. 2002 photo courtesy Beinecke Rare Book ...
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Fresh doubt over America map
More doubt has been cast over a supposedly medieval map of America drawn up prior to the voyage of Christopher Columbus. Many scientists believe the so-called Vinland Map, owned ...
Past Presented: The Vinland Map
PDF booklet about the Vinland Map hoax, related to the PBS Nova Viking Deception documentary ... The day before April 1 2004, I published a short, cheaply produced, but remarkable ...
