The Vinland Map - New 2013 Interpretation

There are a lot of stories out there regarding the Norse exploration of North America. We have certain proof at L'Anse aux Meadows on the tip of Newfoundland, and indications of further travels, but as yet no proof.

This site speaks to a new interpretation of the famed Vinland map. Is it accurate? Can't say...but it sure is thought provoking. I can't endorse all of the rest of the conclusions on the site, but I put it out there for your interest.

Vinland 2013 A.D.
The Discovery of The Vikings in Laval (Vinland), Lac. St. Jean (Markland) & Cape Breton Island and Newfoundland (Helluland) 18.02.13

reply to post by JohnnyCanuck


Hmm...just watched an America Unearthed episode last night that was on this subject. They were talking about the rock with Leif Erikson's name on it that is now under water and too many pieces of unexploded ordnance around the area to go and explore it now.

It was on Nomans Land Island.

Here is one story I could find on it.

mvgazette.com...

reply to post by JohnnyCanuck


Very very interesting johnnyc,

I think there is some merit to what they've gotl

Yale announced the map in 1965. The (Vinland Map.) It was a map of the world, dated to AD 1440, showing an island, Vinland, identified as part of the NE American coastline. As such, it was the earliest map to show America. As such, it proved that the Vikings, not Columbus, were the first to discover America. For some time, scholars had been looking for evidence like the Vinland Map. Increasingly, they were becoming convinced that the Vikings had discovered America. But there was no archeological evidence to prove it. And the Vinland Map appeared, seemingly providing that evidence. And then shortly thereafter, archaeological evidence appeared. At the tip of Newfoundland.

That archaeological discovery showing Vinland and Greenland occurred just as the Vinland Map was being shown to the public for the first time. Once the Viking settlement had been discovered, the Vinland Map wasn't needed as evidence to prove a Norse presence. Rather, the discovery of the Viking landfall in 1965 seemed to legitimize the idea that the Vinland Map was genuine. Paul Mellon, a Yale alumnus and benefactor, had bought it for $1M in 1959, promising to give it to Yale if Yale could first authenticate it. So, for years, three scholars from the British Museum and the Yale Library experts in maps and manuscripts worked to authenticate it, without divulging its existence to scholars or to the outside world..

The three scholars were convinced that the Map was genuine and they were committed to proving it so (to obtain the map). In 1965, as soon as the authentication was completed and published, the Map's existence was announced to the world... and Yale became the owner of the Map. (Currently, the Map is insured for $25M.)

Questions...
If it is truly a 15th century map, where has it been for the past 500 years?

Where did the Map come from? It first appears in 1957 in the possession of a shady Italian book dealer Enzo Ferrajoli, subsequently put in prison for stealing rare books from ancient libraries. In 1957, Ferrajoli brought the Map to the British Museum to be authenticated. (At that time, it was bound, in a modern binding, to an antique volume dating to the 1440s, the Tartar Relation TR.) Ferrajoli's request for authentication was denied and, later, he sold the Map to Laurence Witten, a New Haven book dealer, for $3,500. Another antique volume, also dating to the 1440s, the Speculum Historiale SH, then mysteriously appeared, as an item in the rare book trade, also brokered by Ferrajoli. The SH then passed into Witten's possession; whereupon Witten noticed that the wormholes on the SH, the TR and the Map all matched. Originally all three could have been bound together. This seemed to date the Map to the 1440s, thereby authenticating it. This evidence provided the rationale for Mellon's $1M purchase.

If genuine, how could the Map have been drawn in 1440 AD?

How could Vinland have been mapped in such detail on the Vinland Map? Watermarks suggest that the Map was created in Basel in AD 1440. The Viking settlement on Vinland was established and abandoned around AD 1000. How did the cartographic information survive 450 years to be drawn on the Map in Basel? It would have had to have been written down in the early Norse Sagas [AD 1100 - 1200]. (No record of such a Saga survives.) In the intervening 100-200 years, between the experience in Vinland and the recording in a saga, all knowledge would have had to have been handed down by word of mouth. Other means would not have been possible. No Norse maps have survived: the Norse never made maps: there is no word in Old Norse for map. With what accuracy could detailed geography have been encoded in speech and transmitted from generation to generation?


If it was forged, who could have forged a work of such complexity?

No forger need be identified in order to demonstrate that the VM is a fake. That said, there is great interest to know who did it, why, how and when. So far, only one possible candidate has been proposed, Father Josef Fischer (1858-1944). Kirsten Seaver discusses the case for Fischer in her book Maps, Myths and Men, the most penetrating analysis, to date, of the Vinland Map. It is a matter of some relief to be able to identify someone who could have forged the Map. Little evidence is available to identify the forger. In some ways Father Fischer seems plausible: in others he does not. Evidence from carbon-14 dating shows that the VM underwent a massive intervention no earlier than 1953: Father Fischer died in 1944

If it was forged, why was it forged?

Assigning motives may not be straightforward. In faking paintings by Vermeer, van Meegeren earned many millions and fooled the critics who, earlier, had rejected his own paintings. Revenge and greed could not have motivated Father Fischer. Instead Seaver suggests it was a prank.

There's a lot of different takes on this subject.

Discovered in 1957 and hailed as the earliest map of the New World, the Vinland Map charted Norse exploration of the Americas long before Christopher Columbus. After decades of controversy, however, an amateur historian may finally have demonstrated that it is a clever hoax: the map occupies a sheet of parchment that was relatively unremarkable 120 years ago.

In 1972, the results of chemical analysis of the map's ink raised doubts about its authenticity. McCrone Associates' Walter McCrone removed and analyzed portions of the map's ink. McCrone concluded that the ink contained a significant amount of titanium anatase in it, a material scientists thought was invented after 1920.

In 1985, Dr Thomas Cahill of the University of California at Davis, was secretly given the map by Yale University for four days. Cahill analyzed the map and the ink using a new process called PIXE or Particle Induced X-ray Emission tests. The results were startling because Cahill found only a minute presence of titanium anatase, which scientists have since discovered occurs naturally..

I haven't really seen anything hard proving either way in 13. Firstly they need to prove without a doubt it is legitimate.
Very thought provoking.... Thanks for the thread.

Sources:
The Vinland Map
The Vinland Map Proved Fake

punkinworks10
reply to post by JohnnyCanuck

 

Very very interesting johnnyc, I think there is some merit to what they've got

Just at a glance, I have some issues with the scale regarding what he thinks are PEI and Cape Breton...neither are that far out in the Atlantic. Essentially, what he identifies as islands are definitely within site of the far shore - river or coastline.
Still...

reply to post by JohnnyCanuck


Of course it is possible Saint Columba reached america over a thousand years ago, there are rumored to be stones with pheonician inscription in the amazon but I have never seen a photograph, columbus recorded masted and oared native ships as big as the nine, pinta or santa maria that traded with the mainland and we have cocane in egyptian mummies so who discovered it, the victor writes the history as they say.
There is also the great possability that it was sailors from south america whom reached africa or europe long before as well and after all was it not there ancestory whom first reached america and discovered it.

I actually find the remnants of the eight sided tower of possible Templer origin interesting, you know the one that later european settlers converted into a windmill and the native people claimed had been built by white men and that is at least six hundred years old.

Good information. S&F. It seems that the guy who drew the shapes of those areas was just about as bad an artist as I am. I suppose the exact shape of the islands wasn't that important, finding the islands was what was important.

I'm not convinced that the Vinland map is legitimate, but it is a compelling piece of evidence to be sure.

To me, it looks like Newfoundland's Great Northern Peninsula, which is where we know the Vikings landed and built their settlement at L'anse aux Meadows.

Monger
I'm not convinced that the Vinland map is legitimate, but it is a compelling piece of evidence to be sure.
To me, it looks like Newfoundland's Great Northern Peninsula, which is where we know the Vikings landed and built their settlement at L'anse aux Meadows.

Agreed on the question of legitimacy, but I don't see the Great Northern Peninsula there...in fact The Rock seems conspicuous in its absence.
I always took the map to be denoting the St. Lawrence and Hudson's Bay, which still seems the most reasonable proposition. Further, the scale seems a little more in keeping.

It seems to me that the map indicates that Ellesmere Island is the point of reference in regard to "Vinland". Proportions between Greenland and eventually Hudson Bay or Newfoundland make no sense.
There were bishops on Greenland that came from Norway and they were surely literate. In addition one point is missed. The most likely reason for settling down in Greenland was the massive numbers of walrus there. Walrus was a highly priced commodity, not least walrus oil and ivory. Mapping of Vinland would therefore be valuable for some people.
I have otherwise read that one proof that the map is falsified is that Greenland is drawn as an island on the VM. Before Eirik Raude settled in Greenland he spent three years exploring the island, according to the Norse sagas. This means that he could have circumsailed Greenland many times during his explorations.
I do not know if the VM is false or not but some of the "proof" regarding falsification do seem to stem from lack of knowledge rather than the opposite.

originally posted by: C21H30O2I
How could Vinland have been mapped in such detail on the Vinland Map? Watermarks suggest that the Map was created in Basel in AD 1440. The Viking settlement on Vinland was established and abandoned around AD 1000. How did the cartographic information survive 450 years to be drawn on the Map in Basel?

This is the most fascinating part IMO. If the map is genuine, it shows that the knowledge of Vinland did not die out with the abandonment of the Anse aux Meadows colony, but was kept alive over the centuries up until Columbus 'officialized' it.

It also shows us that the knowledge transcended Viking culture and somehow ended up in Central Europe.

If true, then the North American continent was known to a select group of European mariners, who had the technical and logistic capacity to go there. This is as close to a guarantee as we can get that there were more transatlantic voyages between 1000 AD and 1492 AD, without having the direct evidence of it.

The last registered matrimony on Greenland took place in the Hvalsey church in 1408. We would not know this unless the Norse Greenlanders were litterate.
The last bishop left Greenland around 1370 because cotacts with the island were difficult to maintain after the Black Death. The registered matrimony shows that litteracy was not limited to the bishop only. Another point is why the Danish state would NOT be interested in mapping its territory in the 15'th century. They mapped all other Danish territory in this period.