Posted on 11/26/2004 12:01:26 PM PST by blam
Viking map may rewrite US history
Agençe France-Presse
Friday, 26 November 2004
Experts are testing the map to see if it is really evidence for Vikings landing in the New World first, not Columbus (Image: Climate Monitoring & Diagnostics Lab) Danish experts will travel to the U.S. to study evidence that the Vikings landed in the New World five centuries before Columbus.
A controversial parchment said to be the oldest map of America could, if authentic, support the theory that the Vikings arrived first.
The map is said to date from 1434 and was found in 1957. Some people believe it is evidence that Vikings, who departed from Greenland around the year 1000, were the first to land in the Americas.
The document is of Vinland, the part of North America believed to be what is today the Canadian province of Newfoundland, and was supposedly discovered by the Viking Leif Eriksen, the son of Erik the Red.
Three researchers from the Danish Royal Library and School of Conservation hope that modern techniques developed in Denmark will be able to "shed more light on this document whose authenticity is questioned worldwide", said Rene Larsen, head of the School of Conservation in Copenhagen and the leader of the project.
The trio will on Monday begin their work on the map, which is kept at Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library in Connecticut.
The three have been "authorised to, for two to three days, photograph, analyse with microscope and undertake various studies of the document and its ink, but not alter it", Larsen said.
He said the results of the study would be presented early next year.
The Vinland map, possibly the first map showing the New World, at Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (Image: Brookhaven National Lab/Yale University Press)
"We hope that the new techniques that we have developed in Denmark ... will help to better [date] the document and ink with which the map was drawn in order to lift the veil on its authenticity or counterfeit," he said.
The map was considered a sensation when it was found. Experts largely agree that the parchment dates from the 1400s, but by the 1970s some experts had begun arguing that the ink used contained materials that were only developed in the 20th century.
U.K. chemist Professor Robin Clark, from University College London, has meanwhile said he believed the document was a fake.
He based his conclusion on the work of another researcher, Dr Walter McCrone, who in the 1970s found that the ink contained a derivative of titanium dioxide, which did not exist until the 1920s, according to the journal Analytical Chemistry.
GGG Ping.
I thought we have had evidence of Viking settlements in Labrador for many years. Does the map really change things. Yes, they were here before Columbus. Whut...??
Just how does this affect the Viking Kitties, I wonder?
More from our ancestors
Click the pic!
But I'm wondering how this is going to affect our U.S. Constitution, our Founding Fathers, and our American way of life?
:) I just don't see it. :)
Well we will rename "America" to "Columbus", since this makes Americo Vaspuchi's claim less likely.
But I'm wondering how this is going to affect our U.S. Constitution, our Founding Fathers, and our American way of life?
What? How does Clovis culture fit into all this?
Every few years this map makes it's rounds in the media. I thought the last time it was thouroughly debunked as a fake, but I don't remember details. Does anyone remember?
I think it's pretty clear that the Vikings were in America long before Columbus. The L'Anse Aux Meadows site, the viking coins recovered on cape cod, and the increasingly apparent accuracy of the Icelandic sagas all point to this as fact instead of legend.
Ja, it was all made clear on the Kensington Rune Stone.
The U.S.E. The United States of Eriksen.
No big suprise. The Vikings were explorers.
Personally I suspect that this continent and south America were receiving visitors and transplants from both the east and west for a long time. After all the pacific islanders managed to populate the pacific all by themselves. Getting to Hawaii and Easter island are a far cry from a little island hop.
I wonder when the a priori view of history will be corrected. There are many clues and evidences that the history we were taught left out much and speculated at much.
Contemplate the Piri Reis map too!
http://www.prep.mcneese.edu/engr/engr321/preis/piri_r~1.htm
> I think it's pretty clear that the Vikings were
> in America long before Columbus.
Some race of rock-movers surely was:
http://gonewengland.about.com/cs/nhsightseeing/a/aastonehengenh.htm
Yes, back during my tenure in Alexandria in the '70, I passed it on my way to the municipal on/off sale store!
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