Posted on 11/26/2003 6:19:59 PM PST by nwrep
NEW HAVEN, Conn. - The latest scientific analysis of a disputed map of the medieval New World supports the theory that it was made 50 years before Christopher Columbus set sail.
The study examined the ink used to draw the Vinland Map, which belongs to Yale University. The map is valued at $20 million — if it is real and not a clever, modern-day forgery.
A study last summer said the ink on the parchment map was made in the 20th century.
But chemist Jacqueline Olin, a retired researcher with the Smithsonian Institution (news - web sites) in Washington, said Tuesday her analysis shows the ink was made in medieval times.
"There is no evidence this is a forged titanium dioxide ink," said Olin, whose paper appears in the December issue of the journal Analytical Chemistry.
The authenticity of the map has been debated since the 1960s, when philanthropist Paul Mellon gave it to Yale. The university has not taken a position on its authenticity.
The map depicts the world, including the north Atlantic coast of North America. It includes text in medieval Latin and a legend that describes how "Leif Eiriksson," a Norseman, found the new land called Vinland around the year 1000.
Scholars have dated the map to around 1440. Some scholars have speculated that Columbus could have used the map to find the New World in 1492.
Last summer, Olin and other researchers announced that carbon-14 dating of the parchment showed it was made around 1434 — exactly the right time for the map to be genuine.
However, researchers from University College in London examined the ink on the map and announced last summer that it cannot be more than 500 years old.
Tests in the 1970s by Walter McCrone — who also had disputed the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin — found the ink contained anatase, a form of titanium dioxide that is common in inks made after 1920. Anatase is found in nature, but the crystals of anatase were too regular-shaped to have been natural, McCrone said.
Olin's study looked at various minerals found in the ink, including aluminum, copper and zinc. All these minerals, she said, would have been byproducts of the medieval ink manufacturing process.
Also, she said anatase also could have ended up in the ink because of the manufacturing process, and its crystal size and shape could have changed over time.
Research is continuing into the Latin writing on the map.
This map shows Greenland to be an island. Greenland, however, was not known to be an island until several centuries after this map was alleged to have been created.
Amazing what you can do with Microsoft Forger these days.
I like the old map that shows the landmass of Antartica. The map has been around for a long-long time. Only recently (last 40 years?) have we determined what the landmass of Antartica looks like under all the ice.
The new maps of the buried landmass match up quite well with the old map!
When Columbus discovered the new world, it stayed discovered.
In an astronomy class, I was taught that the greeks knew the earth was round and had estimated the distance as roughly 25,000 miles (using, of course, whatever units were common to Greeks before Jesus was born).
I was told educated europeans knew this, and they had no interest in sailing west because it was the long way around, and no one knew if there was any land in between.
Ping
I suppose for the same reason that every time they find an old skeleton it's not an Indian but a white guy that got here first. (Kennewick Man)
Based on a book I got for Christmas in 1991, this is apparently a pretty common belief in some scholarly circles. Apparently Columbus had expressed some knowledge that couldn't be known otherwise.
My impression is that 99.9% of the time when they find an old skeleton in America, they think it's a Native American Indian.
I guess you are easily impressed.
Well, I have no wish to trade insults with you, so I'll bid you adieu.
ROTFLMAO!
After a Custer Park, Rushmore, and Crazy Horse loop the first day, we always take first time visitors to Wall Drug, then back home via the Badlands.
After that, the rest is up to them as to what to see & do.
If it's older than 6,000 years old, that's usually a correct statement. Luzia, a 10,500 year old skeleton found in Brazil is an African. It appears that today's American Indian/Native Americans were the late-comers to the Americas.
Wonderful place, South Dakota. I visited twice on the way to California when I was a teenager. I'm looking forward to taking my kids when they are old enough to appreciate it.
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