{"id":12490,"date":"2021-09-27T15:48:26","date_gmt":"2021-09-27T21:48:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12490"},"modified":"2021-09-27T15:48:26","modified_gmt":"2021-09-27T21:48:26","slug":"who-benefited-from-the-vinland-map","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12490","title":{"rendered":"Who Benefited from the Vinland Map?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Part of the Vinland Map, supposedly from the mid-1400s, before Columbus\u00a0(Wikimedia Commons).<\/p><\/div>\n

The Vinland Map has been controversial since the 1960s when it popped into public view<\/a>. Did it really record a Norse partial-mapping of North America? Its modern history is viewed as scandalous<\/a>. Most scholars who examined it leaned toward its being a forgery.<\/p>\n

But from when? And for whose benefit?<\/p>\n

A team at Yale University places it in the 1920s:<\/a><\/p>\n

Acquired by Yale in the mid-1960s, the purported 15th<\/sup>-century map depicts a pre-Columbian \u201cVinlanda Insula,\u201d a section of North America\u2019s coastline southwest of Greenland. While earlier studies had detected evidence of modern inks at various points on the map, the new Yale analysis examined the entire document\u2019s elemental composition using state-of-the-art tools and techniques that were previously unavailable.<\/p>\n

The analysis revealed that a titanium compound used in inks first produced in the 1920s pervades the map\u2019s lines and text.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It looks like another case of a forger using paper \u2014 or in this case, parchment \u2014 from the appropriate historical era but not taking the time to re-create the inks of the time. The ink, the Yale researchers say, is 20th-century.<\/p>\n

In a follow-up article Smithsonian<\/em> sees the map as playing a part in American struggles over identity,<\/a> although leaving open the question of when it was actually forged. After the 1920s is the nearest that can be said.<\/p>\n

In the modern era, the European discovery of North America\u00a0became a proxy for conflicts between American Protestants and Catholics, as well as northern Europeans who claimed the pagan Vikings as their ancestors and southern Europeans who touted links to Columbus and the monarchs of Spain. Feted on the front page of the New York Times<\/em><\/a>, the map\u2019s discovery appeared to solidify the idea of a pre-Columbian Norse arrival in the American mindset.<\/p>\n

As it turns out, the map was indeed too good to be true.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Vinland Map has been controversial since the 1960s when it popped into public view. Did it really record a Norse partial-mapping of North America? Its modern history is viewed as scandalous. Most scholars who examined it leaned toward its being a forgery. But from when? And for whose benefit? A team at Yale University […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[94,26,100,134,4],"class_list":["post-12490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-canada","tag-culture","tag-history","tag-norse","tag-scholarship"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-3fs","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":627,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=627","url_meta":{"origin":12490,"position":0},"title":"From Vinland to \"Celtic America\"\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 3, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"From Vinland to \"Celtic America\" (Part 4)Part 1, Part 2, Part 3Reading of Richard Nielsen's championing of the Kensington Runestone, I was reminded of another independent scholar of marginal archaeology--another engineer, coincidentally--the late Bill McGlone of La Junta, Colorado.McGlone in turn had been influenced by Barry Fell (1917-1994), a marine\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":618,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=618","url_meta":{"origin":12490,"position":1},"title":"Vinland 3","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 19, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Part 1 Part 2 From the skeptics' point of view, the acceptance of a Norse presence in North America, following the archaeological dig at L'Anse aux Meadows, should have made the Kensington Runestone a non-issue. \"No Kensington stone is needed to prove that the Scandinavians reached America first,\" wrote James\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1011,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1011","url_meta":{"origin":12490,"position":2},"title":"What Lies Ahead","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 26, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Here are a couple of links. Meanwhile, expect a series of new book-related posts, now that spring semester is finally coming to a close.\u00b6 What was it like to live in a Norse longhouse in Vinland or Iceland? Re-enactors have ideas.\u00b6 At least Pope Benedict understands that religion thrives better\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":615,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=615","url_meta":{"origin":12490,"position":3},"title":"Vinland 2Part 1Fake or not,\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 14, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Vinland 2Part 1Fake or not, the Kensington Runestone was fervently defended by one Hjalmar Rued Holand, a local historian. His promotion resulted in a 1940 Smithsonian exhibition and later the creation of a museum in Alexandria, Minnesota.Nevertheless, expert opinion remained generally skeptical. The 1967 Newfoundland discovery seemed to obviate any\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":613,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=613","url_meta":{"origin":12490,"position":4},"title":"Vinland 1On November 8, 1898,\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 11, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Vinland 1On November 8, 1898, a Norwegian immigrant farmer, Olaf Ohman, unearthed a large stone block covered with runic writing while cutting down a tree on his land--or so the story goes. Ohman lived about 145 miles northwest of Minneapolis. This \"Kensington Runestone\" was translated most recently as follows:We eight\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":611,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=611","url_meta":{"origin":12490,"position":5},"title":"Beer and VinlandI sat down\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 10, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Beer and VinlandI sat down last night with a plate of bread, King Oscar sardines and Rosenborg cheese, a couple of bottles of Carlsberg beer (Support Denmark!), and a copy of the Smithsonian's illustrated anthology Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga.It's all for inspiration: I am working up to a series\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12490"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12499,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12490\/revisions\/12499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}