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The Vineland map claims to be a map created,
about 80 years before Columbus sailed for Cathy, from the
Viking explorations of the North Atlantic. The debate over
the authenticity of this map has been an interesting one and
if in fact it is a forgery then it is one which has resisted
all attempts to prove it a fake. It is in fact one of the
great milestones in exploration and stands as a very
importnat historic document. The map
was first uncovered in 1965 and published by, Skelton et al.
The Vinland Map and Tartar Relation. In 1972, a
scientific team headed by Dr. Walter McCrone reported that
its ink contained anatase, a form of titanium which first
appeared in ink during the 1920s. Twenty years later, in
1992, Dr. Thomas Cahill of UC Davis found anatase in a
variety of medieval manuscripts and the question was
reopened. In 1995 Yale released a second edition of the
book, together with further articles in support of the map,
even as scholarly opinion outside of Yale increasingly
turned against it. Most recently, two studies, one on the
parchment and another on the ink, seemed to many to point in
different directions.
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