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Danish Expert Declares Vinland Map Genuine

Posted by kdawson on from the even-now-they-walk-among-us dept.

MBCook writes "A Danish conservation expert named Rene Larsen has finished a 5-year study of the infamous Vinland Map and declared it genuine. 'All the tests that we have done over the past five years — on the materials and other aspects — do not show any signs of forgery,' he said at the press conference. He and his team studied the ink, the paper, and even insect damage. They believe that the ink, which was discovered in 1972 to contain titanium dioxide and thus supposedly was too new for the map to be genuine, was contaminated when sand was used to dry the ink."

2 of 210 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Larsen != Larson by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Population of Denmark: 5.5 million
    Population of Sweden: 9 million

    Out of curiosity, without scurrying off to wikipedia, could you differentiate a Punjabi name (130 million) from a Bengali (230 million) name?

    Or, not even leaving Europe, how about the difference between Ukrainian (50 million) and Russian (100 million)?

  2. Re:Fake. by ShadowRangerRIT · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You're saying the Vikings managed to develop clocks that could work at sea, didn't tell anyone, and then forgot about it for 500 years? Because prior to GPS, that was *still* the only way to get an accurate reading on longitude. Yes, there are other methods, but they don't work at sea, they only work at the time of known planetary events, and they are crude even when used correctly (far too crude to provide the resolution needed for detailed coastlines).

    And yet somehow, the Vikings could "probably" do it. With no supporting evidence whatsoever, you leap to "probably." Wow... Just wow...

    --
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