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When Yale University announced in 1965 that it had acquired a pre-Columbian map
of the known world showing Viking adventures to North America, the case for the
map's authenticity seemed solid. After all, three renowned experts in medieval
documents had assessed the map for Yale, taking nearly seven years to prepare
what was to be the definitive defense, a weighty book titled The Vinland Map
and the Tartar Relation. It argued that the map, along with the Tartar
Relation and the Speculum Historiale, both undeniably genuine
medieval texts, were once all bound together—a single volume created
circa 1437 for use at a conference of the Roman Catholic Church. Yet Yale's
three scholars had worked in isolation, never testing their conclusions with
outside experts, and as soon as Yale unveiled the map other scholars began
voicing doubt. Since then Yale, to its credit, has spearheaded intensive
scientific study of the map, much of which has put its authenticity in
question. To investigate the map yourself and examine evidence that it
may be—and in some cases may not be—a 20th-century forgery,
click on the interactive at left.—Susan K. Lewis
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