The 'Vinland Map'

This is a copy of the "Vinland Map" at Yale University in New Haven, Conn.. The map, which predates Christopher Columbus, may prove that he was not the first European to reach America. Danish scientists will apply modern dating techniques to the ink and paper of the original map to finally determine whether it is a forgery or not.

Danish experts will travel to the United States to study a controversial parchment said to be the oldest map of America and which, if authentic, would support the theory that Vikings discovered the New World five centuries before Columbus, officials said last week.

The map, which is said to date from 1434 and was found in 1957, is believed by some to be evidence that Vikings who departed from Greenland around the year 1000 were the first to discover America.

The document is of Vinland, the part of North America which is believed to be what is today the Canadian province of Newfoundland, and was supposedly discovered by the Viking Leif Erikson, the son of Erik the Red.

Three researchers from the Danish Royal Library and School of Conservation hope that modern techniques developed in Denmark will be able to "shed more light on this document whose authenticity is questioned worldwide," Rene Larsen, head of the School of Conservation in Copenhagen and the leader of the project, told AFP.

The trio will on Monday begin their work on the map, which is kept at Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library in Connecticut.

The three have been "authorized to, for two to three days, photograph, analyze with microscope and undertake various studies of the document and its ink, but not alter it," Larsen said.

He said the results of the study would be presented early next year.

"We hope that the new techniques that we have developed in Denmark ... will help to better (date) the document and ink with which the map was drawn in order to lift the veil on its authenticity or counterfeit," he said.

The map was considered a sensation when it was found. Experts are largely in agreement that the parchment dates from the 1400s, but by the 1970s some experts had begun arguing that the ink used contained materials that were only developed in the 20th century.

British chemist Robin Clark has meanwhile said that he believes the document is a fake.

He based his conclusion on the work of another researcher, Walter McCrone, who in the 1970s found that the ink contained a derivate of titanium dioxide, which did not exist until the 1920s, according to the journal Analytical Chemistry.

From Discovery