A $1 Million Forgery?

In 1965 scholars called it "the most exciting cartographic discovery of the century." The map, acquired by Yale's library, was the first to show the Western Hemisphere as it was discovered by the Vikings centuries before Columbus. It became known as the "Vinland map" because it bore a Latin inscription declaring that Bjarni and Leif Ericson had "discovered a new land, extremely fertile and even having vines, the which island they named Vinland."

A New Haven, Conn., antiquarian bookseller named Laurence Witten purchased the map, which had been bound with a 13th century narrative of a Central Asian voyage, from a European dealer in 1957. Later Witten was given a fragment of a medieval encyclopedia that appeared to be written in the same hand as the narrative. Wormholes for all three documents--map, fragment and narrative--matched perfectly. Convinced of the map's authenticity, Witten in 1959 sold all three, reportedly for nearly $ 1 million, to an anonymous buyer, who in turn donated them to Yale. There, scholars determined that the map had been drawn about 1440, probably by a monk in a Swiss scriptorium.

Last week Yale announced that the map may be the work of a skilled 20th century forger. Using an intricate form of small-particle analysis that employs techniques developed since 1957, a Chicago firm found that the map's ink contained traces of anatase, a form of titanium dioxide whose properties were not known before the 1920s. Said Witten: "I have always said the Vinland map was controversial and that arguments about it were likely to continue for generations. I could not feel any other way than sad." About the way that 10,000 others--who paid $15 each for copies of the map published by Yale --must also feel.

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