Scholarly

Amazon. The Vinland Map and Tartar Relation, by Skelton et al. Available for purchase. Despite its flaws, the essential book on the subject.

"Vinland Re-read" by Paul Saenger. Review of second edition of The Vinland Map and the Tartar Relation. Published in Imago Mundi 1998. The article attacks the map's authenticity, focusing on paleographic, philological and historical problems. I find it quite convincing.

Yale UP blurb on Skelton et al. The Vinland Map and the Tartar Relation, second edition. Now working

PDF: Review of reissue of The Vinland Map and Tartar Relation by Lars Lonnroth, alvvssmal, 7 (1997).

"Thus there is not very much which is new in this edition, and hardly anything in it is likely to convince serious scholars that the map is authentic. The book is evidently written for true believers, not for people who want to discuss pro and con."

Lonnroth also makes a very convincing case for the Map being an amalgam of a genuine 15th c. map and some rather discordant modern additions.

"VNLND: The Online Bibliography, Materials on & about the Norse Discovery of North America" maintained by Steve Smith. Smith's bibliography covers more than the Vinland map, of course.

"The Vinland Map shows its true colors; scientists say it's a confirmed forgery." by Jason Gorss, a press release from the American Chemical Society.

For Purchase: "Analysis of Pigmentary Materials on the Vinland Map and Tartar Relation by Raman Microprobe Spectroscopy" by Katherine L. Brown and Robin J. H. Clark, Analytical Chemistry 74, 2002.

"Determination of the Radiocarbon Age of Parchment of the Vinland Map" by D. J. Donahu, J. S. Olin and G. Harbottle, Radiocarbon 44.1, August 2002.

Update for the Vinland Map and the Turin Shroud by Dr. McCrone of the The McCrone Research Institute, who asserts that the map is a forgery. Page contains some rather unprofessional griping.

"A Proven 'fake' de-faked!" (more pro-shroud/anti-McCrone ballyhoo) from the British Society for the Turin Shroud.

Interested in the Shroud of Turin? Here's "350 Shoud of Turin Links (!)

French review of The Vinland Map and the Tartar Relation by Regis Boyer for Les Cahiers de Geographie de Quebec. It's half-way down the page.

Index to Terrae Incognitae, the Journal of the Society for the History of Discoveries. Three articles on Vinland. No abstracts.

"The Vinland Map: Some 'Finer Points' of the Debate" by J. Huston McCulloch, an economics professor at Ohio State. McCulloch, a proponent of the map, presents the most in-depth discussion of the Vinland stone on the Web. Unlike many proponents, the author attends seriously to palaeographical and philological arguments (responding primarily to Saenger). Much of this is plausible and his industry is to be commended. At the same time, at the risk of biting the hand that compliments me, and mindful that my training is in Classics not Medieval studies or chemistry, I find his arguments strained and unconvincing. While the Vinland map debate is hardly a paradise of disinterested scholarship his treatment smacks convinced autodidacticism. And I'm decidedly spooked to find McCulloch a proponent of a number of obviously fakes as the "Grave Creek Stone" and the "Bat-Creek Stone" (Hebrew in Tennessee--why do these things always have that obscure and rarely-inscribed language? Could it have anything to do with its propaganda value, and the relative abundance of modern Hebrew scholars, as against scholars in, say, Lycian?). Lastly, for what it's worth, he also refers to a shot taken from my website as "color photo" of the map. It is, in fact, a duotone (tinted image) scanned from a commonly-available black and white photograph. It's there to liven up the page, and is not evidence. If he can't sniff out my fakes...

"Vinland, une vraie-fausse carte?" by Cécile Dumas for Le Journal Perm@anent, July 30, 2002. Touches on latest Analytical Chemistry article.