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It’s all in the ink: Vinland Map is definitely a fake, new analysis finds
- ilamont 5y agoThis is a great summary of the analysis of the map over many decades. Before the map surfaced in the 1950s, there were other maps that portrayed "Vinland" extending to New England. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Harvard Professor Eben Norton Horsford and his daughter made maps, gave talks, and even built monuments to the supposed Viking presence in the Boston area (one of them, a stone tower, is located less than a mile from my home). They were not taken too seriously: Despite an apparently courteous reception by the American Geographical Society, among scholars Horsford has far more detractors than supporters. Critics take him to task for dubious linguistic analysis, wildly expansive readings of an ancient Norse saga, speculative analysis of early maps, and fanciful interpretations of archeological remains along the Charles. Samuel Eliot Morison puts the point crisply: “In his imagination, every colonial ditch or paved cow-yard in that region became Norse.” (European Discovery of America: The Northern Voyages, p.67) https://bostonraremaps.com/inventory/norumbega-and-vinland-on-the-charles/ https://bostonraremaps.com/inventory/norumbega-and-vinland-o...