WASHINGTON, Nov. 25 (UPI) -- A Smithsonian Institution scientist said Tuesday chemical analysis of the controversial Vinland map shows it was likely made by the Vikings centuries ago.
The map is a drawing of Iceland, Greenland and the northeastern seaboard of North America that has been dated to the mid-15th century, suggesting Norse explorers charted North America before Columbus.
While carbon dating set a date for the map's parchment at about 1434, some chemists said the ink makes it a modern forgery, a release from the American Chemical Society said.
But a new report to appear in the Dec. 1 edition of Analytical Chemistry by Jacqueline Olin, a member of the advisory committee of the Smithsonian Center for Materials Research and Education, suggests traces of copper, aluminum and zinc in the medieval ink would not have been known to modern forgers.
The map, which has had a contentious history since its discovery in the 1950s, resides at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University, and has been valued at more than $20 million.
