The Vinland Map and the Tartar Relation

by Raleigh Ashlin Skelton, Thomas E. Marston, Mr. George D. Painter

The Vinland Map, dated to about AD1440 - at least 50 years before Columbus landed in the Americas - is a map of the world that shows an outline of the northeast American coast and a legend describing its discovery in about 1000 by Leif Eiriksson, the Norseman from Greenland. The map was published by Yale University Press in 1965 and generated much debate. Chemical analysis of the ink later suggested the map might be a forgery, but recent appraisals of both scientific and humanist evidence argue that it is indeed authentic. Now this classic of historical cartography is available in a new edition. It reprints unaltered the original text on the Vinland Map and an account of Friar John of Plano Carpini's mission to the Mongols from 1245 to 1247, with which the map had at some stage been bound. To this have been added a new introduction by George D. Painter who discusses the verification of the map's authenticity; a new essay by Wilcomb E. Washburn, Director of the Smithsonian's American Studies Programme, on the map's provenance and the tests that have been performed on it; and a new discussion of the map's compositional and structural aspects by Thomas A. Cahill and Bruce H. Kusko, of the Crocker Historical and Archaeological Projects at the University of California, Davis, USA. There is also an account by Laurence C. Witten II, the rare-book dealer who sold the map to the benefactor who donated it anonymously to the Yale University Library.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Medieval

368 pages, Hardcover

First published January 28, 1965

About the author

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raleigh...

Reviews

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

No way I'm ever going to read this thing from cover to cover, but I did revisit the many prefatory notes in the 1995 Thirtieth Anniversary edition, from scholars, librarians, rare book dealers and chemical analysts. The whole forms a sort of real-life scholarly detective story of the kind Umberto Eco or the like might build on, though no actual murders (that I know of) have taken place over the Viking map of the northeast coastline of North America that is the centerpiece of this. Also in the intervening years (50 now) since the map actually turned up in Barcelona, the likelihood that Columbus' voyage to the new world was predated by the Vikings has become considerably more established.

[Thomas Gizbert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible book, researched to the hilt, arguing pretty convincingly for the relevance of a forgery that, if it had been real, would have been extremely cool.

The first big takeaway is that there really is no reason why the Vinland map - or something like it - couldn't exist. Maybe we just haven't found it yet.

The second big takeaway is the utter paucity of information and understanding of the world that existed in the century that Columbus (re)discovered the Americas.

Altogether an absolutely mad book. Loved it.