32x12 - The Viking Deception

[bunniefuu]

In 1492,Columbus discovered America.

And for nearly 500 years, there
could be no fact more certain.

Columbus and his discovery
were inscribed in textbooks,

recited by schoolchildren
and celebrated by nations.

Then in the 1960s,
history changed forever,

when we learned that america
was not discovered by columbus;

america was discovered
by the vikings.

The proof?

A wrinkled piece of parchment
called the vinland map,

claimed by experts to be
the first to depict america,

and it dates to 1440,

half a century before
columbus's famous voyage.

But is the vinland map real?

If it's a fake,
it was done by a master of forgery.

It's too complicated.
It's too beautiful.

I think it's real.

From the moment it surfaced,

scientists have subjected the map to
an exhaustive series of forensic tests,

but even they are divided
over its authenticity.

If it is genuine, it's a
fascinating historical document.

If it's not genuine,
it's the biggest con trick

that's been pulled on cartographical
society in a very, very long time.

At stake: Millions of dollars,

the careers of esteemed scholars
and scientists

and the reputation of one of america's
most revered institutions.

We can see no option but

the fact that this must be a forgery,

a modern 20th-century forgery.

From ancient libraries
in n*zi-occupied austria

to space age labs in california,

the race is on for the truth.

Is the vinland map fake or real?

Can science provide the answer?

Up next on nova,

"the viking deception."

google is proud to support nova
in the search for knowledge.

Google.

Major funding for nova is provided
by the howard hughes medical institute,

serving society through biomedical
research and science education.

HHWI.

And by the corporation
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and by contributions to your pbs
station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

Here at the showpiece
beinecke library,

yale keeps the vinland map safe
for future study.

Once, it had been proclaimed
the map that changed history,

challenging the gospel
that columbus discovered america

and revealing the vikings as the first
europeans to visit the new world.

But today, the map is only
accessible to select scholars

who are investigating it
not for its historical value

but rather to determine
its authenticity.

We d't take a position
on the vinland map.

I believe very strongly

that we are here to make material
available for scholars to use.

As far as its being real
or fake is concerned,

that is for the scholars
who study it to determine.

If they determine it's real,

it's the most valuable map
in the world;

if it's fake, it's
a worthless piece of parchment.

London, the year 1957.

Two book dealers arrive
at the british museum.

One is J.I. Davis,
an englishman;

the other, an italian
named enzo ferrajoli.

Ferrajoli and davis are hoping
the museum experts

will authenticate an intriguing
volume they are offering for sale.

The bulk of the book is a medieval
manuscript called the tartar relation.

The tartar relation is an account
of a 13th-century papal mission

to gather intelligence on
the court of the mongol rulers

with their great
military capability.

The manuscript ferrajoli
and davis are offering

was transcribed by monks
in the 15th century

and bound together with a world map
that appears to illustrate the text.

To the east of europe, the map shows
lands conquered by the mongols,

the himalayas
and even the island of japan.

But to the west of europe,

it reveals iceland, greenland
and a new world,

one that until then had
never been seen on a map...

a distant island in the north
atlantic labeled "vinlanda,"

where america lies.

Here it was in black and white,

and it showed america
in relation to recognizable

parts of the world
such as africa and asia

and the scandinavian countries,
great britain.

No question where it was.

Was this map evidence that the vikings
set foot on america before columbus?

At the time, the only hint
this could be true

were two norse chronicles
called the vinland sagas.

The word saga
means "telling," "oral tales,"

and there were stories,
oral histories,

that were partly passed down for
the edification of the next generation.

Some of them were for entertainment
more than anything.

The vikings were the greatest
explorers of the middle ages.

Their sturdy ships and
seafaring skills

took them far from their
scandinavian homelands

and across harsh
north atlantic seas.

By 870,
they had reached iceland.

A century later,
they colonized greenland.

And now,

this map not only depicts
vinland where america is;

it also includes a short
inscription above vinland

describing its discovery
by the vikings.

Suddenly the vinland map
cast doubt

on 500 years
of textbook history.

I was taught that columbus
discovered the new world.

So was every other child
the world across.

And so this, then, was

revolutionary in that sense.

In 1957,when book dealers
ferrajoli and

davis brought the map
to the british museum,

it was the first serious
evidence besideshe sagas

that the vikings
had discovered america.

The vinland map looked so good,

two of the museum's experts
were convinced it was genuine.

But the head of the manuscript
department, bertram schofield, had doubts.

He was troubled that ferrajoli
would not reveal anything

about the map's
previous history.

In fact, ferrajoli's charm
did mask a darker past.

He was a fascist who,
during the spanish civil w*r,

had fought with
general franco's troops.

Some claim he had a reputation
for shady deals.

El sab perfectamente...

He knew very well who he could
buy just with little gifts...

Invitations to lunch,

good cigars,
good spirits and wines.

In other words,
he knew perfectly

what everybody's price was
in order to win their trust.

Bertram schofield refused to give

the british museum's stamp of approval
to the vinland map.

Without authentication,

ferrajoli and davis would not
be able to ask a high price.

They decided to try
another strategy.

Geneva was one of the hubs
of the european ra book trade.

One swiss dealer,
the firm of nicolas rauch,

was holding a series of auctions
of books and manuscrip

relating to the discovery
of america.

But without proof
that it was genuine,

rauch would not sell
the vinland map.

He did, however, introduce ferrajoli
to a young american dealer,

laurence witten.

He was extremely knowledgeable.

He was a linguist, familiar with

most western european languages.
He was a latinist.

And his catalogue descriptions
were erudite.

He was
a very knowledgeable dealer.

Away from the close scrutiny
of the sales room,

ferrajoli offered witten
the vinland map.

Despite the map's lack
of a proper pedigree,

witten, as he later wrote
in a publication for yale,

was captivated.

Whatever the vinland map and the tartar
relation may ultimately prove to be,

I fell under their spell in 1957.

Witten paid ferrajoli $3,500
for the vinland map volume.

In 1957,that was big money,

but if he could prove that
the vinland map was drawn

before columbus arrived
in america in 1492,

he stood to make a fortune.

At his home near yale, where
he had been a graduate student,

witten turned detective.

He started by trying
to date the manuscript

with which the map was bound,

the tartar relation.

The tartar relation was
mainly written on paper,

and witten discovered faint
watermarks of an ox's head.

By finding the watermark
in a reference book,

he could show that the paper
had been made in 1441.

This indicated that the tartar relation
was an authentic medieval manuscript.

But the map was drawn
on parchment... animal skin...

And had
no identifying watermark.

What was its date?

Witten's strategy was
to prove that the vinland map

had always been bound
with the tartar relation,

which scholars generally agree
is authentic.

While examining them, he found
an important clue... wormholes.

If he could show that
the holes eaten by bookworms

lined up from one documentto the next,

it would prove the vinland map
and tartar relation

had always been bound together
and had to be connected in time.

But try as he might,

witten could not make
the wormholes line up.

Witten had come to a dead end.

A year later, his fortunes
would be transformed

by a remarkable coincidence.

A friend from yale's sterling library

brought witten part of a well-known
medieval history

by a dominican friar
named vincent of beauvais.

It was called
the speculum historiale,

or "mirror of history."

That night, after dinner,

he sat down with the manuscript
and compared it

to the tartar relation
and the vinland map.

Immediately, he was struck
by an amazing coincidence.

My adrenaline began to flow as
it dawned on me that the wormholes

through the vinland map
exactly matched those

at the front of vincent
de beauvais's speculum...

while the ones
in the tartar relation

just as perfectly matched those
at the end of the same volume.

As far as I was concerned,

the vinland map
was authenticated then and there

beyond any reasonable shadow
of doubt.

It now appeared that the vinland map
had once been part of a medieval volume

containing two authentic
ancient documents.

The map was at the front
of the volume,

next came
the speculum historiale,

and finally,
the tartar relation.

Bookworms had eaten
through the manuscripts,

leaving the wormholes
as evidence,

linking the map
with the speculum

and the speculum
with the tartar relation.

Witten was convinced:

The viand map was real.

Witten offered it for sale
to yale university.

Alexander vietor, the curator
of the map collection,

turned to one of the
university's wealthiest

and most generous alumni
for help.

Billionaire paul mellon
was intrigued by the idea

that one map could
radically rewrite history.

The exact price he paid
has never been revealed,

but in return for what
has been estimated

as hundreds of thousands of dollars...

According to alexander vietor's
wife, anna...

Mellon set
one crucial condition:

Secrecy.

He wanted it
to burst on the world

and everybody would be thrilled
and this would change all history.

So my husband came back
and said,

"you've got to keep it a secret
and not tell anybody about it

because I'll be
in great trouble with mellon."

Yale selected three scholars
to quietly try to authenticate the map.

While they were working,

a remarkable find
lent further support

to the vinland map's message

that the vikings were the first
europeans to reach america.

Since 1960 norwegians
helge and anne stine ingstad

had been searching the canadian coast
for evidence of a viking presence.

At the fishing village
of I'anse aumeadows in newfoundland,

they were taken to the remains of what
locals described as an indian camp.

The ingstads began excavating.

Over the following years,

they uncovered the remains
of what appeared to be typical



And the artifacts inside them
left no room for doubt.

The only people who produced
bronze ringed pins

and iron nails that looked
like these were the vikings.

The ingstads' announcement
provided

the archaeological proof
that the vikings

had beaten columbus to america.

By 1965,yale was prepared to reveal
its closely guarded secret to the world.

The three scholars
had completed a lavish book

in preparation
for the vinland map's unveiling.

The only decision that remained
was the exact date for the launch.

Yale's benefactor, paul mellon,
was consulted.

Everybody in those days
had a featherweight diary,

and mellon got his out:

"I'm going to be sh**ting,
I'm going to be fishing,

I'm going to be..."
and so forth and so on.

And suddenly, on october 11,

he was going to be at a meeting
up near new haven,

and so he said
that would be the perfect time.

Mellon's choice of date could
not have been more provocative.

October 11 was
the eve of columbus day,

the holiday commemorating
columbus's discovery of america.

The launch party was
a lavish affair.

Its centerpiece was an ice
sculpture of a viking longboat

created by yale's chefs.

As ambassadors mingled
with academics,

alexander vietor
playfully donned a helmet

sent as a gift
by the king of norway.

The vinland map was toasted
as a crowning achievement

for yale
and its billionaire benefactor.

But from the press and
certain sectors of the public,

news of the map was greeted
with hostility.

The public was firmly convinced
that columbus had discovered america

because that's what
they'd learned in school,

and suddenly they were told that it
was not columbus who discovered america

but the vikings.

And particularly, the italian
americans were very upset

that columbus had been removed
from center stage.



this great insult to columbus,

especially released on a day
that we are honoring him.

Do you have any children?

I have one boy, yes.

- Are you going to send him to yale?
- He'll never go to yale.

That would be the last university,
as far as I'm concerned.

Beyond bruised pride
and public outrage,

there were serious concerns
about the secrecy surrounding

the map prior to its unveiling.

Authenticating the map
is a very big task.

It requires one to have
a lot of knowledge about orthography,

paleography,
materials science, history

and, in particular,
old norse history,

and it was really ridiculous
to think that any three people

could pass a professional
judgment on all these aspects.

A year after the map's
formal unveiling,

yale, with the smithsonian
institution, held a conference,

inviting a wider range of
specialists to examine the map.

These scholars pointed out
strange anomalies

and raised serious questions.

Why was the vikings' own
scandinavian homeland drawn so crudely?

Why was greenland accurately
portrayed as an island

even though it was not circumnavigated
until the late 19th century?

And perhaps the most damaging
piece of evidence

to challenge
the map's authenticity:

The fact that vikings had
never been known to make maps.

Their navigation skills
relied instead

on their knowledge
of the environment.

They'd have been far more aware
of what was going on round them.

If it suddenly clouded over
and you couldn't navigate,

what direction
was the wave coming in?

Well, just keep the wave
the same aspect as the boat

and we know
we're going to stay on course.

Whereas we link up to a
satellite to know where we are,

they would use all these
natural things round them to say,

"look, I'm about here."

They had their sailing knowledge
in their heads,

and they conceived
of their world

not in terms of drawing diagrams
that other people could see.

There's literally
not a single map

that shows any kind
of cartographical drawings

from the norse
in the middle ages.

As the chorus of doubt around
the map's legitimacy grew,

yale decided
that scientific tests

might help prove
the vinland map real.

At new year 1967,

the map, the speculum and the tartar
relation were flown to london,

back to the british museum.

There, all three manuscripts
were examined under ultraviolet light.

The test revealed that inks
from the tartar relation

and speculum historiale
absorbed the ultraviolet light

and therefore appeared
deep black.

But the lines on the vinland map
did not appear black;

instead, they fluoresced.

Scientists at the british museum
reported that the ink on

the vinland map was not the same
as the ink used in the other two

authenticated manuscripts
or, for that matter,

any other documents of the period.

So, what was it?

Yale had the map flown
back to the U.S.

And contacted the chicago firm
of mccrone associates.

Dr. Walter mccrone was famous
for pioneering

the use of the microscope
for forensic analysis.

He achieved international fame
for investigating the mysteries

surrounding the deaths
of napoleon and beethoven,

and for uncovering evidence
that the shroud of turin,

with its image of Jesus,
was a fake.

Now mccrone
and his colleague anna teetsov

turned their investigative
skills on the vinland map.

Under low magnification,

they found that the outlines
on the map seemed to consist

not of a single line but two,
one on top of the other.

There was a yellow line,

and wandering back and forth

was a black line or little
pieces of black pigment.

The yellow line was very distinct
while the black line

was flaking off.

Mccrone asked teetsov to lift tiny
samples of the yellow line for analysis.

With the polarized-light microscope,

teetsov can control
the angle of the light

passing through the substance
and identify it

by the special way it refracts
and absorbs that light.

On the vinland map,

when the light was shone
onto the map's surface,

the yellow ink particles
appeared white.

But when the light was shone
through the map,

the yellow ink appeared dark.

These unique
refractive qualities

were a vital clue
to the ink's ingredients.

It was kind
of a unique material.

It would have to be something
like anatase.

Anatase is a form of titanium dioxide
that occurs naturally as a mineral ore.

When refined,
its reflective properties

make it ideal as an ingredient
for paints and pigments.

Anna teeov scraped off a particle
from the yellow line of the map

and examined it under
much greater magnification.

She used a transmission
electron microscope,

which gives a very precise image
of particle size and shape.

Jagged, irregular particles
of widely varying size...

Like these...
Signify natural anatase

ground by hand from mineral ore.

But the samples mccrone took from
the vinland map were a different shape.

The yellow particles were
nearly all the same size

and had rounded edges.

This indicated
that the anatase was synthetic,

and synthetic anatase was not
widely produced until 1917.

We knew from then on that we weren't
dealing with an ancient map...

It was a modern ink.

Mccrone and teetsov sent
their report to yale:

If the ink was modern,

then the vinland map
was likely a forgery.

The careers of eminent scholars
were threatened;

the relationship between yale and its
generous benefactor was strained;

the reputation of one of the world's

most illustrious institutions
was tarnished;

and the most valuable map
in the world

was in danger of becoming
a valueless fake.

Yale sought a second opinion.

Since the late 1970s,

a team at the university
of california at davis,

headed by physicist
thomas cahill,

had been using nuclear technology
to identify airborne pollutants.

He had successfully used
the same technology

to analyze a gutenberg bible.

Now, on the recommendaon
of the smithsonian andhe fbi,

yale hired cahill to see
if his technique

could shed light
on the vinland map.

Shielded inside a ten-foot
concrete shell is the cyclotron.

It uses an immensely
powerful magnet

to accelerate protons
to enormous speeds.

The protons are then focused
in a beam down a steel tube.

When the beam strikes an object,
it generates a unique signature

that measures the amount
of each element that is present.

The sensitivity is very great.

In principle, we can see down

to thousandths of a millionth
of a gram of material.

Over two days in 1985,

cahill's team took over 100 readings
from the whole of the vinlandap.

Ink, vinlandia.

Start.

First, they analyzed sections containing
both ink lines and parchment.

Beam on.

Then they measured
blank parchment.

Beam off.

In the case of the vinland map,

we have parchment and
very small amounts of ink on it.

One has to know what the parchment
looks like compositionally

to be able to subtract
the ink from it.

So we went ahead and measured
the parchment

right next to the ink line.

Take the two measurements;
subtract out the parchment;

what's left over is the ink.

Cahill could then produce a list
of elements in the map's ink.

Walter mccrone had reported large
concentrations of titanium, or anatase.

But cahill was astonished
to find hardly any.

Well, the big surprise was,

when we first did
the analysis of the ink,

that we saw almost no titanium.

We had been expecting
tons of titanium;

it wasn't there.

The results, in fact, contradicted
the mccrone results directly.

Cahill argued that if anatase,

a form of titanium dioxide,
were present in the ink,

he should have seen much more
titanium in his results.

He suggested that the particles
that mccrone had analyzed

may have been contaminated,

perhaps by flakes of modern paint
that had fallen from the ceiling.

A small amount of material
like that on the map

could have been
picked up as a crystal

and analyzed and looked
like modern paint...

It might have been modern paint.

But anna teetsov
of mccrone associates is adamant

that her samples came directly
from the yellow lines on the map.

A lot of the particles
were still attached

to tiny little
fragments of parchment.

They were directly glued
onto the parchment.

So, you had two techniques,
both highly credible,

which seemed to be
in direct contradiction.

The question remained:

What was the yellowish pigment in the ink

that mccrone and anna teetsov
had identified?

Is it what mccrone suspected,

anatase in its modern
synthetic form,

which could only mean
the vinland map is a forgery?

Or are there other secrets
hidden within the ink?

The ink is the correct brown
for a centuries-old map,

and exactly how the writer
achieved that

seems to be a little bit
of a puzzle.

Brody neuenschwander is an
art historian and calligrapher

who can write in the style
of ancient scribes.

He's putting his skills to work

to discover how a plausible medieval
manuscript could be faked.

I originally started with an
interest in medieval manuscripts

and was very interested in learning
to imitate medieval styles of writing.

It's also the case
that you can't really write

a proper medieval letter if you don't
understand the inks that they used.

In the middle ages, the most commonly
used ink was called iron-gall.

Iron-gall ink was cheap
and easy to make.

Galls are growths caused by the
larvae of insects in oak trees.

These were crushed to a fine
powder and boiled in water

to make a solution
that looked like tea.

Gum arabic, a kind of glue,

was mixed with ferrous sulfate,
a mineral containing iron.

The thing that makes ink ink
is the reaction between the iron

in the ferrous sulfate
and the tannin from the oak tree.

These produce a rusting reaction
on the page.

The tannin and the iron together
are oxidizing on the page

and actually burning
the letter into the surface.

In fact, the english word "ink"
comes from the greek enkaiein,

which means "to burn in."

This burning process, over time,

causes the iron-gall ink
to change color.

The strokes of the pen
will leave a grayish mark,

and within an hour or two,
that will blacken,

and within the next year or two,
it will blacken completely,

but within the next century or
two, it will start to go brown.

Many medieval manuscripts have been
stained brown by iron-gall corrosion,

including the tartar relation
and the speculum historiale,

the manuscripts that had been
bound with the vinland map.

But the ink on the vinland map
was not iron-gall.

Mccrone's theory was that
a forger tried to simulate

the browning effect
of iron-gall corrosion

by overlaying a black ink
on a yellow pigment.

Mccrone says the yellow pigment
contains anatase,

a modern synthetic, which can only mean
the map is a forgery.

Cahill counters that
he finds almost no titanium,

an essential
component of anatase.

He concludes that anatase
is not part of the ink,

and the map may be real.

The debate on whether the
vinland map is genuine or not

seemed to be at a standstill,

and the answer hinged
on the composition of the ink.

If the vinland map ink
contains modern anatase,

the map's a fake.

Can a new scientific technique
resolve the debate about the ink

once and for all?

In the summer of 2002,

professor robin clark
and chemist katherine brown

were invited to yale
to test the vinland map,

using a technique called
raman microprobe spectroscopy.

Today, katherine brown
demonstrates the technique

at maggs brothers in london,

one of the world's largest and oldest
antiquarian book dealers.

Raman microscopy is
a scientific technique

that uses lasers
to identify materials.

What happens is that
a single-colored laser light

is focused on the material,
on the surface.

The materials themselves
change that light

and it comes out multicolored,
which forms a spectrum.

The spectrum that's produced is unique
to the material that's producing it,

so it acts as a fingerprint by which
you can identify those materials.

This 15th-centy manuscript has
been illinated, or colored,

with a variety of pigments.

The raman microprobe
identifies them all.

Red is vermilion.

Blue is lazurite.

White is white lead.

The ink itself is iron-gall.

Each molecule is different,

and the spectrum that comes out
is unique to each type of molecule.

It's absolutely accurate.

We either know what
the material is or we don't.

Besides its extreme accuracy,

this technique has
an added benefit.

Raman microprobe spectroscopy
is particularly good

for examining documents
because it's noninvasive,

it's nondestructive.

So it causes no damage to the
manuscript or document

that you're examining, which is
very important if it's valuable.

It was the perfect technique
to settle the debate

on the authenticity of the most
valuable map in the world.

Brown and clark shot their laser
light at the vinland map.

In the vinland map, we confirmed
that there was anatase

on the yellowish brown lines
under the black.

We could certainly detect
that on the ink

but not on the body of the map.

The presence of anatase in the
ink and not on the parchment

and the fact already established
by mccrone

that the anatase was synthetic
could only mean one thing.

It wasn't something which could
have fallen off the ceiling;

it was deliberately placed
as part of the ink.

That confirmed absolutely
what mccrone had found.

The only conclusion
that we could draw

from the evidence that we saw
is that the vinland map

was produced
sometime after about 1920.

So, what does all this evidence
add up to?

The lack of any other maps
made by the vikings,

mccrone's findings
that the ink on the vinland map

contains synthetic anatase
manufactured after 1917,

and now brown and clark's
confirmation.

To date, every conceivable test
that could be done has been done,

and the conclusion today is
that the map is a fake.

It's a modern forgery.

But if the vinland map is
fake, who is the forger?

Can science help solve another mystery
at the heart of the vinland map story?

One man seems central...

Italian book dealer enzo ferrajoli.

It is through ferrajoli
that the vinland map

and the tartar relation
come together.

And later it was revealed
that ferrajoli was involved

in brokering
the speculum historiale.

Ferrajoli made spain
his adopted country,

and it is there where important clues
to the forgery can be found.

The cathedral of la seo
in the city of saragossa

contains one of spain's
greatest libraries.

In 1957,a scholar noticed
that manuscripts

he had previously consulted
had disappeared.

An investigation revealed
that over a hundred

priceless texts were missing.

The police swiftly arrested
their prime suspect,

enzo ferrajoli.

At a special tribunal,

the prosecution claimed that ferrajoli
had charmed the librarians,

who allowed him to roam at will
through their collection.

Parece que ferrajoli...

Apparently, ferrajoli took away
the books very slowly.

Some he would borrow
and wouldn't return.

But other books he would smuggle
away hidden in newspapers,

in a bag or a briefcase.

And then, of course,

the perfect system
was to destroy their record cards

so nobody could ask
for these books.

The answer from the archivists
was "these books are not here,

because they don't appear
in the index."

Ferrajoli was convicted
of the theft

and sentenced
to eight years and a day.

He was released early
due to ill health.

No one knows
if the tartar relation

and speculum historiale were among
the documents sten from saragossa.

But a new witness
has come forward with even more

incriminating evidence
about enzo ferrajoli's past.

Diego Gomez flores is
a retired rare book dealer.

He was born in france but
emigrated to spain after world w*r ii.

Gomez first met enzo ferrajoli
in barcelona

and remembers a day
in the mid-'50s

when ferrajoli gave him a lift
in his distinctive fiat topolino.

Ferrajoli bragged
that he had obtained

the manuscript of the tartar relation
and bound it together with a map.

Lui disait, "elle a pli?.."

He said they had folded it
and placed it in the binding.

In order to pass it off
as authentic,

the map had to be bound in.

So it was the form in which
they were able to sell the book,

as if the map was part
of the book.

Gomez's account suggests
that the vinland map was

originally a separate parchment

and that ferrajoli bound it together
with the tartar relation

to increase its value.

But Gomez's recollection leaves
one key question unanswered:

Where did ferrajoli get the map?

Historian kirsten seaver has ten spent
years scouring european archives,

searching for the origins
of the forgery.

Once I was convinced
that the map was fake,

I started looking at all
the likely suspects in europe.

It had to be somebody with
the right kind of knowledge,

and I narrowed it down
to one man.

Seaver's research led her to believe
that father Joseph fischer,

an austrian jesuit priest,

had the means, opportunity
and motive

to create such a masterpiece
of deception.

From 1895 to 1939,

fischer lived and taught at
austria's prestigious stella matutina,

a college that attracted
students from throughout europe,

including sherlock holmes author
sir arthur conan doyle

and irish novelist james joyce.

Fischer was an authority on world maps
of the 15th and 16th centuries.

In 1902,he published a book
professing a radical new theory,

one that challenge


Father fischer was one
of the first to propose

that the vikings were
the true discoverers of america.

Father fischer certainly had
a fondness

for discovering maps that showed
the first of something.

He discovered the first map
with the name "america."

He also believedthat there was, of course,

a norse discovery of america and
that the norse had left a record

of where they had been
when they sailed to vinland.

Although father fischer
never found such a map,

seaver has uncovered
evidence that suggests

he had the basic materials
and equipment to create his own.

His scholarly standing gave him
access to blank parchment

from medieval manuscripts.

Fischer's father was a painter

who could have taught him how to mix
pigments to make ink look older.

Seaver has even
discovered similarities

between fischer's handwriting
and the text on the vinland map.

There are two kinds of
handwriting on the vinland map.

Both of them have enough
pointers to father fischer

to make it worth investigating
on that alone.

But what would have been
father fischer's motivation?

Seaver contends that
fischer believed so firmly

that the vikings discovered
america that in the mid-1930s,

he set out to create the map
that he thought should exist.

He would not have looked upon it
as falsifying the cartographic record.

I also doubt very much that
he made the map

deliberately for others to see.

I think it was essentially
a private exercise.

But father fischer's
private scholarship

was about to collide
with world history.

For in 1938,german forces
marched into austria,

seized stella matutina college,

evicted the iest
and confiscated everything of value,

including art, rare books
and, seaver believes,

father fischer's vinland map.

Hitler's campaign
of world conquest

was fueled by a belief
in an aryan master race,

embodied by germans who traced
their cultural roots the vikings.

In the hands of the nazis,

the vinland map would be
a historic claim to america

and a powerful political weapon.

If seaver is right, father fischer
used his knowledge of ancient maps

and viking history
to draw the vinland map

on an authentic piece
of medieval parchment.

Sches vinland map was then
coiscated by the germans..

And after their defeat, the map
found its way into the hands

of known fascist and
n*zi sympathizer enzo ferrajoli.

A first step in determining
if father fischer was the actual forger

is to see if the parchment on
which the vinland map is drawn

is medieval in origin.

One way to date rchment is
by carbon-alysis.

Since parchment is
smoothed animal skin,

this technique uses the regular
decay of carbon atoms

to arrive at a date within
a probable range of accuracy.

The only problem is
the process destroys the sample.

But yale agreed to let a group of scientists
under the direction of garman harbottle

cut the smallest sliver
from the map.

Here was this thing worth
many millions of dollars.

It was horribly nerv...

I was a nervous wreck during the time
the thing was going on.

I calculated later that the
value of the piece we sliced off

was $40,000 or $50,000,

and of course
one doesn't do that lightly;

one does it very carefully.

Harbottle sliced a thin sliver
from the map into six samples.

The first sample tested
dated to the 1950s.

Thinking the modern date
a mistake,

perhaps due to contamination or
a poor attempt at conservation,

harbottle's team cleaned off the surface
of the remaining samples with acetone.

Acetone,

which should have no effect
on parchment at all,

was extracting
about 30% of the weight.

In other words,

the weight of the parchment
was one-third foreign matter.

That's a lot... 30%.

With the foreign matter removed,

he then tested
the remaining parchment samples.

Instead of 1950,
these dated to around 1440.

Harbottle concluded that
the vinland map was drawn

on authentic medieval parchment.

But other scientists were
puzzled by the discrepancy.

When I first heard
about the results from this,

what I heard was crazy...

One measurement that said
that the map was modern

and that the other measurement
had said that the map was old.

What could account for
such radically different test results?

One possible answer is a crude
attempt at conservation

carried out in the 1950s.

Another answer lies
in a centuries-old process

for turning rough animal skin
into finished parchment

by adding a coating
that provides a smooth writing surface.

Somebody took an old
piece of parchment dating back to 1440,

stripped off the surface
and replaced it with a new surface.

This new surface could explain
why the first sample,

which was not cleaned
with acetone, dated to 1950.

The body of the parchment is ancient,
but the surface is modern.

The map we see today was put down on
the surface of the parchment,

and therefore
we can only conclude

that the map was put
on the parchment since 1950.

These findings suggest that a forger
took an ancient parchment,

resurfaced it in the 1950s

and upon it drew
the infamous vinland map.

If true, this would eliminate
father fischer,

who died in 1944,as a suspect.

Ferrajoli remains
at the center of the mystery,

but any information he had
about the identity of the forger

went to the grave with him
in 1966.

For nearly 50 years,

the vinland map has been
both celebrated and damned.

When it first appeared,

it challenged the gospel
that columbus discovered america

and proclaimed the vikings as the earliest
europeans to visit the new world.

It's ironic that,

even though the vinland map
is most likely a fake,

we now know,
through archaeological evidence,

that the vikings were the first.

So, why does the debate over
the vinland map refuse to die?

The vinland map is still discussed as
though it was a life-and-death matter.

I think this is just
a very natural human trait

to argue over these things.

I don't think
the argument will ever stop.

I think it's all part
of the scientific ethos

that we're interested
in knowing answers to questions

and finding out what's true
and then dismissing speculation

that is clearly not true.

Scientific data has shown
that it's a fake.

The scientists are just
reluctant to accept it.

Even now, new studies
are under way,

but it is unlikely
they will settle the debate.

Science doesn't really deal
in truths,

but science does deal in facts.

How you choose to interpret
those facts is up to you.

Given the facts that we have
seen with the vinland map,

I conclude that it's a forgery.

Other people still disagree.