Modern researchers have shed some unexpected light on an old map of enormous interest to historians and laymen alike. The old map in question, known as the Vinland Map, is among the most famous maps in the world, being the Viking map that supposedly was drawn around 1440, more than 50 years before Columbus’ famous voyage of discovery. The Vinland Map shows representations of Greenland, Iceland, and North America’s northeastern seaboard, called “Vinland”.

What two British scientists, Robin Clark and Katherine Brown who do their research at the University College London, discovered about this controversial map came about using modern laser technology. After careful analysis using a Raman microprobe which incorporates a laser beam generated by helium-neon, the two scientists have concluded that the Vinland map is a fake, a 20th century forgery. The laser enabled the researchers to probe the valuable map without removing samples from it, thus preserving it intact. This laser operates between .5 and 4 mW, and has a spot size of five microns. It is focused by a 10X magnification lens and shines on the sample by means of a probe of fiber-optics.

What they found is that the yellowed areas of the map contain a certain form of titanium dioxide, called anatase, which rarely occurs in nature. Because this compound was not able to be synthesized until 1923, the Vinland map could not have been drawn in 1440. The forger sought to simulate the natural yellowing caused by aging and degradation, which is common among medieval maps and manuscripts, but he made the mistake of using a modern chemical compound, anatase, to do so.

For those who were intrigued with the possibility that the Vikings arrived in America before Columbus, this debunking of that theory will come as a disappointment. The evidence, however, is hard to argue with.