Explorers and discoverers are thoroughly out of fashion these days, I know. But the field retains its interest, and I still keep an eye out. And it seems the discovery that the so-called "Vinland Map" is a forgery has been getting made every decade or so since soon after it was itself discovered.
The Vinland Map, rappellons, is a map purported to be from the 1440s that presents Europe but also all of the North Atlantic, including a very detailed Greenland, and a largeish island southwest of there that broadly shows coastlines much as described in various Norse sources.
Well, this time, apparently it's permanent. It may be from the 1920s, but no later.
Now, an interdisciplinary research project undertaken by archivists, conservators and conservation scientists has proven that the map is fake once and for all. Far removed from the 1440s, the analysis of metals in the map’s ink revealed that the document was actually forged as early as the 1920s.
