The Vinland Map is a world map on 27.8 x 40 cm parchment folded in two leaves. Housed in Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the map shows Europe (including Scandinavia), Northern Africa, Asia and the Far East. In the northwest Atlantic Ocean, however, it also shows the “Island of Vinland,” which has been taken to represent an unknown part of present-day Labrador, Newfoundland, or Baffin Island. Remarkably, the map describes this region as having been visited in the 11th century.
The Vinland Map purports to be a 15th century world map depicting Viking exploration of North America centuries before Columbus. If genuine, the Vinland map is one of the great documents of Western civilization; if fake, it is an astonishingly clever forgery.
The map in question... Is it authentic?
Explore evidence in chemistry, cartography, pigments/inks, archaeology on the following websites and make your own determination.
Analyzing the Vinland Map: is it a fake?
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/vinland/map-flash.html