Vinland map under test
"THE TIMES" 20/1/67
BY A STAFF REPORTER
Results of tests conducted in London on the controversial Vinland map, which goes on exhibition to the public at the British Museum today, are to be sent to America where the findings will be published.

The map, which has caused widespread discussion among scholars in many countries, is said to record "the only documented pre-Columbian discovery of America". The part of the man depicting Greenland and Vinland, the land to the west of it, is said to be the only known example of medieval Norse cartography.

The Vinland map, which was published in 1965, eight years after its discovery in the United States, arrived in Britain two and a half weeks ago. Minute samples of the vellum have been microscopically examined by infra-red light and photographed in the British Museum laboratory.

Mr. R. A. Skelton, superintendent of the map room at the museum and one of the scholars involved in the map's publication, said the laboratory would send reports to Yale University, the owners, so that an independent judgment of its age could be formed. Yale had undertaken to publish the results of the tests "whether favourable or unfavourable".