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- The Vinland Map: fake, forgery or jeu d'esprit?
The Vinland Map: fake, forgery or jeu d'esprit?
- By Wallis, Helen
- Published 1 November 1990
- Maps
- Unrated
Wallis, Helen
Helen Margaret Wallis (August 17, 1924—February 7, 1995) was the Map Curator of the British Library from 1967 to 1987.
She was a founder of The Geography and Map Section of the International Federation of Library Associations and was amongst others president of the International Map Collectors' Society.
The
controversy over the Vinland map – genuine artefact or forgery – has
caused the most heated arguments ever generated by a map. Colleague has
been set against colleague, friend against friend, and still the dispute
rumbles on. Whether the evidence to prove its authenticity or disprove
it will ever emerge it is hard to say. In the meantime Helen Wallis,
retired Map Librarian of the British Library, London, who first saw the
map thirty years ago, tells the story as she sees it. The map was on
display recently at the British Museum in the exhibition 'Fake? The Art
of Deception'.
WHEN THE VINLAND MAP was revealed to the world on October 11, 1965, it hit the headlines. Through a coincidence of timing (October 12 is Columbus Day in the USA), it caused a riot among the Italians of New York. The map was the subject of numerous articles, reviews, and cartoons. Its promoters claimed that it had a unique place in the history of cartography. In the north-west Atlantic it displays coastlines which are identified as representations of the Norse discovery of Vinland, now generally accepted as part of north-eastern America. The map thus records in graphic form the pre-Columbian discovery of America.[1]
The Vinland map photographed recently for the exhibition at the British Museum 'Fake? The art of deception'. (By courtesy of the British Museum)
The Vinland map and the 'Tartar Relation' on display at an earlier exhibition in 1967 in the King's Library of the British Museum. (Also shown was the manuscript 'Speculum Historiale' of Vincent de Beauvais.) (By courtesy of Helen Wallis)
WHEN THE VINLAND MAP was revealed to the world on October 11, 1965, it hit the headlines. Through a coincidence of timing (October 12 is Columbus Day in the USA), it caused a riot among the Italians of New York. The map was the subject of numerous articles, reviews, and cartoons. Its promoters claimed that it had a unique place in the history of cartography. In the north-west Atlantic it displays coastlines which are identified as representations of the Norse discovery of Vinland, now generally accepted as part of north-eastern America. The map thus records in graphic form the pre-Columbian discovery of America.[1]
The Vinland map photographed recently for the exhibition at the British Museum 'Fake? The art of deception'. (By courtesy of the British Museum)
The Vinland map and the 'Tartar Relation' on display at an earlier exhibition in 1967 in the King's Library of the British Museum. (Also shown was the manuscript 'Speculum Historiale' of Vincent de Beauvais.) (By courtesy of Helen Wallis)
