How to Settle a Controversy
Vinland Map Provides Contrast to James Ossuary
Debates about the authenticity of artifacts are not limited to Biblical archaeology. However, disputants in other fields fight their battles differently. Rather than turning to a committee for an unequivocal decision, which then becomes the object of a rancorous debate, scholars try to settle their disputes through empirical testing, argument and counter-argument.
A case in point is the dispute over the “Vinland Map.” The artifact, which is now in the possession of Yale’s Beinecke Library, may be a 15th-century Viking map that shows Europe and Africa’s Atlantic coast with remarkable precision, as well as Greenland and Newfoundland, making it the earliest known cartographic representation of the New World. Or it may be a 1930s forgery by a German Jesuit priest, according to the leading alternative theory.
The map first surfaced in 1957, and philanthropist Paul Mellon soon purchased it for Yale, which kept it out of sight until Columbus Day, 1965. Skeptics immediately questioned the paleography and argued that Vikings simply did not make maps. Others argued that 15th-century Vikings could not possibly have known that Greenland is an island, as depicted by the map. The bulk of the debate, however, has been grounded in hard science. Researchers using the latest methods have examined the map on numerous occasions, each time bringing more empirical evidence to the debate and arguing over what conclusions can or cannot be drawn from it.
The parchment itself is clearly authentic; radiocarbon testing dates it to 1434 A.D. The problem is the ink. In 1973 chemist Walter C. McCrone found that the ink contained a synthetic titanium compound known as anatase, which was patented in 1917. The now-retired Smithsonian chemist Jacqueline Olin disagreed. She proved that medieval scribes could well have produced anatase, adding that scholars simply don’t know enough about medieval ink to make any final judgments. In 1987 a team of scientists from the University of California at Davis brought another challenge to McCrone’s findings when it concluded that the titanium present in the ink was too minute to indicate much of anything. McCrone, however, stood his ground, and after his death in 2002, an English research team using different methods endorsed McCrone by concluding that the ink is modern. Finally, in recent months both Olin and another retired Smithsonian chemist, Kenneth Towe, have published dueling articles on the subject in the journal Analytical Chemistry, each charging that the titanium does or does not prove that the artifact is a fake.
Though the Vinland Map may never be proven authentic or a fake, the course of the debate puts the controversy swirling around the James ossuary in a negative light. Both sides of the map debate rely on science, availing themselves of the most recent analytical techniques to determine the map’s authenticity. The prevailing view is a sober recognition that the available data is inconclusive. The Vinland Map might be real. It might not be. In the case of the ossuary, on the other hand, open scholarly debate has been hampered by the Israel Antiquities Authority’s decision to appoint a committee to decide on authenticity, with the effect that scholars and scientists who question the IAA’s methods and decisions are faced with the hurdle of questioning an official decision. This is the first time in Israel’s history that this technique has been used to suppress debate.