Editing Vinland Map (section)

=== Danish investigation, 2005–2009 ===
In 2005, a team from the [[Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts]], led by René Larsen, studied the map and its accompanying manuscripts to make recommendations on the best ways to preserve it.<ref name="larsen1">René Larsen & Dorte V. Poulsen, [http://www.maphist.nl/papers/vinland051220.pdf Report on the Assessment and Survey ... of the Vinland Map ...] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110617031350/http://www.maphist.nl/papers/vinland051220.pdf |date=2011-06-17 }} web version, Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (2005)</ref> Among other findings, this study confirmed that the two halves of the map were entirely separate, though they might have been joined in the past. A few months earlier, Kirsten Seaver had suggested that a forger could have found two separate blank leaves in the original "Speculum Historiale" volume, from which the first few dozen pages appeared to be missing, and joined them together with the binding strip.<ref name="seaver"/> On the other hand, at the International Conference on the History of Cartography in July 2009, Larsen revealed that his team had continued their investigation after publishing their original report, and he told the press that "All the tests that we have done over the past five years—on the materials and other aspects—do not show any signs of forgery".<ref name=larsen>{{cite web |title= Vinland Map of America no forgery, expert says|url= https://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE56G58320090717|date= 17 July 2009|publisher= Reuters|access-date=18 July 2009}}</ref> The formal report of his presentation<ref name=larsen2>{{cite journal |author1=René Larsen  |author2=Dorte V. P. Sommer | title= Facts and Myths about the Vinland Map and its Context | journal= Zeitschrift für Kunsttechnologie und Konservierung | volume= 23 | pages= 196–205 | year= 2009 | issue=2}}</ref> showed that his work ignored rather than contradicted earlier studies. For example, he experimented only with artificial wormholes, and did not follow up the observation made at the 1966 Conference, that live bookworms were a known tool of the fake antiquities trade. Similarly, he claimed that the anatase in the ink could have come from sand used to dry it (the hypothetical source of the sand being [[gneiss]] from the [[Binnenthal]] area of Switzerland) but his team had not examined the crystals microscopically, and Kenneth Towe responded that this was an essential test, given that crystal size and shape should distinguish commercial anatase from anatase found in sand.<ref>Borrell, Brendan [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=vinland-map-could-be-authentic&posted=1 Pre-Columbian Map of North America Could Be Authentic--Or not], ''Scientific American'' (2008-07-22)</ref>

Members of the Danish team later joined with others to perform microanalyses of the remaining piece from the 1995 carbon dating sample. They found a significant quantity of monostearin ([[glycerol monostearate]]) which is commonly used in the food and pharmaceutical industries, with additional aromatic compounds. It was thought that if it was not purely localised contamination from handling by somebody using something like hand lotion, it was likely to be the unidentified post-1950 chemical soaked into the parchment. Their microscopic examination confirmed that the parchment had been treated very roughly at some time, with 95% of fibres damaged.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Sommer |first1=Dorte V. P.|last2=Axelsson |first2=K. M. |display-authors=etal |date=2017 |title=Multiple Microanalyses of a Sample from the Vinland Map |journal=Archaeometry |volume=59 |issue=2 |pages=287–301 |doi=10.1111/arcm.12249 }}</ref>