2. The first real 'Vineland map' The Skálholt map. Theodor Thorlacius. 1669.

Today it is generally agreed that the 'Vineland map', which was published in 1957 and sold at 1 milllion dollars, is a modern forgery from about 1900. And thus the so-called Skálholt map, originally drawn by the Icelander Sigurd Stefansson in 1570, has once more been restored to well-deserved favour. It is known through the translation into Danish - of the Icelander Biörn Jonsen of Skarsaa's Greenland Account - which his fellow countryman, the learned Theodor Thorlacius carried out in 1669, Thorlacious adding drawings of maps which he knew from various sources.

The Skálholt map is the first known attempt to combine that period's cartographic knowledge about North America with the narratives handed down through the Vineland sagas. Thorlacius' handwritten translation, bound in a parchment sheet from a Latin book of rituals, has probably belonged to Arne Magnussen, but has been passed on by him to the historian Hans Gram, his good friend and colleague in the latter's capacity of university professor. Gram was also director of The Royal Library, and after his death in 1748 his manuscript collection of about 300 numbers came to the library

Digital facsimile of the entire manuscript: www.kb.dk/elib/mss/