Re: The Vinland Map's Ink


"Eric Stevens" <eric.stevens@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:pbi051psl664kkrgf3j2lr20fssm8b11pe@xxxxxxxxxx
> On Sat, 2 Apr 2005 12:59:54 -0500, "Steve Marcus"
> <smarcus_spamout_@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>>
>>"Ken Towe" <ken.towe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>>news:1112385625.726713.14570@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>> Mr. Marcus wrote:
>>>
>>> "Back to square one, are we? The tape of the recent televised special
>>> on the VM clearly shows a person reininking over a previously drawn
>>> line. He, for it was a man, had absolutely no problem doing this, your
>>> experience as a draftsman notwithstanding."
>>>
>>> Yes, but we never saw the finished product did we? Given enough time
>>> and the extra care needed to re-ink a document the question of accuracy
>>> seems less of a problem. But, if the VM is genuine one needs to explain
>>> why any scribe would want to go to the significant trouble of
>>> re-tracing his steps over an entire document. Why should a scribe good
>>> enough to have been given the honor of drafting a world map have
>>> started with a weak non-iron-gall ink in the first place? And then
>>> having done so never noticed the difference until the ENTIRE project
>>> was completed...map and legends! Then, instead of pulling out a new
>>> piece of parchment and using a normal iron-gall ink to redo the thing,
>>> he chooses to spend the extra time and care to re-ink the whole map
>>> with another non-iron-gall material...a carbon-based ink. Parchment was
>>> not that expensive or difficult to obtain. That a medieval scribe did
>>> all that seems like a non-starter as an explanation. The explanation
>>> offered by McCrone seems much more plausible, especially if the forger
>>> had plenty of time to go over his first effort carefully. And, of
>>> course, a medieval scribe is not going to have access to
>>> commercial-grade anatase anyhow. Because there is no evidence (XRD,
>>> SAED, TEM) for any clay minerals associated with the anatase on the VM
>>> a natural clay source (where anatase is typically less than 3% of the
>>> whole) is out of the question. Paint chips falling off the ceiling or
>>> anatase bleeding off of a bleached coated paper must (a) stick only to
>>> the ink and not the parchment and (b) somehow wiggle under the black
>>> and come to rest on the yellow. Come on now!
>>>
>>
>>Dr. Towe, I agree 100%. My posts in this thread (and on the endless
>>threads
>>on this topic that have appeared off and on in sci.arch over a period of
>>years) are intended to convey the position that while nothing is ever 100%
>>certain, the current state of the evidence (the ink evidence as well as
>>the
>>cartograhical and linguistics evidence), as well as logic, compels a
>>conclusion that the VM is a fake. I am glad that your post (and the
>>others
>>you've written in the last several weeks) clearly lays out the current
>>state
>>of the evidence and the conclusion compelled thereby because I have been
>>posting to that effect for quite a while (and providing links to material
>>you've written on the topic), but your credentials in the field are, of
>>course, vastly superior to mine.
>>
>>You evidently didn't undestand my position from my last post, and I'll
>>assume the blame for that because you don't know the complete posting
>>history between Eric Stevens and me. In the face of the evidence that the
>>VM appears to have been drawn by placing a black pigment containing "ink"
>>over a yellowish "ink" of some sort in an attempt to simulate the
>>appearance
>>of a document drawn on parchment using iron gall ink several hundred years
>>ago, Stevens took the position (not just recently, but quite a while ago)
>>that it would be "impossible" for a forger to "trace over" the lower line
>>as
>>accurately as it would appear to have been done on the VM. I laughed at
>>that statement then, and I laugh at it now.
>
> Steve Marcus appears to regard derision as a scientific argument.

No. But before I can engage in "a scientific argument", I have to have
someone put forward "a scientic proposition." This, of course, you did not
do. Moreover, you cannot deny that your position was in fact accurately
stated, and that it is in fact laughable.

>
>>Ultimately it appeared that
>>Stevens had come off his position on the "impossibility" of reinking.
>
> I have never said it was impossible. I have quoted someone else who
> said it was impossible. I have *explained* why I think it would be
> very difficult to apply a second layer of ink indetectably.

As usual, you are either an out-and-out liar, or you have a memory that is
extremely selective. Here is precisely what you wrote (nota bene: it's a
direct quotation of your position) regarding the lines on the Vinland Map
and not a quotation of someone else who said it):

"Sidestep - sidestep. The question is not one of establishing identity but
of the difficulty of drawing a second set of lines of exactly the same shape
as the first. _It is **humanly** impossible_." (Emphasis supplied.) Here
is the post that you wrote it in:

http://tinyurl.com/4erq8

And yes, you quoted a source or two. However, as demonstrated by the quoted
material, you then adopted what the source wrote as your own position. As
an aside, it is interesting that you have criticized Brown/Clark and McCrone
as not being experts vis-a-vis medieval ink, and therefore being
ill-equipped to offer the double-inking explanation for the lines they
observed on the Vinland Map, but one of your sources for the position you
adopted was Thomas A Cahill, a professor of science and physics. The last
time that I checked, Prof. Cahill did not purport to be an expert on
medieval ink or draftsmanship.

>
>>Stevens has now gone back somewhat to his original "impossible" position
>>by
>>askng whether it would be possible to do the reinking "indetectably." My
>>post referred to that history; hence the "full circle" comment. I was
>>trying to make the point that it was not impossible that a *forger* could
>>have done the VM by "tracing over" or "reinking" an underlaying yellowish
>>binder layer with a black pigment containing upper layer. I've posted
>>quite
>>often that if "reinking" was the method used by the *forger*, it was in
>>fact
>>done in a way that apparently *was* very difficult to detect circa 1956,
>>and
>>which was more easily detected in the 70's when McCrone applied the right
>>technology.
>
> I've never seen any work by McCrone which leads directly to the
> conclusion that the map was reinked. Marcus has several times made
> this claim but never given a link or reference to the relevant work by
> McCrone, even when asked.

As usual, you don't read what others post, and you certainly don't bother to
do any research in primary sources. I have repeated linked this reference:

http://tinyurl.com/66gwj

and here is the relevant quotation from it:

"As a possible explanation for the microscopic characteristics of the
Vinland Map ink lines, McCrone Associates3-5 offered the suggestion that a
forger very skillfully applied a double application of ink, carefully
putting down a black line over the top of an earlier applied brownish-yellow
line."

I've left the superscript footnotes intact to illustrate that by 1990 (the
date of the linked article by Dr. Towe), McCrone published no less than
three papers which lead him to the above hypothesis (yes, a hypothesis, not
a 100% irrebutable position, and clearly the hypothesis stems directly from
his observations). Are you seriously alleging that McCrone didn't have data
that led him to offer up the above hypothesis, or that the hypothesis
doesn't follow directly from such data?? Since you apparently never read
McCrone's papers, I guess that you can say with a straight face that you've
"never seen any work by McCrone which leads directly to the conclusion that
the Vinland Map was reinked", but McCrone's position, as it appears in Dr.
Towe's paper, was clearly linked by me at least a dozen times over the
years.

>>
>>I have posted several times in this thread to the effect that it is
>>nonsensical (or at least illogical and in contradiction to Occam) to
>>assume
>>that a scribe who wanted to draw the VM circa 1440 would have either
>>intentionally omitted the iron component from an iron gall ink, or would
>>have continued to draw the entire VM using a "spoiled" or "defective" ink
>>once he or she had discovered that the ink being used was "defective."
>>I'm
>>glad that you agree.
>
> Careful analysis of what Ken Towe has written will not show that he he
> exactly agrees with your statement above.

He agrees well enough, I think. On Sunday, April 03, 2005 10:30 AM, Dr.
Towe wrote a post (which probably isn't on Google as yet) in which he
stated:

"Going back to the Vinland Map, my point is that because most of us cannot
envision such a thing being possible we are naturally inclined to dismiss
it. This off-hand dismissal is likely to be most fervent among those who
find that it helps them bolster their views. But, as I have said earlier, if
the map is really medieval, those who believe this must come up with a
PLAUSIBLE explanation for the appearance AND composition of the inks. So
far, I know of no such explanation.
**Certainly, Mr. Marcus has been correct in pointing out that no scribe
would have drawn an entire map of the world, complete with legends, using
such an ink. I would add that this is true, even if there was no anatase
(commercial-grade; free of associated clay minerals) in the underlying ink!
The anatase just adds to the weight of evidence against authenticity.**"
(Emphasis supplied, and I must say that it is supplied proudly, given Dr.
Towe's credentials and experience in this field, both of which dwarf my
own.)

>
> In any case, are you aware that it takes several days for iron-gall
> ink to darken, even when the ink was properly mixed? The scribe may
> not have known that there was anything wrong with the ink until some
> time after he had finished the map.

Actually, you are wrong, but that's not surprising inasmuch as logical
inference is anathema to you, and you are notorious for reading selectively.
I know this is the link you used to discover your information:

http://www.knaw.nl/ecpa/ink/make_ink.html

and it does indeed state:

"Iron gall ink is essentially created by the chemical reaction between
tannic acid and iron(II) sulfate **in an aqueous solution**. The primary
active components in tannin are gallotannic and gallic acid. With iron(II)
sulfate, these tannic acids produce a black pigment, called
ferrogallotannate or ferrotannate, upon exposure to oxygen. **A small amount
of pigment forms by reacting with oxygen in the water, but much more pigment
is produced after the ink has been applied to paper and exposed to air for
several days.** " (Emphasis supplied.

The link also states:

"Hundreds of recipes for iron gall ink have been published over the
centuries. The sheer variety and number of these recipes testify to the
widespread use of iron gall ink and its primary importance to our literary
and artistic traditions. Artists and scribes, domestics and entrepreneurs ­
each concocted their own formula to suit their particular needs."

So what you are ignoring is three important facts, the first two readily
deduced by applying basic logic, and the third being a matter of record:

1) No scribe is going to undertake to produce the Vinland Map using ink
that is defective or is an experimental concoction.

2) In the event that the scribe had not "mixed his/her own" as per the
above quotation or obtained some from a favored source and actually used the
ink to complete the VM because the ink appeared perfectly normal, i.e. it
was appropriately dark when applied (see fact 3 below), there is no way that
the scribe was going to sit and reink the thing when the ink later proved to
be defective. It would have been no less work and far simpler to have just
done the thing over with nondefective ink. (As to these first two facts,
see Dr. Towe's post quoted above.)

3) Properly formulated iron gall ink will darken to an extent even before
applied to the substrate. See the quotation above from the linked source.

>
> As to how a mediaeval scribe came to be in this position, 'ink maker'
> was an acknowledged trade in the days of iron gall ink and I would
> expect that the scribe bought his ink rather than wandered the forests
> to gather the materials to make his own. All it takes to get a batch
> of defective ink is for there to be a slip on the part of the
> inkmaker's apprentice.

Sure. And the scribe would, naturally, undertake to do something such as
the Vinland Map without testing the ink first. After all, that's what you
would do if you were given some paint purported to be exactly the shade of
green that you desired; you would begin to paint the house without testing
to see whether the paint was actually that shade of green. And seeing that
it was the wrong shade, you would paint the whole house anyway, and then
purchase the correct shade of paint and paint the house all over again.

I would be remiss in failing to note that on Saturday, April 02, 2005 7:09
PM, Stevens wrote:

"This articl has now got far too long and I don't intend to contribute any
more to its length."

Yet the post to which I am now reply was apparently written by Eric Stevens
on Sunday, April 03, 2005 3:54 PM.

I'm certain that Eric's newsreader must somehow be at fault.


> Eric Stevens

Steve
--
The above posting is neither a legal opinion nor legal advice,
because we do not have an attorney-client relationship, and
should not be construed as either. This posting does not
represent the opinion of my employer, but is merely my personal
view. To reply, delete _spamout_ and replace with the numeral 3


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: The Vinland Maps Ink
    ... the current state of the evidence (the ink evidence as well as ... >>>of a document drawn on parchment using iron gall ink several hundred years ... >direct quotation of your position) regarding the lines on the Vinland Map ... it is interesting that you have criticized Brown/Clark and McCrone ...
    (sci.archaeology)
  • Re: The Vinland Maps Ink
    ... >>map as extensive as the Vinland Map, even a single line drawn directly on ... >>the parchment would ultimately run the quill out of ink to the point where ... started and stopped the yellow strokes. ... >>> The case you raised was what might happen had the scribe used faulty ...
    (sci.archaeology)
  • Re: The Vinland Maps Ink
    ... Why should a scribe good ... > piece of parchment and using a normal iron-gall ink to redo the thing, ... Because there is no evidence (XRD, ... history between Eric Stevens and me. ...
    (sci.archaeology)
  • Re: The Vinland Maps Ink
    ... Why should a scribe good ... >> piece of parchment and using a normal iron-gall ink to redo the thing, ... Because there is no evidence (XRD, ... >Stevens had come off his position on the "impossibility" of reinking. ...
    (sci.archaeology)
  • Re: The Vinland Maps Ink
    ... >>reason for not using an old type of ink for the top lines. ... > essentially tannic acid and iron sulphate. ... it was the iron that would have made a black pigment. ... So would the scribe have even started writing with such ink? ...
    (sci.archaeology)
Loading