Hines-Renfors-Johansson-McCulloch team of scientific experts explain Vinland Map ink

Repeated requests have been made to those who cling to Vinland Map
authenticity to come up with a scenario for how it was done. Amazingly,
to date, on this topic they have continually absquatulated. Not even
one scenario has been put forward. Even if authenticity might be the
default position this major void needs to be filled. Well, now it can
be done! With all of the learned discussion on the subject the world
now has more than enough "nuggets" of wisdom from the D. Spencer
Hines-Seppo Renfors-I.E. Johansson-Huston McCulloch team of scientific
experts to move forward.

Let's begin with a few of their "irrefutable" truths...

With no disclaimers from the other members of the team, except for
McCulloch (see below), D. Seppo Renfors has affirmed at least three
undeniable truths...

Veritas 1. The Olin experiment was a success. It simulated the anatase
in the ink seen on the Vinland Map.

The Renfors Facts?
Mar. 12. "The picture of Olin's efforts are heaped thicker than the
sample from NL. Around the edges you will see a likeness in both - they
are indistinguishable from each other."
Oct. 25. "Certainly Olin's experiment did NOT fail - and it is a lie to
say it did! "

Veritas 2. The Cahill PIXE analyses found anatase, not only in the ink
but also on the parchment.

The Renfors Facts?
Oct. 24. " Is Ken Towe's statement "No anatase has been found on the
parchment" true? No it is NOT, Ken Towe knows HE LIED when he made that
statement..."

Veritas 3. Anatase from clays and other natural sediments can explain
the Vinland Map ink without any need to isolate the anatase from the
rest of the clay sediments.

The Renfors Facts?
Oct. 25. "He then regurgitates the CRAP that there is a "need" to
"isolating a material" when nothing is further from the truth!" Note
the Renfors emphasis: "Nothing is further from the truth!"

Now, armed with these indisputable truths from D. Seppo Renfors we may
move on and add a few more closer-to-the-truths from D. Spencer Hines
[Lux et Veritas] and Miss [I. E.xpert] Johansson. It is important to
note that these three world-class scientific authorities never disagree
with one another. They only disagree with those who they consider to be
incompetents, liars, charlatans, weasels, poachers, cowards, scumbags
and carpetbaggers. We may justifiably use all the "evidence",
"facts" and "interpretations" carefully assembled by this
superior scientific team (also members of the fair-minded jury, of
course) to come up with a scenario for how the Vinland Map was drawn in
the fifteenth century.


THE 2005 RENFORS-HINES-JOHANSSON-McCULLOCH VINLAND MAP SCENARIO...

Once upon a time in the fifteenth century...

A medieval scribe living near Basel was hired to draw a map of the
whole world. He began by making up a batch of iron-gall ink using the
Renfors-affirmed successful Olin simulated ink experiment. It would, of
course, be a lie to say otherwise!

Now, this experienced medieval scribe made up his Olin-type ink in an
ink-pot that also [inadvertently?] contained an anatase-rich soil from
his turnip-patch on a floodplain near Basel. Furthermore, our scribe
had not washed his dirty hands so anatase was also present under his
fingernails to add yet another source of this mineral.

Facts? Evidence? McCulloch wrote (9/16/05): "It should not be hard to
document the existence of kaolin clay, windstorms, and water erosion in
the 15th century. Getting the anatase aggregates from the environment
to the map requires only, as I have suggested, that the scribe dug
himself a turnip for his lunch basket in the morning, and later
prepared a pot of ink, stirring it with his still-gritty finger."

Now, having made up this anatase-laden ink our scribe draws the entire
Vinland Map. We are not sure that he washed his hands first so maybe
there is anatase all over the place.

The scribe, though, adds still more anatase. We have to be certain that
his efforts will turn out to be like hundreds of other medieval
documents (Cahill and Kusko, VMTR-95, p. xxxvi). He does this by
stopping from time to time to do some "pouncing"...sprinkle pounce over
the ink to blot the wet ink...and the parchment. Pounce? With what?
Not to worry! Our team of experts offers several choices: Alpine sands,
a calcium carbonate-clay, or kaolin-anatase.

Facts? Ms. I. E.xpert Johansson announced (Oct 18, '05):

"Sand used for drying ink in Medieval Age and before ranged from
nanosizes up to visuable [sic] particles together in daily speach
[sic] called microscopic sizes in early 20th century 'Crystals of the
second type have numerous pyramidal faces developed, and they are
usually flatter or sometimes prismatic in habit; the colour is
honey-yellow to brown. Such crystals closely resemble xenotine in
appearance and, indeed,were for a long time supposed to belong to this
species, the special name wiserine being applied to them. They occur
attached to the walls of crevices in the gneisses of the Alps, the
Binnenthal near Brieg in canton Valais, Switzerland, being a well-known
locality.' now this is one area where sand for inkdrying [sic] in mid
European monestries [sic] did come from. Thus the correct information
for anatase in itself gives a very solid explination [sic] why
nanosized anatase without any intented [sic] reason what so ever [sic]
exists on medieval, not only Vinland Map." Q.E.D.!

Unfortunately, however, our scribe's ink separates before drying. This
separation leaves the anatase primarily in a yellow-brown line overlain
by a carbon black substance that will later begin to flake off.

NOTE: Our scribe must have thrown in some carbon soot? This step is
actually the modified Olin hypothesis. It has yet to be verified, but
so what? Maybe the ink separated because the scribe added too much of
Mrs. Olin's rainwater when making up his ink? Remember, D. Seppo
Renfors wrote on Oct. 4th: "Olin did NOT USE sulphuric acid to create
her ink" and on Oct 16: "the medieval process stated to have been used
by Olin does NOT use sulphuric acid to create the green vitriol - it
used R-A-I-N!" And, of course, all of this must be very close to the
truth because neither Hines nor Johansson disagreed. They are not shy
to disagree when the facts are clearly wrong!

Meanwhile, much later at library locations unknown, our now
anatase-laden map is badly conserved. The Vinland Map is titivated
(fancy word for spruced up), perhaps several times (D. Spencer Hines,
Oct 2, Lux et Veritas). Fortunately, while being titivated the titanium
is, amazingly, retained while most of the iron in Mrs. Olin's
successful iron-gall ink experiment is washed away, along with the
aluminosilicate clay minerals from our scribe's turnip fields, Alpine
sands or from other kaolin clays. Thus, the very low iron and absence
of Al and Si (above the limit of detection) in the Cahill PIXE analyses
is easily explained...It's all a piece of cake...easy to do - a
cinch, a breeze, picnic, snap, duck soup!

Later, at other locations (also unknown), the Vinland Map is again
badly treated. Unfolded and left out in the open it undergoes a
Cahill-McCulloch-Hines contamination. Facts? References? D. Spencer
Hines, Oct. 21, Lux et Veritas: "Paint flaking off a shabby,
deteriorating ceiling of a private library in post-World War II Spain
or particles afloat in the air of a church library are just two of
several possibilities. Wiping with a Kleenex tissue is another
possibility that has been mentioned."

NOTE: No reference to wiping with a Kleenex tissue as a possibility is
given...not very scholarly, especially for a Yalie. D+? "Sloppy
Thinking Invariably Leads To Sloppy Writing" D. Spencer Hines (Lux et
Veritas).


Now we must remember that none of these scientist-scholars (Hines,
Renfors, Johansson) has ever disagreed with one another over the above
evidence. It must, therefore, be completely factual and beyond reproach
otherwise one of them would surely have been immediately called a
pig-ignorant liar, carpetbagger, incompetent poacher and charlatan.

It is noteworthy, though, that Professor McCulloch does disagree with
the team about the success of the Olin experiment. He wrote this:

"Dear Jonathan [Dent],
Ken Towe has kindly sent me the URL for the advance web version
of his forthcoming (2/1/04) Analytical Chemistry comment, entitled "The
Vinland Map Ink is NOT Medieval," on Jacque Olin's recent article.
Here are a few observations on it:
1. Ken is quite right, as I pointed out in my comment on Jacque's
paper to Evan, that Jacque entirely missed his point about particle
size in his 1998 Figures 1-4. Merely precipitating anatase from
ilmenite during the initial green vitriol production step of medieval
ink manufacture produces anatase particles that are too small by a
factor of 10-100. A calcining step is required to get them up to the
size found on the VM, or in modern white pigment."

Hines and Johansson have not criticized this so they must prefer to
agree with D. Seppo Renfors.

Brief summary of the HFJ-M Scenario?
The Vinland Map, already drawn with, and loaded down with anatase from
(a) Mrs. Olin's successful experiment and (b) the anatase-rich soil in
the scribe's pot and from under his fingernails has (c) an added dose
of anatase from deteriorating ceilings, particles afloat in the air
and/or a wiping with Kleenex. And, because of further misguided
conservation, the iron, aluminum and silicon are titivated away.

Perfectly logical scenario?

Well, nice try HFJ-M team, but not exactly. Accepting all of the
indisputable truths and with all of those easily available sources of
anatase (especially contamination sources) a fair-minded jury of your
peers might wonder why Cahill et al., who made 159 PIXE analyses from
all parts of the Vinland Map, never even ONCE found more than 10 ng/cm2
(62 parts per million) of titanium in the ink and never more than 0.6
ng/cm2 (less than 4 ppm Ti) on the parchment. The fair-minded jury
might want to know how Cahill et al. missed the paint flakes from the
shabby, deteriorating ceilings? How did they miss the anatase
aggregates from the turnip patch? How did they miss the successful
Olin-inspired anatase in the ink, a formulation that D. Seppo Renfors
says is indistinguishable from the Vinland Map ink? Yet, given the very
low numbers for Ti (the element) Cahill et al. must have missed ALL of
this! Now, that's an amazing statistical anomaly. McCrone didn't miss
them, except on the parchment. And Brown and Clark didn't miss them,
except on the parchment. So then, a fair minded jury of their peers
might ask...How come Cahill et al. didn't stumble on even one clump
of anatase? Or one place where the Olin-type anatase was in the ink? Or
even one place where the kaolin anatase was present? 159 times? Not
one, even by accident?

The Hines-Renfors-Johansson-McCulloch team, with all of their
indisputable "facts", needs to work on these minor problems before
publishing their explanation in a peer-reviewed journal. A bit more Lux
et Veritas may be in order? Don't hold your breath. They can only
criticize. They never put forward their own hypotheses.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: V.M. last word
    ... > Circa 1974 McCrone et all was engaged to do a study of the Vinland Map. ... > Anatase and it's polymorphs. ... > Towe says: ... > concentrated in the ink and not distributed over the parchment" Towe 2004 ...
    (sci.archaeology)
  • V.M. last word
    ... Circa 1974 McCrone et all was engaged to do a study of the Vinland Map. ... Anatase and it's polymorphs. ... Towe says: ... concentrated in the ink and not distributed over the parchment" Towe 2004 ...
    (sci.archaeology)
  • Mr Towe libelling
    ... > Repeated requests have been made to those who cling to Vinland Map ... > The Renfors Facts? ... The Cahill PIXE analyses found anatase, not only in the ink ...
    (sci.archaeology)
  • Re: VM reading lesson
    ... > regarding the ink. ... > information it seems to be all about the parchment. ... resulted in the 20th century anatase turning up on the Vinland Map. ...
    (sci.archaeology)
  • Re: The Vinland Map Find Or Fraud?
    ... that has NO RELEVANCE to anything at all being discussed. ... "Anatase particles having all of these properties can only have been ... relevance to the Vinland Map inks." ... content of nanogram flakes of the yellow ink itself, ...
    (sci.archaeology)
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