E. G. R. Taylor and the Vinland Map

The Eva G. R. Taylor Lecture is jointly sponsored by the Institute with the Royal Geographical Society, the Hakluyt Society and the Society for Nautic al Research to enable a lecture to be given every year by a distinguished s cholar in one or other of the branches of knowledge to which Professor Tayl or made such notable contributions. The 1999 lecture was presented at a mee ting held at the Royal Geographical Society on 30 November 1999. Michael Ri chey first describes the events leading up to the dramatic announcement by Yale University in 1974 that the famous Vinland Map it had acquired some ni ne years before might well be a fake; and then the steps taken to try to re habilitate it. Professor Taylor was almost certainly the first scholar to s et down in detail the reasons for believing the map to be a forgery. The ma p remains a mystery, for while the evidence seems for the most part to poin t towards forgery, who by and when and why remain in the air. Michael Riche y is a Gold Medallist and a former Director of the Institute.