16-04-2024, 12:40 PM
Experts have been debating the age of manuscripts like The Book of Kells and the Beowulf Manuscript for decades, if not centuries, with estimates spanning hundreds of years. Dating manuscripts is subjective, in part because the science can't give us precision. C-14 dating is helpful, but not precise. Paleographic and art historical evidence are subjective, not scientific. Experts can, and do, disagree. That doesn't mean that the Book of Kells and the Beowulf Manuscript are forgeries. No one would make that argument.
Scientific analysis cannot prove that something is authentic; it can only prove that something is inauthentic, and none of the scientific evidence has given any hint that the VMS is not an authentic fifteenth-century object. No one who has spent any time with the actual manuscript has found anything suspicious about it...not Rene, not myself, not the curators, not the conservators, etc. etc. There are simply too many things that a forger would have to get exactly right: parchment, ink, pigment, provenance, documentation, sewing threads, evidence of previous bindings, centuries of use and staining, foliation in a later style, annotations by various hands, the erased inscription on 1r, multiple scribes, linguistic patterns, etc. etc. It is unimaginable that anyone could manage that. I have seen and studied many forgeries of medieval manuscripts over the last thirty years, and there is always something clearly suspicious. There were always suspicions about the Vinland Map. There was always a sense that something wasn't right about it, even during the period when it was thought to be geniune. There were always suspicions about The Gospel of Jesus' Wife. There is nothing about the VMS as an actual object that would make anyone with experience in working with medieval manuscripts doubt its authenticity.
You cannot make a determination about the authenticity of an ancient object by studying digital images. These are three-dimensional, multi-valent objects that must be examined in person and in detail in order to issue an expert opinion.
Scientific analysis cannot prove that something is authentic; it can only prove that something is inauthentic, and none of the scientific evidence has given any hint that the VMS is not an authentic fifteenth-century object. No one who has spent any time with the actual manuscript has found anything suspicious about it...not Rene, not myself, not the curators, not the conservators, etc. etc. There are simply too many things that a forger would have to get exactly right: parchment, ink, pigment, provenance, documentation, sewing threads, evidence of previous bindings, centuries of use and staining, foliation in a later style, annotations by various hands, the erased inscription on 1r, multiple scribes, linguistic patterns, etc. etc. It is unimaginable that anyone could manage that. I have seen and studied many forgeries of medieval manuscripts over the last thirty years, and there is always something clearly suspicious. There were always suspicions about the Vinland Map. There was always a sense that something wasn't right about it, even during the period when it was thought to be geniune. There were always suspicions about The Gospel of Jesus' Wife. There is nothing about the VMS as an actual object that would make anyone with experience in working with medieval manuscripts doubt its authenticity.
You cannot make a determination about the authenticity of an ancient object by studying digital images. These are three-dimensional, multi-valent objects that must be examined in person and in detail in order to issue an expert opinion.
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