In 1965 scholars called it "the most exciting cartographic discovery of the century." The map, acquired by Yale's library, was the first to show the Western Hemisphere as it was discovered by the Vikings centuries before Columbus. It became known as the "Vinland map" because it bore a Latin inscription declaring that Bjarni and Leif Ericson had "discovered a new land, extremely fertile and even having vines, the which island they named Vinland."
A New Haven, Conn., antiquarian bookseller named Laurence Witten purchased the map, which had been bound with a 13th century...
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