A closer look
Getting scammed is bad, but getting scammed out of millions by a map drawn with modern house paint is a special kind of academic humiliation. In 1965, Yale University proudly unveiled the Vinland Map, a supposedly authentic 15th-century parchment proving the Vikings mapped North America before Columbus. It threw the historical community into an absolute frenzy until microscopes revealed the yellowish ink contained anatase, a synthetic titanium dioxide pigment that literally did not exist until it was commercialized in 1923.
