The Oera Linda Book

Record summary

The Oera Linda Book is a Frisian-language manuscript published in 1872, purportedly preserving an ancient history of the Frisian people, including the legendary land of Atland. It became influential in some nationalist, occult and pseudo-historical narratives because it appeared to offer a lost civilization and alternative European chronology. Linguistic and historical scholarship generally treats it as a nineteenth-century forgery or modern literary construction. The manuscript’s transmission, publication history and changing reception are more secure research subjects than its claimed antiquity.