KARL CHRISTIAN RAFN (1795-1864), Danish archaeologist, was born in Brahesborg, Fiinen, on the 16th of January 1795, and died at Copenhagen on the 20th of October 5864. He is chiefly known in connexion with the controversy as to the question of the discovery of America by the Norsemen, his.
views being contained in his chief work, Antiquitates Americanae (Copenhagen, 1837). See Leif Ericsson.