Jump to content

China discovers America ?

david_dawei

By david_dawei,
in The Middle Kingdom - 中国

Recommended Posts

david_dawei

david_dawei

Posted
Posted (edited)

Old map found in a Shanghai shop may rewrite history's voyages of discovery

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/old-ma...7259945225.html

 

http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2006/01/15/svMAP_wideweb__470x327,2.jpg

 

[The controversial chart, said to be an 18th century copy of a 1418 map made long before Europeans "discovered" the New World.]

 

---

 

FRESH "evidence" to prove that Chinese navigators circumnavigated the world and discovered the Americas, Australia and Antarctica decades before Columbus, Magellan and others will be unveiled in Beijing tonight.

 

The evidence is said to be an 18th century copy of a 1418 map that includes the Americas and Australia well before Europeans "discovered" the New World.

 

If authentic, it means the Chinese beat Christopher Columbus by about 70 years, and 500 years of history would have to be rewritten.

 

The map's owner, Liu Gang, is a founding partner in one of Beijing's big commercial law firms.

 

He is also a map collector, and in 2001 he spotted a beautifully drawn map of ink on bamboo paper in a Shanghai dealer's store.

 

According to Chinese characters on the map, it was drawn by one Mo Yi Tong in 1763 and was a gift to the emperor. It was a copy of a 1418 original, and carefully differentiates between later information added by Mo Yi Tong and the 1418 original, which included the Americas and Australia.

 

Given that Columbus did not "discover" America until 1492 ¡ª as every Chinese student is still taught ¡ª how could the Chinese have drawn an accurate world map in 1418?

 

These were the glory days of the Ming dynasty, when China's most celebrated mariner, Admiral Zheng He, made his epic voyages of discovery in the Pacific and Indian oceans to more than 30 countries with a mighty fleet of as many as 300 vessels.

 

His travels extended Chinese influence throughout South-East Asia, Africa, India and the Middle East. But he was never credited with rounding the Cape of Good Hope.

 

Mr Liu suspected the map might be a forgery, or just wrong, but bought it anyway for $US500 ($A660). The Chinese experts he later consulted offered no explanation.

 

His own research led him to the startling conclusion that Zheng must have sailed farther west than history had so far recognised, and before 1418.

 

If all this is sounding familiar, then it is. In 2003, a British amateur historian, Gavin Menzies, in his book 1421 ¡ª The Year China Discovered the World, made the controversial claim that between 1421 and 1423, a few years later than posited by Mr Liu, Zheng He's fleets sailed round the Cape of Good Hope, up the coast of Africa, crossed the Atlantic, went down the coast of South America, through the Magellan Straits, down to Antarctica, over to Australia, around to what became the first American colony of Massachusetts, up to Greenland and reached Europe.

 

Though Menzies was savaged by many critics and most scholars for his use of circumstantial evidence and questionable assumptions, his book has become a bestseller, spawning a website, a two-part television series and plans for a film in the pipeline.

 

When Mr Liu read Menzies' book last year it convinced him that the map was real and that it provided crucial evidence to back his theory. He contacted Menzies and arranged to release the map.

 

Tonight's unveiling of the map (actually a copy, as the real one is locked away in a bank vault), at a Beijing bookshop-cafe popular with expats, is unlikely to convince the sceptics and will enchant the true believers.

 

The Beijing launch is to be followed by a lecture in London tomorrow by Menzies to the Friends of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich.

 

The National Museum, on Tiananmen Square, which is holding an exhibition on Zheng He's undisputed achievements, does not include any reference to Menzies' theory and was unaware of Mr Liu's map.

 

A museum spokesman said most Chinese scholars dismissed Menzies' views.

 

Dr Gunnar Thompson, a Menzies supporter and researcher in new world voyages, said Liu Gang's map would "revolutionise our thinking" about 15th century world history.

 

Mr Liu is not fazed by taking on the history establishment, and is confident that he and Menzies will be proved right, eventually.

 

THE RISE OF CHINA'S GREATEST MARINER

 

¡öZheng He was 10 when the Han army invaded his central Asian home, ousting the ruling Mongols. The Han butchered the adult men and castrated the boys, some of whom, including Zheng, were taken to the capital to be palace servants.

¡öWithin 20 years, the eunuch Zheng had risen to become a confidant of Zhu Di, the third emperor of the Ming Dynasty. At the emperor's command, he assembled a navy and set out to spread the glory of China to the world and establish trade.

 

¡öBetween 1405 and 1433, he set sail seven times, reaching Iran, Oman, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, Tanzania, India and Sri Lanka. His fleets, comprising 48 to more than 300 junks with a crew of up to 28,000, dwarfed that of the later European explorers.

 

¡öHe is still revered as a god throughout South-East Asia. Last year was the 600th anniversary of his first epic voyage.

 

After his last voyage, Confucian scholars in the imperial court, who had waged a losing battle against the eunuchs and who opposed exploration, finally won back control. They set about destroying all official records of the voyages.

 

Zheng He's tomb is in Nanjing.

Edited by DavidZixuan (see edit history)
Link to comment
tywy_99

tywy_99

Posted
Posted

The map is a fake. It is too detailed and encompassing to have been compiled in the early 15th century. The technology just wasn't availiable. It wasn't until the middle of the 18th century that it was possible to measure meridians of longitude at sea, a necessity in pre GPS times in order to achieve trans-continental mapping with any high degree of accuracy!

 

My wife mentioned this story to me several weeks ago.

Having worked in the cartographic field, I find the story hard to believe, particularly the map which looks similiar to the Transverse-Mercator projection. This type of projection wasn't conceived until the late 18th century, over three hundred years later from the purported date of the map in question!

Link to comment
skibum

skibum

Posted
Posted

Gee, Merc, it is even in your projection! As you have probably figured out, he also invented that projection! I tend to believe it as this guy sailed to many places back in the time when Nanjing was a seaport and all without any balls. There is a memorial to him in Nanjing and it was quite interesting but I do not recall any information about him going to NA.

Link to comment
mercator

mercator

Posted
Posted (edited)

No Gerardus Mercator never came over. His projection was designed to make the equatorial regions (between the tropics) quite accurate (and thus great for sailing and navigation) despite the application of flat paper to a round surface. The price we all pay for this is that kids mistakenly think Greenland is as big as Australia... heheh The polar skew is pretty massive.

 

I think the point of the thread though was that a Chinese map predates Columbus, and Mercator, by many centuries. That is why it appears to be a fake. Certainly it isn't out of the realm of possibility someone else came up with the Mercator projection before Mercator, but it is highly unlikely since it was a fundamental shift in how maps were made.

 

Wikipedia on Mercator

Edited by mercator (see edit history)
Link to comment
skibum

skibum

Posted
Posted

I think it could be possible that he could have drawn the map. It is not unusual for different people in different parts of the world to come up with the same idea. Early seafarers did not use longtitude for navigation but just followed a line of latitude by keeping the same angle from the North Star. Go east or west until you hit some dirt. They would get pretty close to following the same track on the return trip if they wished. No fancy instruments were needed. At that time they probably figured out that that angle equaled their lat. even if they did not know what lat was.

 

Can the map be carbon dated with any accuracy?

Link to comment
Randy W

Randy W

Posted
Posted
I think it could be possible that he could have drawn the map. It is not unusual for different people in different parts of the world to come up with the same idea. Early seafarers did not use longtitude for navigation but just followed a line of latitude by keeping the same angle from the North Star. Go east or west until you hit some dirt. They would get pretty close to following the same track on the return trip if they wished. No fancy instruments were needed. At that time they probably figured out that that angle equaled their lat. even if they did not know what lat was.

 

Can the map be carbon dated with any accuracy?

183572[/snapback]

 

 

"The controversial chart, said to be an 18th century copy of a 1418 map . . . "

 

 

I don't think they have the original.

Link to comment

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...