Prominent Chinese lawyer and art collector Liu Gang announced today in Beijing that he has acquired a copy of an ancient map he claims proves controversial theories that famed Chinese mariner Zheng He was the first to sail to the Americas before Christopher Columbus, the first to chart Antarctica and northern Canada and the first to circumnavigate the globe.Liu bought the map for about US$500 from a map collector in Shanghai in 2001. On the map are the words "(this chart is) drawn by Mo Yi Tong, a subject (of Qing Dynasty) in the year of Qianlong Quiqei (1763) by imitating a world chart made in the sixteen year of Ming Yongle (1418) showing the Barbarians paying tribute (to the Ming Dynasty)." In the upper right hand corner of the map is written "general chart of the integrated world". The 1418 date coincides with Zheng He's voyages, from 1405 to 1432.China's Ming Dynasty banned ocean-going exploration and trade on pain of death after Zheng He's final voyage, largely due to the death of Emperor Zhu Di, who sponsored the voyages. The huge costs of Zheng's fleets, which often numbered hundreds of ships, were another factor.The Chinese records of Zheng He's voyages have largely been lost, either purposely destroyed as part of the ban on ocean-going navigation or due to a fires that ravaged Beijing's imperial palace in the 1420s.Many of the map's details - the outlines of Africa, Europe and the Americas - are instantly recognisable. The north-west passage appears to be free of ice. There is a good depiction of Hudson Bay and the St. Lawrence, and Antarctica has the correct size and shape. It shows the Nile with two sources.But there are also glaring inaccuracies. California is shown as an island; the British Isles do not appear at all. The distance from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean is ten times greater than it ought to be. Australia is in the wrong place (though cartographers no longer doubt that Australia and New Zealand were discovered by Chinese seamen centuries before Captain Cook arrived on the scene).The commentary on the map, which seems to have been drawn from the original, is written in clear Chinese characters which can still be easily read. Of the west coast of America, the map says: “The skin of the race in this area is black-red, and feathers are wrapped around their heads and waists.” Of the Australians, it reports: “The skin of the aborigine is also black. All of them are naked and wearing bone articles around their waists.”
Keywords: Canadian History Canada Education Geography Cartography
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Mass spectrography analysis to date the copied map is under way at Waikato University in New Zealand, and the results will be announced in February. But even if affirmative, this analysis is of limited importance since it can do no more than date the copyist's paper and inks.Five academic experts on ancient charts note that the 1418 map puts together information that was available piecemeal in China from earlier nautical maps, going back to the 13th century and Kublai Khan, who was no mean explorer himself. They believe it is authentic.The map makes good estimates of the latitude and longitude of much of the world, and recognises that the earth is round. “The Chinese were almost certainly aware of longitude before Zheng He set sail,” says Robert Cribbs of California State University. They certainly assumed the world was round. “The format of the map is totally consistent with the level of knowledge that we should expect of royal Chinese geographers following the voyages of Zheng He,” says Mr Thompson.Moreover, some of the errors in the 1418 map soon turned up in European maps, the most striking being California drawn as an island. The Portuguese are aware of a world map drawn before 1420 by a cartographer named Albertin di Virga, which showed Africa and the Americas. Since no Portuguese seamen had yet discovered those places, the most obvious source for the information seems to be European copies of Chinese maps.But this is certainly not a unanimous view among the experts, with many of the fiercest critics in China itself. Wang Tai-Peng, a scholarly journalist in Vancouver who does not doubt that the Chinese explored the world early in the 15th century (he has written about a visit by Chinese ambassadors to Florence in 1433), doubts whether Zheng He's ships landed in North America. Mr Wang also claims that Zheng He's navigation maps were drawn in a totally different Chinese map-making tradition. “Until the 1418 map is scientifically authenticated, we still have to take it with a grain of salt,” he says.Most forgeries are driven by a commercial imperative, especially when the market for ancient maps is booming, as it is now. The Library of Congress recently paid $10m for a copy of a 1507 world map by Martin Waldseemuller, a German cartographer.Liu only realised its importance after he read Gavin Menzies' best-selling book 1421: The Year China Discovered The World. In the book Menzies theorises that previously undiscovered world maps drawn up by Zheng He's admirals were copied by European map makers and were extensively used during the voyages of great Western explorers, including Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan, Vasco Da Gama and James Cook.Much of Menzies' theories are supported by his knowledge of ocean currents, continental trade winds and star navigation that he learned during his life as a British naval commander.Despite its prominence on best-seller lists, many historians have criticised Menzies' theories for the lack of accompanying evidence.Zhu Jianqiu, an oceanographer with the Chinese navy and a scholar at the Nanjing Zheng He Institute, said: “In 1421 many maps are mentioned but none of them has anything to do with Zheng He. Chinese scholars cannot share the opinions of Mr Menzies.”Liu believes a lot of the records still exist, but Chinese scholars have largely ignored them."I sincerely believe that other maps exist and books exist [that contain evidence of Zheng He's world travels] but no-one has been paying attention to them," Liu says. "It is my purpose to try to wake these [scholars] up."SOURCE: Economist, Agence France-Presse, London Times, Independent
Keywords: Canadian History Canada Education Geography Cartography
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Mass spectrography analysis to date the copied map is under way at Waikato University in New Zealand, and the results will be announced in February. But even if affirmative, this analysis is of limited importance since it can do no more than date the copyist's paper and inks.Five academic experts on ancient charts note that the 1418 map puts together information that was available piecemeal in China from earlier nautical maps, going back to the 13th century and Kublai Khan, who was no mean explorer himself. They believe it is authentic.The map makes good estimates of the latitude and longitude of much of the world, and recognises that the earth is round. “The Chinese were almost certainly aware of longitude before Zheng He set sail,” says Robert Cribbs of California State University. They certainly assumed the world was round. “The format of the map is totally consistent with the level of knowledge that we should expect of royal Chinese geographers following the voyages of Zheng He,” says Mr Thompson.Moreover, some of the errors in the 1418 map soon turned up in European maps, the most striking being California drawn as an island. The Portuguese are aware of a world map drawn before 1420 by a cartographer named Albertin di Virga, which showed Africa and the Americas. Since no Portuguese seamen had yet discovered those places, the most obvious source for the information seems to be European copies of Chinese maps.But this is certainly not a unanimous view among the experts, with many of the fiercest critics in China itself. Wang Tai-Peng, a scholarly journalist in Vancouver who does not doubt that the Chinese explored the world early in the 15th century (he has written about a visit by Chinese ambassadors to Florence in 1433), doubts whether Zheng He's ships landed in North America. Mr Wang also claims that Zheng He's navigation maps were drawn in a totally different Chinese map-making tradition. “Until the 1418 map is scientifically authenticated, we still have to take it with a grain of salt,” he says.Most forgeries are driven by a commercial imperative, especially when the market for ancient maps is booming, as it is now. The Library of Congress recently paid $10m for a copy of a 1507 world map by Martin Waldseemuller, a German cartographer.Liu only realised its importance after he read Gavin Menzies' best-selling book 1421: The Year China Discovered The World. In the book Menzies theorises that previously undiscovered world maps drawn up by Zheng He's admirals were copied by European map makers and were extensively used during the voyages of great Western explorers, including Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan, Vasco Da Gama and James Cook.Much of Menzies' theories are supported by his knowledge of ocean currents, continental trade winds and star navigation that he learned during his life as a British naval commander.Despite its prominence on best-seller lists, many historians have criticised Menzies' theories for the lack of accompanying evidence.Zhu Jianqiu, an oceanographer with the Chinese navy and a scholar at the Nanjing Zheng He Institute, said: “In 1421 many maps are mentioned but none of them has anything to do with Zheng He. Chinese scholars cannot share the opinions of Mr Menzies.”Liu believes a lot of the records still exist, but Chinese scholars have largely ignored them."I sincerely believe that other maps exist and books exist [that contain evidence of Zheng He's world travels] but no-one has been paying attention to them," Liu says. "It is my purpose to try to wake these [scholars] up."SOURCE: Economist, Agence France-Presse, London Times, Independent
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