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Voyage to prove pharaohs traded cocaine By Tom Leonard in New York Last Updated: 2:21am BST 30/05/2007 An adventurer who believes that ancient man regularly crossed the Atlantic Ocean 14,000 years ago plans to recreate such a voyage in a 41ft raft made of reeds and eucalyptus tree branches. Basing his theory on the thinnest of historical evidence, Dominique Gorlitz believes that the discovery of traces of tobacco and cocaine in the tomb of the pharaoh Rameses II proves that there was trade between the Old and New Worlds. He also claims that 14,000-year-old cave paintings in Spain show that,...

The researchers are basing their claims on a number of Roman discoveries in Oak Island... As well as the stone, they found carved stones on Oak Island also 'possess a language from the ancient Levant' according to Pulitzer. Other findings include a Roman legionnaire's whistle found on Oak Island in 1901, a Roman shield 'boss' and a small Roman head sculpture found in Mexico City in 1933. Another clue, in his report, is the presence of an invasive species of plant which was once used by Romans... 'The ceremonial sword came out of that shipwreck,' he told The Boston Standard....

Over the course of his 30-year journey, Thompson has written five books, all self-published, detailing what he believes to be conclusive evidence that, long before 1492, the Americas were explored repeatedly -- by the ancient Chinese, Venetians, Egyptians, Romans, Vikings, Irish, English and who-knows-who-else. He argues, for example, that a Chinese admiral named Zheng He, commanding a fleet of Chinese junks in the early 1400s, explored the coasts of the Americas. He believes that Marco Polo sailed with the Chinese into the Strait of Juan de Fuca and perhaps into Puget Sound in the 13th century. He is convinced that...

Chinese map collecter has found a copy of an ancient map he claims proves controversial theories that famed Chinese mariner Zheng He was the first person to discover America and circumnavigate the world. Liu Gang said the map supports the recent theories that Chinese discovered America before Christopher Columbus and charted parts of the world such as Antartica and northern Canada long before Western explorers. "The map shows us that Chinese discovered the world 70 years before Columbus," Liu said in a public unveiling of the chart. "The map tells us that Zheng He discovered the world." The map is...

Is Gavin Menzies Right or Wrong? By Timothy Furnish Mr. Furnish, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor, World History, Georgia Perimeter College. Every college world history textbook discusses the early 15th c. CE Chinese naval expeditions, commissioned by the Ming Emperor Zhu Di and commanded by the legendary admiral Zheng He, that sailed as far as East Africa and the Red Sea. Indeed, one of the favorite themes of the history subgenre known as alternative history is: why didn't these Chinese flotillas beat the Portuguese and Spanish to the New World--and what if they had? Gavin Menzies, a former British Royal Navy...

Critics say new book is all junk A British author claims the Chinese, not Columbus, found America first.By Ted Bell -- Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 a.m. PST Tuesday, January 7, 2003 British author Gavin Menzies' controversial book "1421 -- The Year China Discovered America", which goes on sale in the United States this week, claims that America was discovered by Chinese explorers 70 years before Columbus arrived. Part of the alleged proof behind Menzies' theory -- which is being heatedly contested by more traditional historians -- purportedly rests beneath about 40 feet of Glenn County mud in the form...

American Drugs in Egyptian MummiesS. A. Wells www.colostate.edu Abstract: The recent findings of cocaine, nicotine, and hashishin Egyptian mummies by Balabanova et. al. have been criticized on grounds that: contamination of the mummies may have occurred, improper techniques may have been used, chemical decomposition may have produced the compounds in question, recent mummies of drug users were mistakenly evaluated, that no similar cases are known of such compounds in long-dead bodies, and especially that pre-Columbian transoceanic voyages are highly speculative. These criticisms are each discussed in turn. Balabanova et. al. are shown to have used and confirmed their findings with...

For in Manchester, the mummies under the care of Rosalie David, the Egyptologist [Keeper of Egyptology, Manchester Museum] once so sure that Balabanova had made a mistake, produced some odd results of their own... "We've received results back from the tests on our mummy tissue samples and two of the samples and the one hair sample both have evidence of nicotine in them. I'm really very surprised at this."

Mummy Hair Reveals Drinking Habits By Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News Sept. 23, 2004 Mummy hair has revealed the first direct evidence of alcohol consumption in ancient populations, according to new forensic research.The study, still in its preliminary stage, examined hair samples from spontaneously mummified remains discovered in one of the most arid regions of the world, the Atacama Desert of northern Chile and southern Peru. The research was presented at the 5th World Congress on Mummy Studies in Turin, Italy, this month. “ In modern human hair the levels would generally be in the ranges of social drinking, but we...

A new study of insect pests found in an ancient storage jar on the Greek island of Santorini suggests the major volcanic eruption that took place there around 1600 B.C. -- and which may have inspired the legend of Atlantis -- happened in early summer. The "Atlantis" eruption was one of the most significant volcanic eruptions in human history. The blast is credited for not only ending the Minoan civilization, but also for affecting ancient Egypt and other communities around the eastern Mediterranean, explained Eva Panagiotakopulu, a palaeoecologist and fossil-insect expert at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Based on...