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Explorer From China Who 'Beat Columbus To America'
The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 3-4-2002 | Elizabeth Grice

Posted on 03/04/2002 3:24:49 PM PST by blam

Explorer from China who 'beat Columbus to America'

By Elizabeth Grice
(Filed: 04/03/2002)

HISTORY books in 23 countries may need to be rewritten in the light of new evidence that Chinese explorers had discovered most parts of the world by the mid-15th century.

Next week, an amateur historian will expound his theory - backed up by charts, ancient artefacts and anthropological research - that when Columbus discovered America in 1492, he was 72 years too late.

And so were other explorers, such as Cook, Magellan and Da Gama, whose heroic voyages took them to Australia, South America and India.

Instead, according to Gavin Menzies, a former submarine commanding officer who has spent 14 years charting the movements of a Chinese expeditionary fleet between 1421 and 1423, the eunuch admiral, Zheng He, was there first.

According to Menzies, it was Zheng He, in his colossal multi-masted ships stuffed with treasure, silks and porcelain, who made the first circumnavigation of the world, beating the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan by a century.

Menzies will present his findings at the Royal Geographical Society on March 15 before an invited audience of more than 200 diplomats, academics, naval officers and publishers. Their initial reaction, based on an outline of his thesis, ranges from excitement to scepticism.

But if the number of acceptances - 85 per cent - is anything to go by, he will not be ignored.

He originally intended to write a book about the significance of the year 1421 around the world. While researching it in Venice, he was shown a planisphere, dated 1459, which included southern Africa and the Cape of Good Hope.

Yet the Cape was not "discovered" as a sea route by Vasco da Gama until 1497. On the planisphere was a note in medieval Phoenician about a voyage round the Cape to the Cape Verde Islands in 1420 - and a picture of a Chinese junk.

Menzies felt he was on to something.

Using Chinese star charts and maps that pre-date the expeditions of Cook, Magellan, de Gama and Columbus, he has reconstructed what he believes is the epic voyage of Zheng He.

He says his knowledge of astro-navigation helped him to work out that the Chinese, using the brilliant star Canopus to chart their course, had sailed close to the South Pole.

He determined their latitude and went on to find literary and archaeological evidence to show that the Chinese had effectively circumnavigated the world.

Menzies, 64, admits that his greatest fear was being ridiculed.

He said: "When I started, I was terrified people would think I was a crank. But although my claim is complicated and stands history on its head, I am confident of my ground.

He added: "What nobody has explained is why the European explorers had maps. Who drew the maps? There are millions of square miles of ocean. It required huge fleets to chart them. If you say it wasn't the Chinese, with the biggest fleets and ships in the world, then who was it?"

Admiral Sir John Woodward, who served on submarines with Menzies in the 1960s and will be at his lecture, describes him as a brilliant maverick.

He said: "I was his teacher on a commanding officers' qualifying course and he was the cleverest, sharpest and best I had seen. He is not some mad eccentric but a rational man, good at analysis - and he certainly knows all about charts."

Chinese ocean-going supremacy in the first half of the 15th century is not in question.

The expeditionary junks were three times the size of Nelson's Victory and dwarfed the 16th century ocean-going European caravels. Under his patron, the Yong-le Emperor Zhui Di, Zheng He made seven great voyages to bring foreigners into China's tribute system.

When he returned in October 1423, China was in political and economic chaos. The treasure fleet, now considered frivolous, was mothballed, admirals pensioned off and shipyards closed.

Although most of the records of Zheng He's voyage were expunged, a few maps and star charts survived.

Menzies believes they were taken to Venice by a merchant traveller, Nicolo da Conti, who had joined one of the Chinese junks in India. In his travel book published in 1434, da Conti claims to have sailed to China via Australia - 350 years before Captain Cook.

Menzies argues that, on his way through Venice in 1428, the King of Portugal's eldest son obtained the salvaged maps and incorporated them into a map of the world.

The most controversial part of his theory is that copies of parts of this mappa mundi were used by da Gama, Magellan and Cook. Some of these still survive in museums: Patagonia (1513), North America (1507), Africa (1502) and Asia and Australia (1542).

The letters and logs of the European explorers - including Columbus - certainly acknowledge that they had maps, says Menzies. "They knew where they were going before they set out."

Using his knowledge of winds and tides, Menzies has located what he believes are nine Chinese leviathans wrecked in the Caribbean in December 1421.

Pictures of the hull ballast on the seabed show stones identical in shape and size to those found in a Chinese treasure ship recently excavated in the Philippines.

Menzies declines to name the uninhabited island because he believes some of the ships may still contain treasure and he wants to investigate them.

Gillian Hutchinson, curator of the history of cartography at the National Maritime Museum, is not persuaded that there is a provable link between the Chinese maps and those the Europeans used.

She says: "It is possible that Chinese geographical knowledge had reached Europe before the Age of Discovery. But Mr Menzies is absolutely certain of it, and that makes it difficult to separate evidence from wishful thinking."

Diplomats of the countries whose early history may be affected by his thesis are reacting with a surprising degree of warmth.

Gregory Baughen, first secretary at the New Zealand High Commission, says: "It sounds exciting. We're all ears. Chinese artefacts have been found around the coast for some time."

Luis de Sousa, press councillor at the Portuguese Embassy, says: "Magellan is in all the books and his descendants carry his name with -+pride. But if the Chinese circumnavigated the world first, which is quite possible, then let's give them their 15 minutes of limelight."


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 1421; archaeology; china; clovis; gavinmenzies; ggg; godsgravesglyphs; history; historylist; navigation; phoeniciansgreeks; preclovis; romans; vikings
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To: blam
"Let's not leave out ole Prince Madoc,1170

Sure! An I'll be drinkin' a pint to the brave Welsh Prince, as well.

(Chinese discover world...what a load o'Commie Cr*p.)

21 posted on 03/04/2002 4:35:47 PM PST by elbucko
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To: blam
Regarding Chinese junks' anchor stones: these have indeed been found on the West coast, but they are of very recent date. Chinese junks and other asian shipping have been coming to California since at least the Gold Rush, over 150 years ago.

The Chinese fleets and ships mentioned in the article are very impressive, but they are a good example of "prestige politics" rather than serious commercial or scientific exploration. The fleet was sent out to overawe China's neighbors and to extract "tribute" (diplomatic gifts) to "prove" that China was the central kingdom and all other lands were tributaries of the central kingdom.

Naturally, when the Chinese emperor (or rather, the bureaucrats) got tired of financing this boondoggle, that was the end of the fleet. On the other hand, European exploration tended to pay for itself, and opened up new and greater possibilities for trade, conquest, and colonization, thereby forever changing the world and leading to the world we know today.

Had the Chinese fleets never sailed, history as we know it would have hardly been any different.

22 posted on 03/04/2002 5:05:12 PM PST by Vast Buffalo Wing Conspiracy
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To: blam
Very cool. Too bad it was abortive like most of China's discoveries and innovations, swept away when the new regime came into power. Sounds a lot like what happened in the 1950's. At least their maritime pioneering made it possible for others with sticking power to quickly spread throughout the world.
23 posted on 03/04/2002 5:17:49 PM PST by aruanan
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To: Vast Buffalo Wing Conspiracy
Had the Chinese fleets never sailed, history as we know it would have hardly been any different.

Except that the Western maritime explorers wouldn't have had the maps.
24 posted on 03/04/2002 5:19:39 PM PST by aruanan
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To: JenB
Interesting. But the Vikings found America long before Columbus too. It isn't who landed here first that counts, it's who made it stick - who came back and settled.

The Vikings were my first thought as I began to read this article.

25 posted on 03/04/2002 5:24:10 PM PST by dougherty
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To: blam
Instead, according to Gavin Menzies, a former submarine commanding officer who has spent 14 years charting the movements of a Chinese expeditionary fleet between 1421 and 1423, the eunuch admiral, Zheng He, was there first.

Nah...couldn't be. He didn't have the stones for it.

26 posted on 03/04/2002 5:29:33 PM PST by Pharmboy
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To: blam
This is all true! In fact there is evidence that the first Chinese restuarant was founded in San Franscisco when Columbus was still a small child.
27 posted on 03/04/2002 5:30:37 PM PST by dvan
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To: dvan
This being so perhaps the Chinese have squatter's rights on the U.S.!!!!
28 posted on 03/04/2002 5:32:21 PM PST by dvan
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To: aruanan
I believe that Columbus found maps - or at least legends - that came from the Vikings, who reportedly heard the stories from the Irish. Or did Marco Polo bring back maps with him? And why hasn't this story come out before, if there are five hundred year old maps with Chinese written all over them?
29 posted on 03/04/2002 5:43:52 PM PST by JenB
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To: blam
intresting read bump
30 posted on 03/04/2002 5:50:12 PM PST by Ditter
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To: blam
HISTORY books in 23 countries may need to be rewritten in the light of new evidence that Chinese explorers had discovered most parts of the world by the mid-15th century.

Interesting but whoopdedoo, as far as who got here first. The Phoenicians were here 3000 years before that. Not to mention there were Hebrews here just before Christ in 107 BC.

31 posted on 03/04/2002 5:50:50 PM PST by #3Fan
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To: blam
Using his knowledge of winds and tides, Menzies has located what he believes are nine Chinese leviathans wrecked in the Caribbean in December 1421.</>

Now if he could bring them to the surface, then he really got a story.

32 posted on 03/04/2002 5:51:12 PM PST by Fishing-guy
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To: blam
On the planisphere was a note in medieval Phoenician . . .

I've never heard of Medieval Phoenician before and can hardly imagine what it could refer to. Phoenicia, the seagoing empire of Eastern Med coastal cities of Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos with their various colonies, had left the stage before the Roman Empire was an Empire.

33 posted on 03/04/2002 5:59:21 PM PST by VadeRetro
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Comment #34 Removed by Moderator

To: blam
I still believe the Phonecians were first to the New World. There was, if I remember correctly, pictoglyphs in Central America depicting visitors who were not the typical Mayan. In fact, the pictoglyph showed shoes with points curled and beards that looked Sumerian.

There was also a clay tablet found in South America ( can't remember the source ) that had cunieform writing on it.

Lastly, the infamous Piri Reis map, which depicted the Antarctic continent as recently verified by satellite.

35 posted on 03/04/2002 6:28:39 PM PST by Tench_Coxe
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To: muawiyah
There are brown birch trees in Indiana, and there are brown birch trees in Korea, and therefore a Chinese eunuch discovered America?

As Fluellen says in Henry the Fifth, Act IV, Scene VII, "There is a river in Macedon; and there is also moreover a river at Monmouth...and there is salmons in both." Therefore Alexander the Great visited England?

36 posted on 03/04/2002 6:34:08 PM PST by Verginius Rufus
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To: muawiyah
The Olmecs And The Shang
37 posted on 03/04/2002 6:48:37 PM PST by blam
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To: Tench_Coxe;VadeRetro;#3Fan
This figurine was found in the ruins of an Olmec site in Southern Mexico.


38 posted on 03/04/2002 6:59:45 PM PST by blam
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To: blam
Cool. Have you recieved your latest edition of Ancient American yet? (I think that was you that also subscribes.)
39 posted on 03/04/2002 7:09:12 PM PST by #3Fan
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To: #3Fan
"Have you recieved your latest edition of Ancient American yet? (I think that was you that also subscribes.)"

Yup. But, I'm behind in my reading.

40 posted on 03/04/2002 7:15:34 PM PST by blam
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