Posted on 01/14/2006 7:34:00 AM PST by Candor7
China map lays claim to Americas
The map clearly shows the Americas and Africa
A map due to be unveiled in Beijing and London next week may lend weight to a theory a Chinese admiral discovered America before Christopher Columbus. The map, which shows North and South America, apparently states that it is a 1763 copy of another map made in 1418.
If true, it could imply Chinese mariners discovered and mapped America decades before Columbus' 1492 arrival.
The map, which is being dated to check it was made in 1763, faces a lot of scepticism from experts.
Chinese characters written beside the map say it was drawn by Mo Yi Tong and copied from a map made in the 16th year of the Emperor Yongle, or 1418.
It clearly shows Africa and Australia.
The British Isles, however, are not marked.
Controversial claim
The map was bought for about $500 from a Shanghai dealer in 2001 by a Chinese lawyer and collector, Liu Gang.
According to the Economist magazine, Mr Liu only became aware of the map's potential significance after he read a book by British author Gavin Menzies.
The book, 1421: The Year China discovered America, made the controversial claim that a Chinese admiral and eunuch, Zheng He, sailed around the world and discovered America on the way.
Zheng He, a Muslim mariner and explorer, is widely thought to have sailed around South East Asia and India, but the claim he visited America is hotly disputed.
The map is now being tested to check the age of its paper and ink, with the results due to be known in February.
Even if it does prove to have been drawn in 1763, sceptics will point out that we still only have the mapmaker's word that he copied if from a 1418 map, rather than from a more recent one.
When I lived in Taiwan, I found whenever I got into an argument with a Chiwanese, and they found they could not win, they would resort to throwing out facts about history. It didn't matter if the facts were true or not, they would always resort to tall tales about the glorious past of China. Of course this Menzies crap is just more of the same. They can't point to any modern achievements so they have to continue to reinvent the past. Sad.
Oh please make it true so that the Chinese will come and get rid of the Republican party! (sarcasm!!)
So the Muslims have a revisionist propagandaic History and the Wing Nut Liberals also have this approach to history. Don't suppose there is a possibility of linkage between the Mulim Freedom fighters and the CHinese hegemonic approach in the Pacific Rim. For example this is happening right now in baseball, where Massachusetts residence think that the Boston Red Sox are the greatest baseball team of all time. As a Yankees fan I am appalled!!!!
It was a Muslim who invented the flushing toilet and the cotton gin?
Let us, then, NOT miss the chance! As a final note, I will leave this thread with the Atlantean equivalent of Kumbaya: Atlzwlingor-tl-zwtll. Note the prevalence of the particle tl as grammatical infix. It is not pronounced, but serves as both a verbal and adverbial marker only (and please allow for a degree of inaccuracy due to the transliteration from the Atlantean to the Roman alphabet; I do not have an Atlantean keyboard).
Blztlegvld-tl-qlgbetlnh-tl-kubfltlget ("That's all, folks!")
jas3: That is EXACTLY correct. The accuracy of the polar regions destroys the credibility of this map. There is NO WAY that the Chinese could have pushed into either the Northwest Passage or Antarctica. ZIPPO possibility of that.Actually, that very thing could have taken place, during the medieval warming, IOW, before the alleged 15th century map given as the source for the 18th century map.
jas3: Herodotus suggests that the Phoenicians had circumnavigated Africa (clockwise starting in the Red Sea) over a period of 3 years around 600 BC. It would not even surprise me to find conclusive evidence one day that the Carthaginians were in South American around 450 BC. Certainly Hanno was already in modern day Sierra Leone by then with 60 ships and thousands of settlers.Herodotus doesn't suggest it, he says so outright. He notes a detail, which he states that he himself doesn't believe, that the Phoenicians had the Sun on their right, rather than their left, a detail it is unlikely to have been made up. Herodotus also writes about the unity of the seas, from the Atlantic / Mediterranean, to the Erythraean Sea, which included the Persian Gulf, the Gulfs of Aqaba and Suez, and the Indian Ocean.
I thought that the MWP ended around 1250 and the little ice age began around 1300, which is roughly when the Vikings abandoned Greenland, no? After 100 years of mini-ice age, it's hard to argue that the routes would have been clear in either the Arctic or Antarctic polar regions.
The Chinese were out and about in the 1420s, no?
So the timing is off by more than 100 years.
If memory serves Herodotus did not say outright that the Phoenicians had circumnavigated Africa. I think he said he didn't belive it, which is why I used the word "suggest." And you are 100% correct on the comment about the Sun on the right, which really suggests that they had done it.
I always thought the African circumnavigation was supposed to have been around 600BC in a clockwise direction. Do you have a reference on that for me? I would love to read more about it. Hanno's mega-road trip was around 450BC if memory serves, and was counterclockwise down to Sierra Leone or so. Did he get any further than that?
jas3
The Chinese were out and about in the 1420s, no? So the timing is off by more than 100 years.There's plenty in the map to indicate that it was copied from a number of different sources (including non-Chinese sources), so the dating isn't of much concern. :') The Scandinavians really got around when the Arctic was navigable part of the year, at least according to family records of an online buddy.
If memory serves Herodotus did not say outright that the Phoenicians had circumnavigated Africa. I think he said he didn't belive it, which is why I used the word "suggest." And you are 100% correct on the comment about the Sun on the right, which really suggests that they had done it.He didn't believe the detail about the Sun, but stated the rest of the information as real. Another interesting detail (which is from a different section, if mem serves) is that southern limits to sailing are determined by "shoals", which is suggestive of the frozen seas and floating ice (depending on the time of the year). Herodotus also didn't believe the actual source of the out-of-season Nile flood, calling it the least likely of the three explanations he heard while in Egypt, but reproduced it anyway with his disclaimer.
I always thought the African circumnavigation was supposed to have been around 600BC in a clockwise direction. Do you have a reference on that for me? I would love to read more about it. Hanno's mega-road trip was around 450BC if memory serves, and was counterclockwise down to Sierra Leone or so. Did he get any further than that?The story in Herodotus is circa 600 BC; the Phoenician pottery at Mogador is at least somewhat older than that, and The Periplus of Hanno describes an expedition that must have antedated the Mogador pottery by a little. That account describes a volcanic eruption before reaching the southern limit of the trip, and that volcano must have been Mount Cameroon.
"it just seems more likely to me that either they were already there."
s/b
"it just seems more likely to me that they were already there."
In seeking for a specific name for the "Engé-ena," however, Dr. Savage wisely avoided the much misused "Pongo"; but finding in the ancient Periplus of Hanno the word "Gorilla" applied to certain hairy savage people, discovered by the Carthaginian voyager in an island on the African coast, he attached the specific name "Gorilla" to his new ape, whence arises its present well-known appellation. But Dr. Savage, more cautious than some of his successors, by no means identifies his ape with Hanno's "wild men." He merely says that the latter were "probably one of the species of the Orang;" and I quite agree with M. Brulle, that there is no grounds for identifying the modern "Gorilla" with that of the Carthaginian admiral. [http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE7/NatHis.html]The Periplus provided the modern name of the gorilla, which was discovered (Europeanly speaking) in the 1850s I think.
Was Cameroon active 400 BC? Quite possibly, but I'm not aware of any radiometric dating of coastal flows that could answer the question. I think it is very likely. If this event occurred along the west african coast, there is only one other possibility: it could have come from the volcanic offshore islands such as Sao Tome. [http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/frequent_questions/grp7/africa/question825.html]However...
In describing a volcanic eruption from a high mountain towering over the sea Hanno mentions such details as sulphuric fumes and streams of lava. The only volcanic area in West Africa is represented by Mount Cameroon, which is still active today... The natives call it Mongana-Loba, “Mountain of the Gods,” which well agrees with the Greek Theon Ochema, “Chariot of the Gods,” of our text. [http://www.metrum.org/mapping/hanno.htm]
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Book Review by John Derbyshire |
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| Why We Ought to Fear China Hegemon: China's Plan to Dominate Asia and the World Steven Mosher is a hero to those of us who hate and fear the current Chinese government. He has the honor of having been persona non grata in the People's Republic for twenty years— longer, I think, than any other American scholar. Mosher was the first social scientist from this country invited to do research in rural China after the death of Mao. He witnessed communist population policy— forced abortion, infanticide and sterilization— at first hand, and after leaving China in 1980 wrote about it. This enraged the Chinese government, who warned Mosher's university, Stanford, that no further visas would be issued to their scholars unless he was punished. Stanford caved, of course; Mosher was dismissed from his Ph.D. program. He has subsequently written several books and campaigned against Chinese policies of population control and religious persecution. In Hegemon, Mosher puts forward the argument that China's present leaders have a grand strategic plan for the future of their country: first to get the U.S. out of Asia, then to exert as much influence as they can over as much of the world as they can reach. Mosher gives the historical background to present-day China's outlook on the world before showing how current Chinese government policies, from education to defense, are designed to further Chinese hegemony. Hegemon is particularly good on the great success the Chinese Communist Party has had in re-branding itself from the incarnation of Marxist-Leninist theory to the standard-bearer of Chinese patriotism. "Patriotism" is, in fact, too feeble a word for the attitudes the Chinese authorities have attempted— successfully, to judge by the younger Chinese I meet— to impress on the post-Mao generations. The blood of young Chinese is charged with a heady fascistic mix of racism, grievance, hyper-nationalism and imperialism. They have been taught, and believe, that China is the victim of great historical wrongs that cry out to heaven for vengeance. America is generally hated. Mosher observes that the TianAnMen protests of 1989 were the high tide of agitation for democracy in China. No such movement is conceivable nowadays.
Most terrifying of all is the current campaign against corruption in the People's Liberation Army, which actually seems to be succeeding. So long as China was a corrupt, leaky despotism we could hope that the whole rotten edifice might fall in on itself. China as a sleek, efficient despotism does not bear thinking about. It is rather easy to anticipate some of the reactions to Hegemon. Be ready for the smiling assurances that China, following the hoped-for subjugation of Taiwan, has "no further territorial demands". China, her officials and western mouthpieces will purr, has never been an expansionist power. As Mosher points out, this is untrue. China's territory has expanded more than tenfold since proper historical records began in the 8th century B.C. Her current land area is more than twice what it was at the height of the Ming dynasty 500 years ago— an average rate of expansion throughout the modern age of nearly 4,000 square miles per annum. This is even after allowing for the loss of Outer Mongolia in the 1920s, a loss which rankles bitterly: when Khrushchev visited Mao Tse-tung in 1959, the first item on Mao's agenda was a demand for the "return" of Outer Mongolia (by that time a Soviet satellite).Mosher's final chapter, "Containing the Hegemon", gives his prescriptions for countering the growing threat of Chinese imperialism. America must, he says, "shoulder its responsibility". This means military preparedness, stricter export controls, anti-missile defences, a firmer commitment to Asian allies. Though well worth saying, this evades the fundamental problem that always sets a democracy at a disadvantage when dealing with a dictatorship: the problem of wishful thinking. When Hitler and Stalin signed their 1939 pact, Evelyn Waugh exulted that the true nature of the totalitarian regimes was "out in the open, huge and hideous". One day, ten or fifteen years from now, China will perform some similar revelatory act— the invasion of Outer Mongolia, perhaps— leaving her apologists suddenly speechless (oh, come the day!) and opening the eyes of even the most gullible. Until then the China lobbies will continue to hold the field, lulling us with the promise that just one more trade concession, just one tilt further away from Taiwan, will bring down the communists, usher in constitutional government and remove all threats to U.S. interests. This is nonsense, and in their hearts a lot of intelligent people probably know it is nonsense; but unlike Steven Mosher's message it does not require us to do anything arduous or expensive. Is there any way we can help China transform herself into a normal country, with whom we can engage in friendly competition? I have offered my own suggestions, for what they are worth, in another place (The Weekly Standard, 2/14/00). Mosher's principal proposal is that we should preserve Taiwan as an example to the mainland. Unfortunately this takes us back to the problem of appeasement's superior appeal to a self-absorbed, hedonistic electorate. Americans are not willing to wage war to defend Taiwan's democracy; the Chinese are very willing— they are eager!— to wage war to destroy it. Perhaps China just cannot be transformed. Her political history is certainly not encouraging. There are only two autochthonous traditions: Legalism and Confucianism. The first teaches despotism maintained by government terror; the second, despotism facilitated by internalized moral codes. Actual Chinese rulers have employed a blend of the two. True, Taiwan's success suggests that culture is not an insuperable obstacle to political reform; but it is difficult to see how the Taiwan experience might be duplicated on the mainland. The prospects for rational politics in China are, frankly, rather bleak. To find grounds for hope, without succumbing to wishful thinking, is very difficult; but Steven Mosher has done his best, as we all must. Hegemon is a welcome addition to the growing body of monitory books on China— what one of my Chinese friends calls "yellow peril literature". The editing leaves much to be desired, though. The historical errors are particularly disconcerting. It was the QianLong Emperor, not the KangXi Emperor, to whom Lord Macartney refused to kowtow. The period of division into three states did not last from the Han dynasty to the Sui, but only from the Han to the Western Jin— an error of 324 years. And who was "empress Wu of Han"? Presumably either Empress Lü of Han or Empress Wu of Tang is meant. This is not mere pedantic quibbling. In writing a book like this, Steven Mosher is throwing down the gauntlet to huge, rich, powerful interests— universities, corporations, bought politicians and ex-cabinet officers, the entire diplomatic establishment. Every error weakens the force of his argument, and will be seized on by the China shills to help discredit him. That will be a pity, because his message is true and timely, and of the utmost importance to all of us. |
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"Well, China also invented the Internet along with Al Gore?"
Yes, to just about anything invented or discovered before 1940, the Chinese will try to claim that they had come up with it first.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&ObjectID=10363864
Waikato uni tests on map could change world history
16.01.06
Researchers at Waikato University are conducting tests on the paper and ink used for a Chinese map which indicates that a Chinese eunuch discovered America.
The copy of a map made in 1763, of a map dated 1418 - to be made public in Beijing today - may show that Admiral Zheng He discovered America more than 70 years before Christopher Columbus, the Economist reported.
If the tests and authentication by other experts showed the map - with a clear depiction of the Americas, New Zealand, Australia, Americas, Africa and Europe - to be genuine, it would overturn centuries of European teaching. Traditional histories record that Columbus found the New World in 1492, Dias discovered the Cape of Good Hope in 1488 and Magellan set off to circumnavigate the world in 1519.
Gunnar Thompson, a researcher of ancient maps and early explorers, said if the map was genuine it would revolutionise thinking about 15th-century world history.
Results of the mass spectrography analysis at Waikato University to date the materials on which the map was copied is due to be announced next month, but will only be direct evidence of the paper and inks used in the copy.
Five Chinese academic experts on ancient charts have noted 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 himself an explorer, the Economist said.
The naval fleets of Zheng He roamed the oceans between 1405 and 1435, and his exploits - well documented in Chinese history - were recorded in a 1418 book called The Marvellous Visions of the Star Raft.
The copy of the map will be unveiled in Beijing today and at Britain's National Maritime Museum in Greenwich on Wednesday. Six Chinese characters in the upper right-hand corner of the map say this is a "general chart of the integrated world". In the lower left-hand corner is a note that says the chart was drawn by Mo Yi Tong, imitating a world chart made in 1418 which showed the barbarians paying tribute to the Ming emperor, Zhu Di.
The copyist differentiated between what he took from the original from what he added himself.
The copy of the map was bought from a small Shanghai dealer in 2001 by Liu Gang, an eminent Chinese lawyer who collects maps.
- NZPA
The first time that i heard Zhenghe is Muslims. I am a Chinese,Muslims in our Ningxia province are all very nice, we have different impression to them-- hard work and famous in their nudle restaraunt.
My great-uncle Lief has dibs on America if China wishes to pursue this foolishness.
You refer to the Phoenicians no doubt.
It also shows Antarctica.
That's all in the book: 1421. It is a fascinating book.
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