[Texaggie79]

[blam]

Zheng He's ship (400ft) compared to Columbus's (85ft).

[narby]

A friend of mine in So. Calif. says that ballast stones and fragments of Chineese pottery were found off the coast years ago.

Might be something to it.

[Free the USA]

Check the Bump List folders for articles related to the above topic(s) or for other topics of interest.

[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.

[Clive]

Well so what!

At L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, are the remains of a 500 year old Viking colony.

Which is also nothing to the point.

Neither venture had any but the most transient effect on history.

[max61]

Well that puts the Chinese at least 1000 years behind the Phoenicians who were here well ahead of the mid-15th century.

---max

[elbucko]

Sounds like a lotta Commie revisionism to me!

What about the Irish, Ogam, petroglyphs found in a cave in West Virginia's, Wyoming County in 1983. These Irish/Runic writings are dated about AD 500 to AD 800. The story of these findings were printed in the State of West (by God) Virginias magazine, "Wonderful West Virginia".

Ancient Irish legends have always told of "St. Brendans Fair Isle", far off to the West.

If you ask me, and I know you aren't, the ChiComs are a bit late in their boast.

Don't ya' know.

[Vast Buffalo Wing Conspiracy]

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.

[Pharmboy]

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.

[Ditter]

intresting read bump

[#3Fan]

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.

[Fishing-guy]

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.

[VadeRetro]

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.

[Tench_Coxe]

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.

[tallhappy]

...the eunuch admiral, Zheng He, was there first.

Maybe.

He went a lot of places.

He was a muslim and he is the basis for Sinbad the Sailor.

There is probably a group of people on the east coast of Africa who are descended from a ship wreck of Zheng's fleet.

His accomplishments say a lot about the stupidity of the Chinese emperors since. After his voyages they banned such sea travel and destroyed his ships and any ships that could travel the world.

[JudyB1938]

I just love it when somebody comes up with something "new"! Anybody who has read PALE INK: THE CHINESE CLASSIC OF MOUNTAINS & SEAS; two ancient records of Chinese exploration in America, by Henrietta Mertz (a translation from Chinese writings) already knew who was here first.

There's another one I haven't read: The Classic of Mountains and Seas by Anne Birrell.

Plus, there's another book written by a Chinese missionary who documents a lot of it. I can't remember his name - my son in Maine has the book.

That's why I find it so amusing when people say the Olmnec heads are negroid. As far as I am concerned, they have Asian features.

Here's something about Henrietta Mertz:

Very often the researches of educated amateurs uncover more information and understanding than the work of specialists limited by unproved theories that have hardened into 'fact.' For instance, Henrietta Mertz' little-known but perceptive book Pale Ink examines texts of some ancient Chinese voyagers, and by careful analysis shows them to provide exact descriptions of the topography of western America, especially California and Mexico. She identifies Quetzalcoatl with one of the early navigators.

These Chinese writings are the precis of previously condensed versions of yet earlier works written by the very persons who set sail in various expeditions -- from hundreds of years B.C. to the early centuries A.D. -- and reached the Pacific shores of the Americas. The original accounts have disappeared because every now and then the Emperors of China would order a drastic reduction of the vast accumulation of literature. Those items worth preserving were reduced to the bare essentials; in the process the genuine travelogs were so constricted that the meaning was lost to later generations who assumed that the reports of unfamiliar landscapes and strange peoples were mere fables, figments of someone's imagination.

[twigs]

There is a lot of evidence that Columbus was far from the first who got here. He was fortunate to have landed a few decades after the printing press was up and running. Although there are a lot of hoaxes regarding early voyages, not all of them are. Remember that Brazil was accidently discovered while their boat was sailing down the western coast of Africa! The only question I've had is that when Columbus' men arrived here, European diseases quickly decimated the local population. While I firmly believe that earlier explorers got here as well, I've wondered why disease was not a larger problem. Or was it?

[BJungNan]

Of course, they are called Native Americans.

[Khurkris]

Now you may not believe this, but a strong case can be made that the Chinese ( or some other mainland Asian group) established a colony on the Western Mexican coast prior to 1400 A.D. Many artifacts have been found. Also, many every day practices used by the Chinese have been found to be incorporated into the Indian culture there at the time.

Just another fun fact to play with.