Posted on 11/12/2002 8:21:38 AM PST by blam
Ancient map of Africa poses questions
The unveiling in South Africa's parliament on Monday of a replica of an ancient Chinese map of the then known world which includes a recognisable outline of Africa is raising intriguing questions of which foreigners first explored the continent.
"The idea is to take us beyond what we have been ... brainwashed into believing" declared Speaker Frene Ginwala at the opening of the exhibition, which includes other maps and rock art.
The "Da Ming Hun Yi Tu", the Amalgamated Map of the Great Ming Empire, dates back to 1389, decades before the first European voyages to Africa.
Among recognisable features are the Nile River and South Africas Drakensberg mountain range.
The map also shows a great lake, covering almost half the continents land mass. Researchers suggest it may have been drawn on the basis of an Arab legend that stated "farther south from the Sahara Desert is a great lake, far greater than the Caspian Sea".
(The biggest lake in Africa, Lake Victoria, is in fact only a fifth of the size of the Caspian Sea.)
"We have the worlds best researchers working on it," said parliaments senior researcher Heindri Bailey, who was hesitant about drawing conclusions from it.
"Until we are able to gain the knowledge we wont speculate on it."
The original of the map is housed in Beijing where it has remained wrapped up, sealed and stowed behind a locked door since the fall of Chinas last emperor in 1924. Fewer than 20 people have had access to it since then.
The digitised reproduction of the map on silk is almost four metres (around 12 feet) high and more than four metres across.
Place names are written mostly in Manchu, a now virtually extinct language, and still in need to be translated.
Karen Harris of the historical and heritage studies department at the University of Pretoria said that as early as the 1st century AD records had been found in China mentioning places in Africa.
"They had the capability, definitely," she said. "Theres not so much evidence to prove it, but it isnt a closed book yet."
A picture dated 11 November 2002 shows a detail on the Da Ming Hun Yi Tu (the Amalgamated Map of the Great Ming Empire) dating back to 1389 which is arguably the oldest world map in existence that accurately reflects the African continent.
Harris said that at the time the Chinese were seeking tribute and not trade for the emperor and therefore would not have set up bases or left behind significant markings as was the case with Europeans.
This, she said, would make it difficult to uncover evidence in support of Chinese having been there, adding: "You wouldnt find human remains because the Chinese took their bodies back to their ancestral lands."
But Bailey said some circumstantial evidence existed in South Africa to suggest the Chinese had navigated around Africa long before Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488.
"Chinese pottery has been found in (South Africas northern) Limpopo Province dating back to around the 13th century and there's rock art in the Eastern Cape depicting Chinese-looking characters," Bailey said.
British amateur researcher Gavin Menzies, a submarine engineer, argues in "1421", a book which came out this month, that Chinese admiral Zheng He circumnavigated the globe between 1421 and 1423, 100 years before the crew of Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, who was killed en route.
Zheng He, a eunuch who never travelled with fewer than 300 ships, the biggest carrying 1000 people, is long known to have visited Asia, India, Gulf countries, and Somalia, from where he took back giraffes and lions.
The official history also mentions "Franca" (France and Portugal) and Holland, with the Hollanders described as tall people with red hair and beards.
To meet them in their homeland, Zheng He would have had to sail round the southern tip of Africa.
This is the first time that a copy of the map has been shown outside China. The original is a derivative of an even earlier one dated 1320, which was believed to have been destroyed.
That was before Zheng He's birth (he lived from 1371 to 1435), which deepens the mystery.
Some of the later European maps on show in parliament illustrate dragons, snakes and one-eyed monsters in the inland regions.
How so?
According to Graham Hancock, there were 3 distinct massive floods during the end of the Ice Age. Any one of them destroyed coastal cities worldwide, so it might be that Atlantis was only one of the countless flood stories. These floods are pretty well dated, although I don't have his book handy to tell you the dates right now.
How so?
Graham Hancock's book, FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS, opens Chapter One-"A Map Of Hidden Places"-with a letter from the 8th Reconnaissance Technical Squadron (Strategic Air Command), United States Airforce, Westover Airforce Base, Massachusetts, dated 6 July 1960 to one Professor Charles H. Hapgood at Keene College, New Hampshire, responding to a request from said professor to evaluate certain sections of the genuine 1513 [Turkish Admiral] Piri Reis World Map.
Quoting Harold Z. Olmeyer, Lt. Colonel, USAF Commander, in part..."The claim that the lower part of the Map portrays the Princess Martha Coast of Queen Maude Land Antartica, and the Palmer Penninsula, is reasonable. We find this is the most logical, and in all probability the correct interpretation of the map.
"The geographical detail...agrees very remarkably with the results of the seismic proflile made across the top of the ice-cap by the Swedish-British Antartic Expedition of 1949.
"This indicates the coastline had been mapped before it was covered by the ice-cap." [italics in the original]
After noting that the Ice-cap is now about one mile thick, the Commander concludes:
"We have no idea how the data on this map can be reconciled with the supposed state of geographical knowledge in 1513." [emphasis added]
Anybody remember the report of Columbus actually making his journey a few years earlier than his trip from Spain? A pope had sent him out and even had an inscription on his sarcophagus that he had sponcered the discovery. Also an Arab map c.1488 showed the western hemisphere and mentioned a new world discovered by the indfidel from Genoa, a reference to the earlier voyage. Apparently that Pope died and a Spaniard one took over and steered Columbus to his King and Queen who sent him out again this time in their name. This move wasn't a petty thing for personal glory rather it had to do with legal claim for the plunder which went to Spain and not the church or Italy. I'll try and find that article.
I also think there was a report of Inuits visiting Scotland before Columbus's trip.
Not very smart, are they?
You've got me thinking....
The Chinese can look forward to a population "implosion." At a certain point they won't have enough fellow countrymen to sell their products to. Since they are the world's biggest market they can expect a stagnant economy.
I'll bet they encourage in vitro fertilization and artificial placentas when they figure out what they have done to themselves.
Some of the later European maps on show in parliament illustrate dragons, snakes and one-eyed monsters in the inland regions.One of the earliest known depictions of leftists.
-Eric
The United States Chair Force is baffled by many simple things. They are hardly an indicator of intellectual controversy.
Graham Hancock's book, FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS,
PAGING ART BELL
Your silly tin-foilish claims are debunked here.
Military maps are the basis for the USGS quad maps. Piri Re'is, as Admiral, would have also had the best possible maps. Those maps would have been based on older maps; you realize that such a finished map as the Piri Re'is map would have been drawn and colored by hand at a drafting table by cartographic artists over an extended period of work, and most importantly, from source materials.
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"The sea-coast beyond the Lotophagi is occupied by the Machlyans, who use the lotus to some extent, though not so much as the people of whom we last spoke. The Machlyans reach as far as the great river called the Triton, which empties itself into the great lake Tritonis. Here, in this lake, is an island called Phla, which it is said the Lacedaemonians were to have colonised, according to an oracle."Located in Libya, by Herodotus' time it had begun to dry out, having peaked (and perhaps formed) during the wetter period many thousands of years earlier. Needless to say, the lake has since vanished. It was in what is now the Sahara (not the entire desert, just part of it).
Interesting, thanks.
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