Chinese Discovery America in 1421

Ned · January 14, 2003, 05:12

What next?

From CNN:

NEW YORK (CNN) -- In his new book, "1421: The Year China Discovered America" (William Morrow), Gavin Menzies claims that a massive Chinese fleet of huge junks and support ships made a two-year circumnavigation of the globe, with extensive exploration of the Americas, nearly a century before Magellan and Columbus.

Needless to say, his assertion has raised an international flurry of debate.

The book has already garnered mixed reviews from the British media, as well as skeptical articles from The New York Times Magazine and Salon.com.

Menzies is unfazed by the reviews. Indeed, even he was surprised at the results of his research, he said in an interview in the New York offices of his American publisher, Morrow.

"It was a complete freak," the author said. Menzies, a former Royal Navy submarine commander, is a soft-spoken and diminutive presence, not at all the obsessive eccentric he's been painted in the press.

While on an anniversary trip to China with his wife, Menzies recalled, he became fascinated with the history of the Great Wall and the Forbidden City, coincidentally completed in 1421. Delving further, Menzies found himself enmeshed in a 10-year research project on the instigators of the two monumental constructions, the Chinese emperor Zhu Di and his nemesis, the Mongol Tamerlane.

Then, while vetting the manuscript (which would have been titled "Two Emperors on Horseback") among historians, Menzies learned of a Portuguese chart, dating from 1424, depicting islands in the Caribbean.

"So here was a Portuguese claim that the whole world had been charted 70 years before Columbus. By whom?" Menzies said. He matter-of-factly presents the answer. "I looked at other charts, and found it was the Chinese. So I abandoned my book, and started this one.

"At the time," he added, "I was really brassed off (angry) about it."
Challenging the consensus
Challenging the consensus

The book draws on Menzie's navigational experience, as well as the findings of a team of experts he assembled to collate and decipher an ever-growing body of multilingual, cartographic, and biological evidence.

As with any epic, "1421" begins with a history lesson. In the year of the title, the emperor Zhu Di ordered the dispatch of a fleet of treasure ships to bring back tribute to his kingdom. According to Menzies' findings, an armada of 800 massive junks set sail in the spring to return delegates who had attended the Forbidden City's inauguration to their nations, and to explore, map and bring tribute from the uncharted reaches beyond the horizons.

Menzies focuses on a fortuitous synchronicity: the presence of a Venetian trader named Niccolo da Conti, who met with the Chinese in the southwest Indian trading hub of Calicut. Da Conti made detailed records of his contact. By Menzies' reckoning, it was da Conti who corroborated the thesis that Chinese junks rounded the Cape of Good Hope, westward bound for points unknown.

Such synchronicity followed Menzies as his research took him deeper along the Chinese trade routes. He retraced the junks' routes around the globe and found shoreside marker stones, carved in a host of Asian languages, all over the world.

Other discoveries convinced him he was on the right track: Sunken junks provided evidence of Chinese-speaking peoples in the pre-Columbian New World (backed, the author claims, by anthropological evidence supported by carbon-dating and DNA analysis). So did the presence of Chinese-introduced species.

"I started off with all sorts of peripheral information," he recalled. "The first Europeans who came to the Americas found Chinese chickens, rice, Chinese porcelain and jade, they found Chinese-speaking peoples. I put all that information on a map, and then I decided to look at the accounts of the first European explorers. ... Now, I put this team together, and they have been translating into English, for the first time, the complete accounts of these European explorers. They found Chinese people everywhere. California, Mexico, Arkansas, Florida and so on. And they found not only Chinese people, but Chinese junks. So I say, that's it. Game, set and match for me." (A complete collation of these accounts can be viewed on the book's website, www.1421.tv.)
Questions
Piri map
This map designed by famous Turkish admiral Piri Reis shows a mixture of several maps including the 1428 World Map and was drawn on a gazelle skin in 1513.

Historians range from dismissive to troubled regarding Menzies' determinations.

"He has not, unfortunately, discovered anything new," Chinese historian Louise Levathes told Salon.com. "What he's done is to present it in a jumbled manner so you have no idea what's going on and what the time frames are."

Other experts were taking a wait-and-see attitude. "There's a definite logic to his analysis," Phillip Sadler, a celestial navigation expert at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told Space.com.

Menzies presented his findings in a talk at the Royal Geographical Society in London roughly 18 months ago (which an article in Salon.com cites as an affair rented by the author himself). By coincidence, Menzies said, a Chinese TV crew was in London and beamed the talk to China. Reaction was then picked up by CBS and ABC, he said.

"So, by a complete freak of luck, I had a worldwide audience for my talk. This resulted in a torrent of information which helped me enormously," he said. "I got literally thousands of letters asking, did I know about this or that. For instance, a walnut farmer from around Sacramento [California] rang me up and said, 'I've got a Chinese junk in my backyard which predated Columbus, and my family's known about it for 50 years.' It was subsequently investigated and it turns out it is a junk. That's happened all over the world."
Gavin Menzies

Indeed, after giving lectures in China, he was shocked to have his findings corroborated by two Chinese professors who had had no prior contact with him, and whose research provided hard evidence supporting a Chinese-Brazil connection dating from 1511 and earlier. One of the conferences sifted through the additional material.

"The conference was stumped," Menzies said. 'The conference split into three groups, each taking a third of my evidence and trawled through it, and after three days they said, 'If only half of your evidence is true, it's unarguable that China got to the Americas before the Europeans did.' "

At the least, Menzies' work will prompt new research of his findings, whether they're corroborated or debunked. And he's not finished yet, he said -- especially with the response he's gotten to his book, already topping best-seller lists in the UK and U.S.

"I've got a team that does nothing else but analyze this incoming stream," he said.

DRoseDARs · January 14, 2003, 05:27

"The conference was stumped," Menzies said. 'The conference split into three groups, each taking a third of my evidence and trawled through it, and after three days they said, 'If only half of your evidence is true, [U]it's unarguable that China got to the Americas before the Europeans did.' "[U]

Uh...Leif Erikson 970-1020 C.E. anyone?

Harovan · January 14, 2003, 05:33

I think the American natives were the first, coming also from Asia.

DRoseDARs · January 14, 2003, 05:38

Well, yeah, if you want to be technical about it...

They migrated to North and South America millennia ago before civilization arose, but they weren't Chinese or European, simply migratory tribes of primative Humans, not great powers entering the age of Exploration and Discovery and that's what the debate is about. When did the Old World discover the New World?

Dis · January 14, 2003, 05:39

that doesn't beat the Vikings

Berzerker · January 14, 2003, 05:57

Quote:

This map designed by famous Turkish admiral Piri Reis shows a mixture of several maps including the 1428 World Map and was drawn on a gazelle skin in 1513.

According to Piri Re'is, Colombus had a copy of that map. That might explain why Colombus under estimated the circumference of the world by so much when the Greeks had already measured it with sufficient accuracy. The map shows the Caribbean without identifiable place names and could lead one to believe they were looking at SE Asia - Colombus' goal, hence "Indians". That's why the Spanish nobility thought Colombus was nuts, they knew the approximate circumference of the world and couldn't fathom why SE Asia was so close.

But this map from Piri Re'is also shows Antarctica, supposedly not discovered until much later. The appearance of Antarctica on these old maps is dismissed by modern scholars as the depiction of a proposed land mass ancient mapmakers believed to be there to balance the world.

The fact the maps are amazingly accurate in depicting Antarctica apparently doesn't faze "the consensus".

Archaeologists discovered a Roman sculpture buried in an Aztec temple, and the sculpture has been verifed as Roman dating to about AD100-200. Might explain the legends of Quetzalcoatl and Kukulcan, the bearded white man from across the eastern sea. One of the Mayan deity's was named "Votan", a name that does not resemble the indigenous langauge, but does resemble "Odin". But here's a real mystery

, the Aztec name foe water and the eastern sea is "Atl" - Atlantic/Atlantis?

Try: "The Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings" by Charles Hapgood.

Oerdin · January 14, 2003, 06:06

I've read alot of academics have spoken very critically of this book. If the idea really did have merit then I think we'd see real historians publishing papers in academic journals and not pop culture books designed to make best seller lists.

Berzerker · January 14, 2003, 06:10

What about the discovery of Jomon style pottery found in Peru/Equador? Oh yeah, that's the Japanese.

Urban Ranger · January 14, 2003, 06:35

Quote:

Originally posted by Oerdin
I've read alot of academics have spoken very critically of this book. If the idea really did have merit then I think we'd see real historians publishing papers in academic journals and not pop culture books designed to make best seller lists.

You are correct.

Yet the author is only a part-time historian who funded his own research. He could not have the funds or knowledge to completely analyse all the evidence critically. This will have to be done by real historians with deep pockets.

Jack the Bodiless · January 14, 2003, 07:14

I thought it was already accepted by historians that the Chinese explored America's west coast before Columbus?

The claim of circumnavigation is new to me, however. I've never before heard of the Chinese entering the Atlantic from either direction.

But there's no particular reason why not, I suppose.

aaglo · January 14, 2003, 07:17

Who really cares, who found the americas first in the new age? I think it's not important.

Much better question is "why, oh why it was found?"

MRT144 · January 14, 2003, 08:15

Quote:

Originally posted by Berzerker
Archaeologists discovered a Roman sculpture buried in an Aztec temple, and the sculpture has been verifed as Roman dating to about AD100-200.

not to be an ******* but could you provide a source. im seriously interested in this...

Hueij · January 14, 2003, 08:17

Quote:

Charles Hapgood

Is he in any way related to Sophia Hapgood, Indiana Jones' sidekick in Indiana Jones And The Fate Of Atlantis, the best adventure game ever?

aaglo · January 14, 2003, 08:19

The spanish conquistadors may have brought that statue to the new world...

aaglo · January 14, 2003, 08:21

Quote:

One of the Mayan deity's was named "Votan"

Isn't there a character called Wotan in the Viking saga's?

Urban Ranger · January 14, 2003, 08:44

It could be a corruption of Wutang.

aaglo · January 14, 2003, 08:48

Nope. It's vise versa.

Al'Kimiya · January 14, 2003, 09:01

Quote:

Originally posted by aaglo

Quote:

One of the Mayan deity's was named "Votan"

Isn't there a character called Wotan in the Viking saga's?

Wotan is the German name of Odin.

Berzerker · January 14, 2003, 09:13

Quote:

The spanish conquistadors may have brought that statue to the new world...

Umm...the Spanish were in the habit of stealing treasure, not depositing it in Aztec temples.

The archaeologists who found it said the sculpture was buried deep in the temple with no evidence the Spanish brought it.

aaglo · January 14, 2003, 09:27

But what if the statue was in some spanish colony, which was (or was any of them) raided by Aztecs? And this statue was taken as treasure back to the temple?

Could it be possible thus?

Sava · January 14, 2003, 09:32

Well, according to the Raelians, we're all genetically, engineered alien clones, so I'm sure our ancestors knew the layout of the whole world.

Wernazuma III · January 14, 2003, 13:28

Quote:

Originally posted by Berzerker
According to Piri Re'is, Colombus had a copy of that map. That might explain why Colombus under estimated the circumference of the world by so much when the Greeks had already measured it with sufficient accuracy. The map shows the Caribbean without identifiable place names and could lead one to believe they were looking at SE Asia - Colombus' goal, hence "Indians". That's why the Spanish nobility thought Colombus was nuts, they knew the approximate circumference of the world and couldn't fathom why SE Asia was so close.

Columbus also overestimated the extent of Asia to the east.Weird conjectures. Piri Reis didn't say, Columbus had a copy of that map. He said he had a map from Columbus! The "nobles" or better said scholars at the University of Salamanca thought in Aristotelian patterns, not in Ptolemaic. They were right, Columbus not, but it wasn't because they had the correct data - most of them thought that our globe wasn't terraqueous, but a combination of a smaller sphere of earth and a larger sphere of water where only a bit of the earth-sphere rises like an island - thus they expected larger distances.

Quote:

But this map from Piri Re'is also shows Antarctica, supposedly not discovered until much later. The appearance of Antarctica on these old maps is dismissed by modern scholars as the depiction of a proposed land mass ancient mapmakers believed to be there to balance the world.

The fact the maps are amazingly accurate in depicting Antarctica apparently doesn't faze "the consensus".

The balance theory has not been invented by modern scholars, but has a tradition that reaches well into antiquity. It is nothing but a myth that the Terra Australis Incognita on Piri Reis map differs much from that on other prior maps and they're not at all "astoundingly accurate", take a closer lookm and compare with you atlas at home, it's not even close!

Quote:

Archaeologists discovered a Roman sculpture buried in an Aztec temple, and the sculpture has been verifed as Roman dating to about AD100-200. Might explain the legends of Quetzalcoatl and Kukulcan, the bearded white man from across the eastern sea. One of the Mayan deity's was named "Votan", a name that does not resemble the indigenous langauge, but does resemble "Odin". But here's a real mystery

, the Aztec name foe water and the eastern sea is "Atl" - Atlantic/Atlantis?
Try: "The Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings" by Charles Hapgood.

Even more stupidities. Don't know about the statues, but simlar claims are made every decade and generally don't get far. In 100-200 AD, there were no Aztecs living in central Mexico for another 1000 years. I don't know in which temple this should have been burried, but NOT in an Aztec temple (Aztecs: 1350-1500AD). Anyhow, Nowhere it is said that Quetzalcoatl came across the ocean, Kukulcan supposedly came to Yucatan with ships from the Mexican East Coast . The Aztecs didn't call the eastern sea "atl". Atl gererally is the word for water and the "tl" is only the ending of all nouns, thus water is essentially "a"! Duh!
About that "Votan"-God I haven't heard a single word, although I know a couple of them.

Wernazuma III · January 14, 2003, 13:35

Here's what I wrote on Civfanatics on the topic:
To be honest, I'm very sceptical. Again, as usually, the alleged Portuguese map of 1428 is not shown, only maps from after 1492. If this map existed, it were a unicate, for there's no other Portuguese map of that time that shows more than a few semi-mythical islands in the Atlantic (of course Portuguese scholars vow that these are actually discoveries of America which had been mistaken for islands...). Such singular maps without someone copying most parts is highly unusuak. And Piri Reis says on his map explicitly that he used a map of Columbus. Moreover, between the alleged discovery and the Portuguese map there's only a few years, no way, not even through Conti, the information would have spread so far so fast - it absolutely doesn't fit into the general patterns of scientific transfer. Third, the Chinese art of World Maps was, well, very underdevelopped compared to the Portuguese maps of those times. It's highly unlikely that they would have mapped their discovery in such a way that the Portuguese could have integrated the information in their map.
Findings of Chinese ships prior to 1500 are only alleged, no real evidence. A few odd objects (an anchor!), but nothing too convincing. The DNA analysis seems very unlikely to establish a link, sounds more like a hoax. Finally, the Chinese speaking people - WTF?! Not a single chronicler (and yes, some have also been to China) noticed that, more importantly no linguist pointed to similarities, that's simply bullsh*t.

But the tradition of the Chinese having discovered America is old and can already be found in the 17th century. It's not impossible either, but surely not this large expedition.
Resuming: Not much remains from the author's tale.

Kontiki · January 14, 2003, 13:57

Dunno if the story is true, but I've always wondered why there was such a migration out into the Pacific, including to rather remote islands (Marquesas, anyone?) and then it just stopped. It just seems logical to me that someone would have ventured further out at some point, even though there was no colonization (and that's just timelines).

Wernazuma III · January 14, 2003, 15:00

Kontiki: How, then, do you explain the lack of e.g. pigs or ANY Polynesian agricultural product in the Americas (they've taken them WHEREVER they went)?

DaShi · January 14, 2003, 15:43

I discovered the Chinese a few years ago.

Kontiki · January 14, 2003, 16:09

Quote:

Originally posted by Wernazuma III
Kontiki: How, then, do you explain the lack of e.g. pigs or ANY Polynesian agricultural product in the Americas (they've taken them WHEREVER they went)?

I dunno. They took pigs everywhere they've settled, but maybe they just hadn't gotten that far yet. I'm just saying that it seems logical that there had been some exploration, if not any actual settlement. Then again, maybe I'm wrong. Just speculation on my part.

Wernazuma III · January 14, 2003, 19:32

Well, an isolated landing is definitely thinkable.

Kingof the Apes · January 14, 2003, 20:38

Did the expidition (if it existed) ever make it back? Or did they stay and colonize the West Coast?

Sten Sture · January 14, 2003, 20:48

I thought the whole fleet turned around at the Cape because they had discovered all habitable land.

If they had kept going you would think they would have followed the coast north to Portugal instead of just venturing out across the Atlantic.

It would have shocked the bejezus out of the Portugese!!