On Jun 15, 2007, at 1:43 PM, Anne Pemberton wrote:
> I am reading a book by Gavin Menzies entitled "1421 - The Year
> China Discovered America". It suggest that Columbus, as a
> cartographer knew or suspected that there was a large land mass in
> the western Atlantic Ocean. He may have though the chart, obtained
> by one "de Conti" who supposedly sailed on a Chinese Junk around
> the Cape of Good Hope, up the western coast of Africa to the bulge,
> and then across the Atlantic to South America. From the
> introduction to the book, the Chinese, a eunuch named Wang Hi,
> sailed completely around both North and South America and down the
> western coast of Europe. He also sailed in the Antarctic Ocean, and
> the Antarctic (Southern)Ocean and mapped the coast of Antartica.
There has been a long discussion about this bogus issue on ARCH-L.
Check out http://thehallofmaat.com/index.php for a more complete
explanation of the issues of pseudoarchaeology.
>
> I've been told this book is bogus, and the ancient map that the
> author said, sent him on his quest, was a hoax. The author mentions
> other maps before Colubus, in various European Libraries, and he
> mentions stones carved in many medieval languages that were found
> by European Explorers.
That's the Barry Fell syndrome wherein various supposedly inscribed
stones of amazingly dubious heritage are periodically trotted out to
the unsuspecting and credible.
>
> In any event, if anything of the tale is correct, it limits
> Columbus' role to that of discoverer of American ONLY for the
> Europeans, who were late at discovery.
Not even that and it's a red herring issue anyway. The Vikings
settled at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland. There is a good body
of evidence "Suggesting" that contacts between the northern Euros
prior to Columbus took place, but until the Newfoundland site, all of
it was deemed spurious. Columbus may have had some info from
seafarers (Hanseatic League, Scandanavians, Basque whalers, etc.) who
had either been across but kept it secret for trade reasons (Grand
Banks cod fishing, Basque whalers), or from Icelanders who apparently
seem to have had some trade networks wherein Bison fur was found in
13th century contexts and the type of processing of fur pelts that
seems to have been a Native American method. Basically, hang around
in trading port bars and keep your ears open, get the gossip and act
on it.
Columbus discovered lands new to his circle of Euros as obviously
other Euros had been here before, as have probably prehistoric Jomon
Japanese, possibly Polynesians (Google recent info on chickens in
South America), and then there's the matter of several million folks
called Indians who were misnamed because of a slight
misidentification of continents who have been in the New World for
possibly tens of thousands of years. Here in VA, there are two of the
oldest Paleo sites in the country, dating to about 14,000BC. And
there were probably waves of settlers according to current
interpretations of DNA.
And that's leaving out the loonie-tunes brigade that sees extra-
terrestrials at every large landmark.
So read Menzies for fun but take it with a mountain sized grain of salt.
Lyle Browning, RPA
>
> Anne
>
> Anne Pemberton
> [log in to unmask]
> http://www.erols.com/apembert
> http://www.educationalsynthesis.org
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