China map lays claim to Americas

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As the article points out, the Vikings were earlier still. And there were already people there when they arrived...

N

Looks fischig to me. North and South America are too well defined, and I can even make out what is probably Yucatan on Central America.

Evidence of Viking occupation has been found in Newfoundland. If the Chinese circumnavigated the Americas, they would have left something behind, I should think.

However, I'll defer to expert judgement. In the mean time, some possible explanations:

• It's bogus
• It's real, but the date is wrong
• It's real, and we just haven't found the archaeological evidence
• It's real, and the mariners cleaned up after themselves really well
• It's real, and the mapmaker got the info from his ancient-astronaut friends

Fred

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I read this a couple of years ago, which is about that very thing. Can't speak about the notion in general, but that book has faced a lot of criticism. One problem I remember reading about it was that although he lists many sources, if you bother to actually check those sources then the author is taking huge liberties with what they say (and sometimes outright contradicting those sources).

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It´s curious. The map shows a a distinct river flowing to the Pacific near what would be northern Chile (ignoring the Andes). On the other hand it fails to show the Plata estuary, on the Atlantic, that´s even more distinct. Nobody circumnavigating South America could miss it. It´s very conspicuous on the early European maps of South America.

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Also, California detached from mainland NA smells like fraud.

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They also seem to have visited Australia and the Antarctic. I assume the stuff around the North pole are ice sheets and not land masses.

I agree, I'm doubtful.

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All early explorers checked out Baja.

This thing stinks. I don't know how a 1763 "copy" provides historical evidence.

As the cliche goes, America was never lost.

[edited to add smiley]

It's a weird map. It's not accurate for coastlines (required for seagoing use) and it's not accurate for mountains and rivers (for use ashore). And the strange thing is that it's just as inaccurate in China as elsewhere. What on earth was it for?

It's possible I suppose that it was intended for education, in which case the claims it makes (if it truly is an eighteenth century drawing) are even more dubious. As events have shown recently, education is a prime area for indoctrination with a preferred world-view.

Not only discovered the Americas but rounded Cape Horn and found the Mississippi, missed Florida somehow and went all the way up to Newfoundland. Assuming the map was made in 1763, perhaps the Africa/Europe/Asia parts are copies of the original and the rest was added based on some other map made some time before 1763.

While I don't doubt that some Chinese dude could have made it to the Americas during the 1400s and possibly got back some how, I do doubt that they could have mapped the whole thing. It would have taken many expeditions and many, many years.

No I think the guy owns a map made in 1763, which is probably worth the $500 if it's real.

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Rather like some of the CTs who cruise through here...

Or, indeed, CTs in general.

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<<Looks fischig to me. North and South America are too well defined, and I can even make out what is probably Yucatan on Central America.>>

Ditto. I also find it hard to believe that the Chinese wouldn't have capitalized on the discovery of America, if not actually exploited it if they'd found it. Surely there would be *some* solid historical mention of such a momentous discovery, even if they didn't colonize it. If they went through the trouble to actually map it though--which would have taken years--you know we would have heard something, even with the vagaries of lost documents over the centuries.

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There was an active purge on ships' logbooks and other exploration documentation in 15th century China, after the death of emperor Yung Lo in 1424. China for some reason shut down its exploration of the world: stopped building ocean-going junks, withdrew from African trade, and destroyed all its records.
I guess the story is that this map somehow survived the purge, to be copied later.

Grant Hutchison

^
I knew the Ming withdrew after the voyages, but not that it was so thorough. I guess I'll have to look into that...

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Well, the Baja peninsula accounts for the southern part of that, and the northern divide appears to be Puget Sound in Washington (note the islands there that correspond to the Victoria/Vancouver B.C. area).

Few maps that I've seen from that era are decently accurate for the shapes and sizes of large land masses. If the west wasn't a few centuries ago, why should China have been accurate half a millenium ago?

If you look at the Bonaparte map of Australia, New Zealand and Paupa New Guiena (1695), based on Able Tasman's writings, you'll see that while it is not perfect, the shapes of the coastline for the most part are virtually spot on. The same with Cook's map of New Zealand (1772). The only three major mistakes he made were the width of the South Island, thought Bank's Penisular was an Island, and that Stewart Island was wasn't.

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It looks like a regular map, but with really bad leprosy.

Interesting that the Chinese must have also had 15th century ice-breakers to navigate all those northern shores.

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As for Baja, I think it´s too Westerly, even discounting the limitations of the time. Note that the western shores of mainland Mexico have an almost perfect southeastern orientation, so I would expect that even in that map Baja would appear parallel to that line.

And note that even Bermuda is showing.

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The map has some oddities that while I have no clue about map making in the 1400s still seem to need explaining. For starters, why is there a large river draining east on the North American Continent but no large river where the Mississippi River should be?

But as to the Chinese having sailed here at least as far back as the 1400s there is a lot of other evidence. I'm not sure whether Vikings were earlier of later but there is pretty strong evidence that many peoples were sailing around the world despite the emphasis we all place on Columbus' particular voyage.

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Well, the emphasis on Columbus' voyages (there were 6 or 7) is well deserved, as they were the start of a sustained interest in and contact with the Americas, and so had a much more lasting influence than the voyages of the Vikings or the Chinese.

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I think Gavin Menzies has extrapolated the evidence wayyy beyond the plausible into the incredible. Possibly the Chinese did explore as far as North America; but Menzies evidence does not prove it.

Certainly it is a fascinating book, opening a window into the empire of China in the fifteenth century; but his attempts to match very inconclusive evidence (from literally all round the world) to a fantastic and unlikely burst of exploration is more or less ridiculous.

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Agreed.

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CNN.com has now picked up the story and has a poll about it.

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Long, long before.

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Columbus made four voyages to the New World. (I am a diehard "the Vikings were there first" advocate, aside from being a diehard "there were people living there before the Europeans 'discovered' it" advocate, but I do agree that Columbus's landing actually changed things, which the Vikings, Chinese, or whoever did not.)

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I didn't post the link as definitive evidence. It was just a very broad list of evidence to consider. I just meant to say the map was not isolated evidence.

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Before the Chinese? Or did you just mean before Columbus which I think is not in dispute.

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NPR had a story about it this afternoon. Many are saying it's bogus. A Chinese historian who specializes in that time period was interviewed and he says that the map has too much of a European look:
California being detached (aparently a common occurace in European maps at the time)
Two hemispheres
Some of the phrases used on it are more Eurpoean than Oriental and/or were not in-use during the timeframe it was suppose to have been made.
It also doesn't match the style of any of Mo Yi Tong's (or was it Zheng He) other maps.

Crud, I can't remember which program it was, otherwise I'd post a link to the audio.