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Ancient Map Suggests Chinese Seamen Were 1st Round The World

Saturday, January 21, 2006
THE brave seamen whose great voyages of exploration opened up the world are iconic figures in European history. Columbus found the New World in 1492; Dias discovered the Cape of Good Hope in 1488; and Magellan set off to circumnavigate the world in 1519. However, there is one difficulty with this confident assertion of European mastery: it may not be true.
It seems more likely that the world and all its continents were discovered by a Chinese admiral named Zheng He, whose fleets roamed the oceans between 1405 and 1435. His exploits, which are well documented in Chinese historical records, were written about in a book which appeared in China around 1418 called "The Marvellous Visions of the Star Raft".
In Beijing and London, fresh and dramatic evidence is to be revealed to bolster Zheng He's case. It is a copy, made in 1763, of a map, dated 1418, which contains notes that substantially match the descriptions in the book. "It will revolutionise our thinking about 15th-century world history," says Gunnar Thompson, a student of ancient maps and early explorers.
read this amazing article...
5:49 PM :: ::
1 Comments:
  • Portuguese are allways connected with discovery.Bartolomeu Dias was one of our great navigators out there.Lots of portuguese died trying to pass to the other side of Cape of Good Hope, headind to India.I guess they were right...where is hope,there's strenght.

    By Blogger Vasco Coelho, at Friday, February 03, 2006 1:10:00 AM  
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