Map Proof Chinese Discovered America?
National Geographic News
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Antiquities collector Liu Gang unveiled a map in Beijing on Monday, saying it proves that Chinese seafarer Zheng He discovered America more than 70 years before Christopher Columbus set foot in the New World.
The map depicts all of the continents, including a small Australia, a roughed-out North America, and Antarctica. An inscription identifies the map as a copy made in 1763 of an original drawn in 1418. If verified, that date would coincide with the voyages of Zheng He, an admiral in the Ming dynasty's imperial navy.
Zheng is known to have sailed as far as Africa between 1405 and 1433. A lab in New Zealand is radiocarbon-dating a scrap of the map's bamboo paper to determine its age.
Jan 18, 2006
National Geographic News
____________________
Antiquities collector Liu Gang unveiled a map in Beijing on Monday, saying it proves that Chinese seafarer Zheng He discovered America more than 70 years before Christopher Columbus set foot in the New World.
The map depicts all of the continents, including a small Australia, a roughed-out North America, and Antarctica. An inscription identifies the map as a copy made in 1763 of an original drawn in 1418. If verified, that date would coincide with the voyages of Zheng He, an admiral in the Ming dynasty's imperial navy.
Zheng is known to have sailed as far as Africa between 1405 and 1433. A lab in New Zealand is radiocarbon-dating a scrap of the map's bamboo paper to determine its age.
Jan 18, 2006
