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This recently uncovered Chinese map, made in 1763 and claimed by its creator to be based on a 1418 Chinese map, suggests that medieval China had extensive knowledge of the Americas and Antarctica - The Economist, January 12, 2006

The 1421 hypothesis of Chinese contact with the Americas originates from former British Royal Navy submarine commander Gavin Menzies. In his book, 1421: The Year China Discovered The World (first published in 2002) Menzies suggests that during the Ming Dynasty era from 1421 to 1423, ships commanded by the Chinese captains Zhou Wen (周聞), Zhou Man (周滿), Yang Qing (楊慶) and Hong Bao (洪保), in the fleet of Emperor Zhu Di's (朱棣) Admiral Zheng He (鄭和), travelled to many parts of the world.

According to Menzies, their discoveries include Australia, New Zealand, the Americas (well before Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic), Antarctica, the northern coast of Greenland, and the Northeast Passage. The knowledge of these discoveries has been lost, Menzies argues, because the Mandarins (administrators) of the Emperor's court took a strict line on new adventures because of the ruinous costs to the Chinese economy. A year later, his successor (son), the Hongxi Emperor, then forbade making new voyages, and his advisors hid or destroyed all accounts of Zheng He's voyages.

The 1421 hypothesis has proven unpopular among scholars. It proposes a revolutionary interpretation of established historical opinion but has been criticized for providing inadequate proof, largely relying on contested documents.

Method

Menzies bases his story on alleged Chinese shipwrecks, old Chinese and European maps, a translation of a Chinese inscription set up by Zheng He, surviving Chinese literature from the time, and accounts written by navigators such as Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan. Menzies also claims to believe that unexplained structures such as the Newport Tower and the Bimini Road were constructed by Zheng He's men.

Maps

Menzies claims the Kangnido map (1402) (above) seems to describe the entirety of the Old World, from Europe and Africa in the west, to Korea and Japan in the east, with an oversized China in the middle.

Menzies says one of the inscriptions on the Fra Mauro map (1459) relates the travels of an Asian junk deep into the Atlantic Ocean around 1420.

Several maps were used by Menzies:

The Kangnido map (混一疆理歷代國都之圖 or 疆理圖) (1402), which Menzies says indicates an extensive geographical knowledge of the Old World (and particularly of the contour of the African continent) by Eastern Asian countries, even before the time of Zheng He's expeditions.
The Pizzigano map (1424)
The Fra Mauro map (1459), which shows a general understanding of the masses of Africa and Asia, even before Europeans had sailed around Africa. According to him, the coasts had already been charted by Arab or Chinese sailors. The Fra Mauro map also relates an expedition by an "Indian" ship into the Atlantic around 1420. "India" meaning Asia in 15th century Europe, and the ship being called a "Junk (Zoncho in the original), Menzies suggests the ship was a Chinese ship:

"About the year of Our Lord 1420 a ship, what is called an Indian junk (lit. "Zoncho de India", "India" meaning Asia in 15th century Europe), on a crossing of the Sea of India towards the Isle of Men and Women (close to Socotra), was diverted beyond the Cape of Diab (Cape of Good Hope), through the Green Isles, out into the Sea of Darkness (Atlantic Ocean) on a way west and southwest. Nothing but air and water was seen for 40 days and by their reckoning they ran 2,000 miles and fortune deserted them. When the stress of the weather had subsided they made the return to the said Cape of Diab in 70 days and drawing near to the shore to supply their wants the sailors saw the egg of a bird called roc." (Fra Mauro map, Inscription 10, A13).

Gavin Menzies suggests that the southern landmass is indeed the Antarctic coastline and was based on earlier Chinese maps. According to Menzies, Admiral Hong Bao charted the coast over 70 years before Columbus as part of a larger expedition under the famous Chinese explorer and admiral Zheng He to bring the world under China's tribute system.

The Johannes Schöner globe (One was made in 1515 and another in 1520)
The Jean Rotz map (1542)
The Wu Pei Chi (Wu Bei Zhi; 武備志) map (redrawn after Zheng He's maps in 1628)
The Vinland map, redrawn in 15th Century from a 13th century original.

Also, the De Virga world map (1411-1415) has been presented on Gavin Menzies's 1421 website as new evidence of the propagation of eastern cartographic know-how before the European Age of Discovery.

Other evidence

Additional supporting evidence given by Menzies includes:

DNA studies purportedly showing "recent" DNA flow from China to indigenous people of North & South America, Australia, New Zealand, etc.
A drawing of an animal in a book reportedly published in China in 1430 showing what Menzies claims is an armadillo, an animal found only in the New World.
Bananas and rice plantations were reportedly seen along the banks of the Amazon by Francisco de Orellana, 1541.
Reported indications of horses, flightless ducks and Asiatic pigs possibly in the New World prior to Columbus's arrival.
Carved stones with what Menzies claims is Asian writing found in places such as the Cape Verde islands, South America and New Zealand.
Artifacts such as Chinese porcelain and Chinese jade found in the Americas which Menzies claims date back before the arrival of Europeans.
Cases of some diseases, such as smallpox, reportedly appearing before the arrival of Europeans.
Seeming linguistic similarities with the Chinese language of place names in Peru and Chile.
Menzies cites many accounts of European explorers such as Sir Francis Drake, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and João Rodrigues Cabrilho who arrived in the New World to find Chinese settlements and the wrecks of Chinese junks already there.

Also quoted are the accounts of Bartolomé de las Casas, according to which two dead bodies that looked like Indians were found on Flores (Azores). De las Casas said he found that fact in Columbus' notes, and it was one of the reasons that led Columbus to assume India was on the other side of the ocean.

Criticism

Menzies' hypotheses have found little support among mainstream historians. Robert Finlay: "Examination of the book's central claims reveals they are uniformly without substance." ^[1] John E. Wills: "These myriad flaws do not make Menzies' book completely useless to teachers of world history. Rather, it might be used to teach students about the use and misuse of historical evidence." ^[2]

The 1421 hypothesis is based on some documents of debatable provenance (the Piri Reis map, the Vinland map) and on original interpretation of accepted documents (Fra Mauro map, de las Casas) and archaeological findings. Critics argue^{[citation needed]} that the cartographic evidence admits of much more straightforward explanations than those given by Menzies, while his archaeological evidence is sometimes extremely dubious and in some cases demonstrably incorrect.

Critics question why the alleged great voyages of 1421 in Menzies' account managed to touch every corner of the world except Europe, where a record of their occurrence would likely have been made and maintained. Given the fact that Chinese-European contact existed for well over three centuries by the 15th century, it is difficult to understand why nothing of these voyages can be found in the historical record. Menzies has provided scant evidence of any such visit, simply alluding to vague European contact — but contact between the two cultures dates to the Renaissance and does not depend upon any large-scale sea travel.^{[citation needed]}

Critics also maintain that the linguistic evidence cited by Menzies is questionable. It is well known that one can easily find similarities between words taken from any pair of languages purely by chance, so the short lists of resemblances cited by Menzies demonstrate nothing. Furthermore, none of the alleged Chinese words listed by Menzies as similar to words of the same meaning in the Squamish language of British Columbia is a real Chinese word. Similarly, the presence of Chinese-speaking people in various locations in the Americas could be explained by immigration after Columbus, yet Menzies cites no evidence that these communities existed prior to Columbus.

Menzies' critics note that throughout the book he displays a lack of chronological control. They claim many true but irrelevant facts are included presumeably to confuse the reader. In other cases, they say mistranslations provide a source of supposed relevant facts e.g. the sale of the spice mace to the crew of Magellan's ship in the Philippines becomes evidence for maize having crossed the Pacific before Magellan. ^{[citation needed]}

Another criticism is that Menzies chose not to consult the most obvious source of information on the Zheng He voyages, namely the Chinese records from the period themselves. Menzies attempts to deflect this criticism by asserting that all Chinese documents relating to the travels of Zheng He were destroyed by Mandarins during a regime change while the sailors were away. However, while it is possible that some records may have been destroyed, extensive records remained, including the account by Ma Huan published in 1433 and information in the Ming dynastic histories. These records have served as the basis for previous historical accounts of the Zheng He voyages, such as that by Louise Levathes.

Some critics have questioned Menzies' nautical knowledge, shiphandling skills and whether he has actually sailed the routes he has claimed, particularly while commanding HMS "Rorqual".

Menzies also misled people about his background as a China expert. On the dust jacket of 1421, Menzies states that he was born in China. In fact he was born in London.[3]

Australia

Given by Menzies as evidence of Chinese contact in Australia is the reported existence of stone structures in and around Sydney and Newcastle, Australia. These structures in fact do not exist, or if they do Menzies has failed to tell people where he found them. On page 203 of his book, Menzies writes of the 'Chinese' ruins in Bittangabee Bay. According to the commemorative association AOTM, these are more likely to be a structure built for the Imlay family in the 1840's than ancient Chinese. On page 220 there is the claim that "A beautiful carved stone head of the goddess Ma Tsu...is now in the Kedumba Nature Museum in Katoomba." In fact no such museum actually exists. There once was a curio stand in Katoomba called "Kedumba Nature Display" but it closed down in the 1980's. Later on in the book, Menzies recruits "a local researcher", Rex Gilroy, for his valuable discovery of a Chinese pyramid in Queensland the Gympie Pyramid. Menzies claims that the Gympie pyramid is "the most direct and persuasive evidence of the Chinese visits to Australia" (1421, p221). However, this is the same Rex Gilroy who at one time ran the "Kedumba Museum" and found the Chinese carved goddess Ma Tsu from the Chinese Fleets, a connection which Menzies fails to mention. Menzies also fails to mention that Gilroy himself used the Gympie Pyramid as evidence of the Egyptian discovery of Australia. (Rex Gilroy is also well known in Australia as the "father of Yowie (cryptid) research", Australia's Bigfoot, "discovering" foot prints etc.[4]) The Gympie Pyramid has been researched idependently and found to be part of a retaining wall built by an Italian farmer to stop erosion on a natural mesa on his property.)

Achievement

Whatever its historical merits, Menzies' book and the surrounding publicity has succeeded in raising awareness of Zheng He and the Ming Imperial Treasure Fleets, reaching a much broader audience than any previous work on the subject, in part through recent television documentaries on the History Channel.

References

^ Finlay, Robert, How Not to (Re)Write World History: Gavin Menzies and the Chinese Discovery of America, Journal of World History, Vol 15, No 2 (2004)
Levathes, Louise, When China Ruled the Seas: The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne, 1405-1433, Oxford University Press, 1997, trade paperback, ISBN 0-19-511207-5
Ma Huan,Ying-yai Sheng-lan, The Overall Survey of the Ocean's Shores (1433), translated from the Chinese text edited by Feng Ch'eng Chun with introduction, notes and appendices by J.V.G.Mills. White Lotus Press, reprint. 1970, 1997.
Menzies, Gavin (2003). 1421, The Year China Discovered America. New York: Morrow/Avon. ISBN 0-06-053763-9.
Menzies, Gavin (2002). 1421, The Year China Discovered the World. London: Bantam Press. ISBN 0-593-05158-0.
^ Wills, John E., book review, World History Connected, Vol 2, No 1 (2004)

External links

News stories

BBC News article: 'China map lays claim to Americas'
China beat Columbus to it, perhaps by The Economist, January 12, 2006
"Speculation That Chinese Explorer Discovered America", Windows Audio from Public Radio International The World program, January 17, 2006
Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Four Corners Program Transcript of "Junk History"
"The Independent article: Hero of the Ming Dynasty: The man who mapped the world"

Debunking sites

"1421: A Chinoise history"· XPOFerenS
1421: The Year the Chinese DID NOT Discover America: A Tabulation of the Evidence Against Gavin Menzies
Gavin's Fantasy Land
1421 exposed - academic website criticising Menzies' theories
Critique of linguistic claims
Update on critique of linguistic claims
Junk History, Four Corners, ABC Television, Quentin McDermott, Broadcast: July 31, 2006.
Zheng He in the Americas and Other Unlikely Tales of Exploration and Discovery, CSICOP: September 2004

@@ Line 53: / Line 53: @@
 Critics also maintain that the linguistic evidence cited by Menzies is [http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000409.html questionable]. It is well known that one can easily find similarities between words taken from any pair of languages purely by chance, so the short lists of resemblances cited by Menzies demonstrate nothing. Furthermore, none of the alleged Chinese words listed by Menzies as similar to words of the same meaning in the [[Squamish]] language of British Columbia is a real Chinese word. Similarly, the presence of Chinese-speaking people in various locations in the Americas could be explained by immigration after Columbus, yet Menzies cites no evidence that these communities existed prior to Columbus.
+Menzies' critics note that throughout the book he displays a lack of chronological control. They claim many true but irrelevant facts are included presumeably to confuse the reader. In other cases, they say mistranslations provide a source of supposed relevant facts e.g. the sale of the spice mace to the crew of Magellan's ship in the Philippines becomes evidence for maize having crossed the Pacific before Magellan. {{fact}}
 Another criticism is that Menzies chose not to consult the most obvious source of information on the Zheng He voyages, namely the Chinese records from the period themselves. Menzies attempts to deflect this criticism by asserting that all Chinese documents relating to the travels of Zheng He were destroyed by Mandarins during a regime change while the sailors were away. However, while it is possible that some records may have been destroyed, extensive records remained, including the account by [[Ma Huan]] published in 1433 and information in the Ming dynastic histories. These records have served as the basis for previous historical accounts of the Zheng He voyages, such as that by Louise Levathes.