So, did China discover the World in 1421?

Great Debates
1

It’s a best seller and an airport book now enough of you have read it, Gavin Menzies’ “1421 - The Year China Discovered the World”.

Overall, were you convinced that the essential thesis is true? Namely that “lost was the knowledge that Chinese ships had reached America seventy years before Columbus and circumnavigated the globe a century before Magellan. They had also discovered Antarctica, reached Australia three hundred and fifty years before Cook and solved the problem of longitude three hundred years before the Europeans…”

I’ve posted this to Great Debates as I suspect there is no factual answer - bits will be possible, other bits not. If I am wrong and this belongs in General Questions then please move it Mr Mod.

Some of the evidence that Menzies’ puts in front of the reading seems pretty good, a lot of it seems OK but I do not feel confident the judge as I suspect I am hearing only half the story, but enough of it just feels wrong to me.

He has set up a web site (http://www.1421.tv/) but there, as in too much of the book for my liking, there is not a real balanced summary of the evidence for and against and then a conclusion but only evidence for - with many claims for it to be “overwhelming”. The website Q&A and evidence sections are even worse - no questions even hinting at evidencial problems that have to be overcome.

I started this started in ***Were The Arawak Indians Polynesians? ** * (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=235232) where some of the lines of evidence (DNA analysis, plant and animal species spread) overlap with the 1421 thesis.

The key bits of evidence I found convincing were the chart evidence and the strange isolated China-Peru linkages. Charts available in Europe with undiscovered coastlines and islands already marked on them - in the Americas, Southern Africa, Antarctica and Australia. Clearly someone had been there before and the Chinese sound a good bet.

The carved stones, Chinese “observation platform” pyramids, wreck and debris evidence I found inconclusive but remain open minded to fresh evidence.

Unconvincing I found, was that enough shipwrecked settlers, sailors, craftsmen, concubines etc could have made the DNA or species introduction impact, or cultural or skill transfer impact alleged out of one voyage - event of four or five different fleets totalling 800+ vessels. It sound impossible.

Finally with all this spectacular navigation and with the stated aim of bringing the whole world into the Chinese tribute system - the voyages as Menzies has them almost goes out of their way to avoid Europe the one place outside S and SE Asia where they **knew ** were other developed (semi-developed as Menzies would have it) countries. Sounds fishy?

Your pros and cons on various elements of evidence

2

I haven’t read the book, but I know the theory isn’t very well regarded by historians. For one thing, we do have some records of Zheng He’s voyages…logs written by his crew. So we know he went to Saigon, went through the straits of Malacca and set up a base on Java, went to Calcutta, then to Hormuz and Jiddah (and then to Mecca, where he did Haj), and then to Mogadishu. We know he sailed down the coast of east Africa and brought back a zebra and a giraffe. So, we have records of him doing all this stuff, but no records of him going to America.

3

An earlier thread on Menzies:

Zheng-He’s voyages were extremely impressive, but the critical consensus on Menzies’ work, as the good Captain noted, has not been overwhelmingly favorable.

  • Tamerlane
4

Tough to discover what wasn’t previously covered.

5

Actually, this is one of the clearly weaker arguments. The maps that “show” Antarctica and the Americas are generally 20th/21st century wishful thinking. For example, the most famous of these is that of Piri Reis map (1513) that (some wishful thinkers claim) “shows” a section of Antarctica shortly after the Spanish and Portuguese explorations down the coast of South America. Yet, any serious analysis of the Piri Reis map demonstrates that the section of “Antarctica” that is claimed is actually the Eastern coast of what is now Argentina (a section of land that was known to Europeans at the time the map was created) as distorted by the expected errors that would be introduced on a portolano projection (particularly when mapped by people who could not reckon longitude).

6

Just to add a bit to this unlikely chinese voyage to America… many times I have heard reference to “secret” maps and voyages by portuguese and spanish explorers. Basically some early voyages might have mapped out antartica and even South America but kept these secret to avoid competitors exploiting these new lands. This might explain maps too good for their time.

7

I’ve read they went to Afric and brought back giraffes. Can’t understand why they never colonized Australia. Most of the culture was too inward looking.

8

There was no domestic or international pressure for establishing colonies.

9

There have been hundreds of instances in modern history where someone has said that [insert culture here] discovered the Americas. I do know tht Chinese artifacts and Japanese artifacts have been discovered on the West Coast of the Americas, as well as some other ancient anomalies that can just don’t belong.

Cite

10

18th Century clipper ships sending laundry to Japan and China had to carry ballast on the way back, you know. A 5th century piece of rock works as well as ballast in the 18th century as it does the 5th, and is more likely to be considered rubble at that point.

I believe I’m not kidding about the laundry.

11

This is fascinating. It is about metal clamps, made of some really bizarre and rare alloy, found in ancient temples and megaliths:

The whole site is pretty interesting, there are many other strange things in its Archaeology section.

(Apologies if this is all myth/hoax, I couldn’t find it debunked in any of the usual sources, eg Skepdic).