Rants and Ramblings: random commentary about culture, media, politics, technology and whatnot.

historical note

This week’s Economist includes an interesting report about a world map purportedly drawn by Chinese mariners in the early fifteenth century, predating Christopher Columbus by several decades. (“China beat Columbus to it, perhaps” - 01/12/06)

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”.

Next week, 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.

This story actually fits quite well with a book I’m reading, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen, which Megan recommended to me when she and Mike visited last month. The book, which is about omissions and inaccuracies in popular high school history textbooks, has a whole chapter about the “discovery” of the Americas and mariners who may have arrived before Columbus.

In one of my grade school social studies classes (I don’t remember if it was 7th grade or 10th), my teacher picked some of us to play the part of some of these early “discoverers,” dressing up and arguing our case to the rest of the class. Dressed in an oversized brown bathrobe, I played the Irish monk Saint Brendan, who, according to legend, may have travelled to North America in the 500s.