Re: The Chinese Seem To Have Their Own "Vinland Map"


PaPaPeng wrote:
> We must thank
> On 16 Jan 2006 14:32:16 -0800, dweller@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> for the update below as posted to social.culture.china.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> On the "Overall Map of the Geography of All Under Heaven" and Zheng
> He's Fleets
> by
> Gong Ying-yan of the Ningbo Institute of Technology, Zhejiang
> University
> (Written 15 Jan 2006) (
> (Chinese original at:
> http://bbs.omnitalk.org/alumni/messages/28967.html)
> (Draft translation by Geoff Wade 16 January 2006)
> (Text)
> 2005 marks the 600th anniversary of the first voyage to the Western
> Ocean by Zheng He, and many people both within and outside China have
> employed various forms to commemorate this great achievement in global
> navigational history. Of course, in this, not everyone's aims have
> been
> the same. Abroad, the retired British commander Gavin Menzies in his
> book "1421: the Year China Discovered the World" suggested that Zheng
> He's fleets had carried out the first circumnavigation of the world.
> His views were responded to by many people who were not very sure of
> their facts and were also subject to criticism by some scholars. After
> a number of critics had shown through clear historical facts that
> Menzies viewpoint was completely mistaken, at the end of 2005, someone
> advised that a recently-discovered ancient Chinese map could prove
> Menzies' claims and proclaimed that "history should be rewritten to
> show that Zheng He's fleets were the first to discover the entire
> world!"
> ?http://huangzhangjin.blogchina.com/3880436.html?
>
> It was learned that this map, named "Overall Map of the Geography of
> all under Heaven" had on its left panel the characters "Copied in the
> second month of spring in the kui-wei year of the Qian-long reign
> (1763) from a map of the barbarians from all under Heaven who offer
> tribute to the Court of the 16th year of Yong-le reign of the Ming
> dynasty, drawn by Mo Yi-tong." That is to say, this map was drawn by
> someone named Mo Yi-tong in 1763, and it was partially based on a "map
> of the barbarians from all under Heaven who offer tribute to the
> Court"
> drawn in the 16th year of the Yong-le reign (1418) during the Ming
> dynasty. The map has the following notation: "Those annotations
> without
> red borders are not from the original map." This means that all those
> with red borders were from the original "map of the barbarians from
> all
> under Heaven who offer tribute to the Court". On the "Overall map of
> the Geography of all under Heaven" there are found the words: "In the
> 13th year of the Yong-le reign (1415), I followed the senior envoy,
> the
> eunuch director Ma San-bao, and others to Bengal and other barbarian
> lands all the way to Hormuz and such countries, to read the royal
> proclamations and confer rewards. In the 16th year (1418), I returned
> to the capital." As these words have a red border, it can be assumed
> that these were on the original "map of the barbarians from all under
> Heaven who offer tribute to the Court". The words "I followed the
> senior envoy, the eunuch director Ma San-bao, and others to Bengal and
> other barbarian lands all the way to Hormuz and such countries, to
> read
> the royal proclamations and confer rewards" certainly refer to Zheng
> He's voyages to the Western Ocean. The "map of the barbarians from all
> under Heaven who offer tribute to the Court" was thus seemingly drawn
> on the basis of Zheng He's voyages to the Western Ocean, and the
> "Overall map of the Geography of all under Heaven" copied the "map of
> the barbarians from all under Heaven who offer tribute to the Court".
> Thus, the "Overall map of the Geography of all under Heaven" reflected
> the scope of the activities of Zheng He in his voyages to the Western
> Ocean. What surprises people is that the "Overall Map of the Geography
> of all under Heaven" is "an almost complete world map", "including not
> only all the major continents (as well as the South Pole, the North
> Pole and Greenland), with red-bordered annotations on both the
> American
> and Australian continents." From this we can conclude that Zheng He's
> fleets truly did conduct a global circumnavigation. These were the
> basic claims of the person who revealed details of this map.
> This news attracted the attention of the global media and
> researchers,
> and we were all waiting to catch a glimpse of this ancient map, hoping
> that this newly-discovered and important historical source would
> powerfully promote the deeper development of Zheng He research. On 12
> January 2006, we finally had more news: The British journal "The
> Economist" had published a colour photo of this map. It noted that the
> map was going to be unveiled in Beijing and London on 16 January.
> Although the photograph of the "Overall Map of the Geography of all
> under Heaven" published in The Economist was not large, and the
> characters could not be clearly seen, the basic shape of the various
> continents of the globe could be observed very clearly. On closer
> examination, the map proved to be a great disappointment: Its origins
> lay certainly not in any Chinese map from the age of Zheng He, but
> rather in European world maps of the early 17th century.
> The "Overall Map of the Geography of all under Heaven" is a
> transversal
> projection world map, and we only have to have a glance through the
> many world maps published in Europe from the 1630s to the middle of
> the
> 1700s, such as the world maps of the family of the Dutchman Johan
> Blaeu, to easily see that this is completely copied from a European
> map. The only difference is that on the European maps, Asia is placed
> on the right side and America is situated on the left side, whereas on
> this map China is in the centre. We know that at the end of the 16th
> century, when Matteo Ricci was translating maps published in Europe
> into Chinese-language maps, such a rearrangement was made for the
> first
> time. (It needs to be pointed out here that people generally believe
> that Ricci made this change to accord with the Chinese view that China
> lay at the centre of the world. However, Ricci himself said that all
> countries in drawing their maps place their own country at the centre
> of the map). This way of drawing maps initiated by Ricci was followed
> by later missionaries who came to China, such as the "Complete map of
> the 10,000 countries" by Jules Aleni (1582-1649) and the "Complete Map
> of the Earth" by Francois Sambiasi (1582-1649). It became a model,
> extending even up until today.
> In 1760, three years before the "Overall Map of the Geography of all
> under Heaven" was drawn in 1763, the French missionary Michel Benoist
> (1715-1774) drew his "Complete Map of the Earth" as a present for the
> Qian-long emperor in commemorations of his 50 years on the throne.
> Somewhat earlier, the Belgian missionary Ferdinand Verbiest
> (1623-1688)
> had also drawn a "Complete Map of the Earth". These two maps spread
> quite widely and copies of them are still available to us today. Of
> these two world maps, that of Benoist copied the maps published in
> Europe exactly, with Asia on the right of the map and America on the
> left. However, the world map drawn by Verbiest was like the world map
> done by Ricci. The form of the "Overall Map of the Geography of all
> under Heaven" is identical with that of Verbiest's "Complete Map of
> the
> Earth", with the exception of some differences in the area of the two
> poles and Australia. This can only mean that the map on which the
> "Overall Map of the Geography of all under Heaven" was based was a
> more
> accurate European map later than Verbeist's.
> >From a cartographic point of view, there were three main preconditions
> for drawing a map like the "Overall Map of the Geography of all under
> Heaven". 1) There must be a belief that the world is a globe and not a
> flat plane. 2) In order to represent the globe as a flat plane world
> map, there needs to be knowledge of and methods for projection. 3)
> There must have been a very clear knowledge of the actual geographical
> situations of the various continents of the globe, or else they could
> not have been represented so accurately on the "Overall Map of the
> Geography of all under Heaven". In the history of Western cartography,
> we can find the progress of the development of these three
> preconditions. The "Overall Map of the Geography of all under Heaven"
> reflects the results of the development of European cartography, and
> particularly the major achievements following European overseas
> explorations and the development of cartography.
> Conversely, in the China of Zheng He's time, these three major
> preconditions did not exist. We only need to compare the "Overall Map
> of the Geography of all under Heaven" with the "Navigation Maps of
> Zheng He" to know this. No only in the time of Zheng he, but actually
> throughout China's history (excluding those maps influenced by Ricci
> and other Western missionaries), there is no map which portrays the
> world as a globe and projects this globe onto a flat plane. The
> traditional geographers in China could not produce a map like the
> "Overall Map of the Geography of all under Heaven". The map does not
> belong to an ancient Chinese cartographic tradition, but rather to a
> European cartographic tradition.
> Of course, some might at a stretch claim that even though in the
> extant
> Chinese texts we have not found precursors and successors of the
> "Overall Map of the Geography of all under Heaven", that this does not
> mean that there was no source for these in the past, and it is
> completely possible that these may all have been lost. And also that
> it
> is completely possible that soldiers who accompanied Zheng he's
> distant
> voyages might have included some geniuses who discovered extremely
> advanced map projection methods and drew these maps. And that the
> accuracy of the shape of the continents on the "Overall Map of the
> Geography of all under Heaven" shows that not only were Zheng He's
> fleets the first to circumnavigate the globe, but that they also
> conducted geo-surveys of a huge scale. As the "Overall Map of the
> Geography of all under Heaven" clearly states the "map of the
> barbarians from all under Heaven who offer tribute to the Court" on
> which it is based came from the actual voyages of Zheng He. Thus, the
> key here is to determine whether or not the "Overall Map of the
> Geography of all under Heaven" has any links with the Zheng He
> voyages.
> If this map clearly has links with the Zheng He voyages, then the
> scientific history of China and the rest of the world needs to be
> rewritten, as must even the final chapters of the history of human
> civilization. If the map is not linked with Zheng He, we cannot
> ascribe
> the map to Zheng He, and we can assign the account of Zheng He
> travelling around the globe to the realm of fairytale. In brief, if
> the
> 1418 map truly existed, Menzies' 1421 story of China discovering the
> world in 1421 will be supported!
> The "map of the barbarians from all under Heaven who offer tribute to
> the Court" on which the "Overall Map of the Geography of all under
> Heaven" was based no longer exists, and we have no knowledge of its
> original form. At the top of the "Overall Map of the Geography of all
> under Heaven" are the words: "Those annotations without red borders
> are
> not from the original map." This means that all those with red borders
> were from the original "map of the barbarians from all under Heaven
> who
> offer tribute to the Court". This is an essential pivot intimately
> tying together the "Overall Map of the Geography of all under Heaven",
> the "map of the barbarians from all under Heaven who offer tribute to
> the Court" and Zheng He. It is also the only thread for us if we want
> to resolve the crucial issues. Although the annotations which have
> been
> revealed so far are not numerous, we only need to take one example to
> be able to powerfully affirm that that important statement on the
> "Overall Map of the Geography of all under Heaven" that "Those
> annotations without red borders are not from the original map" is not
> correct, or at least show that some of those within red borders could
> not have been on any "map of the barbarians from all under Heaven who
> offer tribute to the Court". This example comes from a space between
> Asia and Europe and above there is an annotation within a red border.
> "The people in this place have deep-set, round eyes and wrap their
> head
> in a cloth. They have loose clothes and long trousers. When women go
> out, they must cover their faces, with offenders being punished." In
> eastern Europe, there is another annotation in a red border which
> notes: "The people here all worship God (shang-di) and their religion
> is called 'Jing'."
> Even those with only a little understanding of history will know
> that the term "shang-di", which is used by Chinese Christians as the
> name of God, appeared long ago in pre-Qin (pre 220 BCE) Chinese works.
> For example, it appears in the "Book of Odes" (Zhou-song: zhi-jing)
> At the end of the 16th century, after Matteo Ricci and other Western
> missionaries came to China, in order to propagate their religion to
> the
> Chinese, they had to find a Chinese term by which to translate the
> name
> for their highest power (in Latin: Deus). They investigated all sorts
> of possibilities, first using a phonetic representation -translating
> "Deus" as "Duo-si". However, it was difficult for Chinese people to
> accept this method of representation. After the missionaries became
> more familiar with Classical Chinese texts, they found some terms in
> the Confucian texts which were very suitable -"tian-zhu" (Lit: Lord of
> Heaven) and "shang-di" (Lit: The Emperor on High). In his "The Real
> Purport of the Lord of Heaven", Ricci clearly stated: "Our Lord of
> Heaven is the Shang-di of the ancient texts" and "Reading the ancient
> texts, one comes to understand that 'shang-di' and 'tian-zhu' are but
> different names for the one thing." Of course, what "shang-di" meant
> to
> Chinese people prior to the Qin dynasty (pre 200 BCE) and what it
> meant
> to the European Christians in using it to represent Deus, was
> completely different. That is to say, the use of the term "shang-di"
> to
> represent the Christian God began at the end of the 16th century and
> prior to this, the correlation between this term and this concept did
> not exist. The use of the term "shang-di" on the Eastern Europe
> portion
> of the "Overall Map of the Geography of all under Heaven" shows that
> this annotation could not have derived from a map of the period of
> Zheng He. During the Tang dynasty, when the Nestorian sect of
> Christianity entered China (in the 7th century CE), the Chinese called
> the religion the "Jing religion" In the 9th century, when Emperor
> Wu-zong (814-846 CE) of the Tang dynasty persecuted Buddhists,
> Nestorianism was also harshly attacked and it gradually withered away.
> During the Yuan dynasty (1206-1368 CE), Christianity in China was
> called the "Ye-li-ke-wen" (Mongol term: Erkeun or Arkaim) religion. It
> was only in about 1625, when the "Stele of the Spread of Da-qin
> (Eastern Roman Empire or Syria) Nestorianism in China" was discovered
> in Xi-an, that people first knew that Christianity had been in China
> during the Tang dynasty. After the discovery of this stele, it was
> given great attention by the Western missionaries in China as well as
> European scholars and a great amount of research was conducted upon it
> because it proved the long-term existence of Christianity in China.
> That is to say, the identification of Nestorianism as a form of
> Christianity was something which happened after 1625. At the time of
> Zheng He, Nestorianism had long ceased to exist, and certainly no-one
> knew that the Nestorianism of the Tang dynasty was a form of
> Christianity. This proves that the annotation "The people here all
> worship God (shang-di) and their religion is called 'Jing'" found on
> the "Overall Map of the Geography of all under Heaven" could only have
> been created after 1625, and certainly could not have come from the
> age
> of Zheng He.
> The note on the "Overall Map of the Geography of all under Heaven"
> says that "Those annotations without red borders are not from the
> original map". However, through our analysis of the annotation "The
> people here all worship God (shang-di) and their religion is called
> 'Jing'", we have shown that the suggestion that this was from the
> original map cannot be accurate. Thus there are annotations in red
> borders on the "Overall Map of the Geography of all under Heaven"
> which
> actually did not come from any "map of the barbarians from all under
> Heaven who offer tribute to the Court" of the Zheng He period, but are
> instead from some time after the end of the 16th century. The
> statement
> "Those annotations without red borders are not from the original map"
> on the "Overall Map of the Geography of all under Heaven" is not
> something which can be believed. If the "Overall Map of the Geography
> of all under Heaven" was directly copied by Mo Yi-tong from an
> original
> "map of the barbarians from all under Heaven who offer tribute to the
> Court", the annotation "Those annotations without red borders are not
> from the original map" shows that Mo Yi-tong was deceitful. If Mo
> Yi-tong was just copying a "map of the barbarians from all under
> Heaven
> who offer tribute to the Court" drawn by someone else, then the
> annotation "Those annotations without red borders are not from the
> original map" would have been added by that person and Mo Yi-tong was
> deceived. To sum up, the annotation "The people here all worship God
> (shang-di) and their religion is called 'Jing'" is a cast-iron proof
> that the "Overall Map of the Geography of all under Heaven" has
> nothing
> to do with Zheng He. The sub-text of the statement is that
> Christianity
> is a belief in various parts of the world and China should accept
> Christianity as its religion. Such an idea would certainly have come
> from the pen of a European missionary.
> We can see in the few annotations on the "Overall Map of the Geography
> of all under Heaven" which have been revealed the vestiges of European
> missionaries in China. On the west coast of America, there is an
> annotation which reads: "The local people of this place have black-red
> skin and on their head and at their waist they wear feathers. They are
> practiced in cannibalism." One just has to look at Aleni's "World
> Atlas" ( "Zhi-fang wai-ji" (of 1623 -gw) which notes of North America
> that "The men and women all wear feathers and capes of tiger and bear
> fur" of look at the "Map of the Complete Geography of all Under
> Heaven"
> where it is noted on the southern part of Africa that "The skin of
> the people here is the colour of black lacquer, their teeth are white,
> their lips red and their hair curly." Or one can look at Aleni's
> "World
> Atlas" where it is noted that "There are many countries here. The
> people are all of variants of black colour. As you move northwards,
> they become lighter, and as you move southwards they become darker,
> with some even the colour of lacquer. However, their teeth and eyes
> are
> extremely white. Here, as in Verbeist's (1623-1688) "Illustrated
> Explanation of Geography", one can see similar types of descriptions.
> Our analysis of the "Overall Map of the Geography of all under
> Heaven" indicates that it is in the form of a European map, with
> annotations similar to those of the Western missionaries who came to
> China. There is no evidence of anything to do with Zheng He. We
> believe
> that, following the complete unveiling of the "Overall Map of the
> Geography of all under Heaven", this assessment will be completely
> verified.
> Carbon 14 dating can only determine the age of the ink and paper.
> If
> this is indeed a map from the Qian-long period, it will be good news
> as
> many maps from that time have been destroyed by natural and man-made
> disasters. The non-historical nature of the annotations within red
> borders cannot but cause us to have grave doubts about this map. The
> map not only reflects the influence of Western culture on China after
> the great geographical discoveries, but also a proof that only a very
> few advanced Chinese people studied Western culture at that time. In
> the long stream of Chinese history, what is evident by its lack is
> this
> spirit of actively studying those cultures which are different from
> ours. If we use this valuable map to weave a modern fairy-tale about
> "Zheng He discovering the world" it will be a violation of the real
> significance of this map, contrary to the spirit of Zheng he's voyages
> to the Western Ocean and also contrary to the global trends of our
> times.

And the New York Times seems to have joined the skeptics with testimony
from Gong Yingyan, a historian at Zhejiang University and a leading map
expert, argues that the map is too full of anachronisms to date from
the 15th century.

The map's Chinese notes about the cultures, religious and racial
features of people in the continents of the world also contain
vocabulary that would have been unfamiliar to a reader in the early
15th century, he said. He cited the term the map uses for the Western
God, which he said was not used until after the Jesuits arrived in
China in the 16th century.

"I had high hopes when I first heard about the existence of such a
map," Mr. Gong said. "But I can see now that it is an entirely ordinary
map that proves nothing."


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/17/international/asia/17map.html?pagewanted=print

January 17, 2006
Who Discovered America? Zheng Who?
By JOSEPH KAHN

BEIJING, Jan. 16 - A prominent Chinese lawyer and collector unveiled an
old map on Monday that he and some supporters say should topple one of
the central tenets of Western civilization: that Europeans were the
first to sail around the world and discover America.

The Chinese map, which was drawn in 1763 but has a note on it saying it
is a reproduction of a map dated 1418, presents the world as a globe
with all the major continents rendered with an exactitude that European
maps did not have for at least another century, after Columbus, Da
Gama, Magellan, Dias and others had completed their renowned
explorations.

But the map got a cool reception from some Chinese scholars and seems
unlikely to persuade skeptics that Chinese seamen were the first to
round the world.

Liu Gang, a partner in a well-known Beijing law firm and an amateur
historian, said Monday that he bought the map for $500 in a Shanghai
book store in 2001 and only subsequently discovered its value. He said
he had consulted scholars in the field and had done extensive research
of his own before deciding to present his findings to the public.

"The main issue is not the map itself," he said at a news conference.
"It is the potential of the information in the map to change history."

At issue are the seven voyages of Zheng He, whose ships sailed the
Pacific and Indian Oceans from 1405 to 1433. Historical records show
that he explored Southeast Asia, India, the Persian Gulf and the east
coast of Africa, using navigational techniques and ships that were far
ahead of their time.

But a small group of scholars and hobbyists, led by Gavin Menzies, a
former British Navy submarine commander, argue that Zheng He traveled
much farther than most Chinese and Western scholars say. Notably, Mr.
Menzies claims that Zheng He visited America in 1421, 71 years before
Columbus arrived there.

His 2003 book, entitled "1421: The Year China Discovered America"
(William Morrow/HarperCollins), laid out extensive but widely disputed
evidence that Zheng He sailed to the east coast of today's United
States in 1421 and may have left settlements in South America.

Mr. Menzies has welcomed Mr. Liu's map as evidence that his theory is
correct, and the two have cooperated in efforts to demonstrate its
authenticity. Strictly speaking, Mr. Liu credits Zheng He with having
navigated and charted the Americas at least several years before Mr.
Menzies says he sailed there, though both say that is a minor
contradiction.

Zheng He's achievements have been the subject of speculation for years,
partly because much of the historical record was destroyed when later
Chinese emperors changed their minds about the wisdom of connecting
with the outside world. Last year, China's Communist government
commemorated the 600th anniversary of Zheng He's better known voyages,
but Beijing has not actively promoted the idea that he sailed far
beyond Asian and African shores.

If the map genuinely dates to 1418, it reveals knowledge of longitude
and latitude and the basic shape of the world, including the fact that
it is round, that could not have come from European sources and could
have been derived only from Zheng He's voyages, Mr. Liu says.

He referred to 15th-century books and memorial inscriptions and
16th-century maps that credit earlier Chinese discoveries among a
variety of indirect evidence to support his thesis.

But Mr. Liu acknowledged that he had no hard evidence of the existence
of a 1418 map beyond the word of the mapmaker who said he made the copy
in the late 18th century, a time when all of its cartographical
achievements would have been commonplace.

Gong Yingyan, a historian at Zhejiang University and a leading map
expert, argues that the map is too full of anachronisms to date from
the 15th century.

He said, for example, that Chinese cartographers did not use the style
of projection seen in Mr. Liu's map - the rendering of a
three-dimensional globe on a flat sheet - until after Europeans
introduced that technique to the Chinese much later.

The map's Chinese notes about the cultures, religious and racial
features of people in the continents of the world also contain
vocabulary that would have been unfamiliar to a reader in the early
15th century, he said. He cited the term the map uses for the Western
God, which he said was not used until after the Jesuits arrived in
China in the 16th century.

"I had high hopes when I first heard about the existence of such a
map," Mr. Gong said. "But I can see now that it is an entirely ordinary
map that proves nothing."

.

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