1418 map – Gavin Menzies’ presentation to Beijing Press Conference, March 23rd, 2006
Summary
The presentation will be in IX parts.
I – The Portuguese and Venetians both claim independently of each other that by 1428 the Doge had maps of the whole world and that Dom Pedro took copies to Portugal that year. Portuguese and Venetians knew the shape of the world before European voyages of exploration started. The Venetians claim the maps were based on Chinese ones brought to Venice by Marco Polo and Nicola da Conti. The Portuguese say they gave copies to their explorers.
II – Although these world map disappeared c. 1550, the fact that they once existed can be verified by a series of maps depicting the New World before Europeans reached those parts – notably the Pizzigano (Caribbean); Piri Reis (Antarctic); Cantino (Africa with accurate longitudes); Waldseemueller (Americas); Jean Rotz (Australia); Vinland Map (Greenland and Arctic). Collectively these maps show the whole world.
III – European explorers accept they were shown or possessed maps showing them the way to the new world. Columbus had a map of the Caribbean; Magellan of the way to and across the Pacific; Cabral and Dias of Brasil; da Gama of South Africa; Captain Cook of Australia. Someone mapped the whole world before Europeans.
IV – The world maps of Albertin di Virga and Waldseemueller. Those maps (c. 1419) and 1507 respectively are copies of the 1418 map. They show the whole world.
V – Chinese exploration and knowledge of the world in Zheng He’s era. Chinese astronavigation and cartographic techniques. The whole world appeared on separate Chinese records in Zheng He’s time – The 1418 map collates all knowledge onto one sheet of paper.
VI – The 1418 map is not a projection but a globe cut in half. [To be addressed by Liu Gang]
VII – Early European maps of the world published before European voyages of exploration are copies of the same globe cut in half but viewed from a different perspective.
(i) The 1418 map shows the globe with the viewers eye looking at China
(ii) Di Virga’s map with the eye looking at Alexandria.
(iii) The Doges palace with the eye looking at the Pacific.
(iv) The Cantino with the eye looking at Africa.
(v) The Pizzigano with the eye looking at the Atlantic.
(vi) Vinland with the eye looking at Greenland.
(vii) Waldseemueller with the eye looking at S America. Save for Waldseemueller none of these maps is a projection. They were all created by copying – from different perspectives what was on the same globe.
VIII – Summary of why the 1418 map cannot be a forgery.
IX – Summary of why the 1763 map cannot be a forgery.
Part I – the Portuguese and Venetians both claim – independently of each other – that by 1428 The Doge had maps of the whole world and that Dom Pedro took copies to Portugal that year.
“… In the yeere 1428, it is written that Dom Peter, the King of Portugal’s eldest sonne was a great traveler. He went into England… and to other places; and came home by Italie, taking Rome and Venice in his way; from whence he bought a map of the world and earth described. The Straight of Magellan was called in it the dragon’s tail…”
(Antonio Galvão – Hakluyt, 1601, p23)
“… It was told me by Francis de Sousa Tavares that in the yeere 1528, Dom Fernando, the king’s sonne and heire did show him a map which was found in the studie of the Alcobaza which had been made 120 yeeres before [viz 1408] which map did set forth all the navigation of the East Indies with the Cape of Boa Esperanca [Good Hope] according as our later maps have described it; whereby it appeared that in the ancient time there was as much discovered then now there is… ”
(Antonio Galvão, Hakluyt, p23)
Image 1 – The Venice World Map, Doge’s Palace (Salle de Mappe)
Image 2 – Roundel on map describing Nicolo da Conti input.
Image 3 – Roundel shows Marco Polo input.
Part II – Although these world maps have disappeared, the fact they once existed can be verified by a series of maps showing the New World before Europeans reached those parts viz
Image 4 – Pizzigano (Caribbean) 1424
Image 5 – Cantino (Florida) 1502
Image 6 – Cantino (Africa) 1502
Image 7 – Piri Reis (Antarctic and Patagonia) 1513
Image 8 – Jean Rotz (Australia) 1542
Image 9 – Vinland (Arctic and Greenland) c 1440
Image 10 – Waldseemueller (Americas) 1507
Together these maps show the whole world – as the Portuguese and the Venetians claimed.
Image 12 – Encarta or Google Earth eastern hemisphere
Image 13 – Encarta or Google Earth western hemisphere
Part III – European Explorers accept they were shown the way to the new World.
Columbus –
(a) Diary, 24 October, 1492 [describing how to reach Antilla]
“I should steer west south west to go there… and in the spheres which I have seen and the drawings of mappae mundi it is in this region…”
(b) Toscanelli to Columbus
“I notice your splendid and lofty desire to sail to the regions of the east [China] by those of the west, as is shown by the chart which I send you. Which would be better shown in the shape of a round sphere…”
Magellan
[When off S Patagonia and facing a mutiny] “…there was another strait which led out [to the Pacific] saying that he knew it well and had seen it in a marine chart of the king of Portugal which a great pilot and sailor named Martin of Bohemia had made.” [Pigafetta p 50].
Dias
[At first sighting the Cape of Good Hope] he “….came in sight of that great and famous cape concealed for so many centuries…”
Cabral’s expedition to Brazil
[Master João de Barros described Brazil on the first European expedition 1500]
“The lands might the king see represented on the Mappa Mundi which Pero da Bisagudo had”
João de Barros letter to King of Portugal 1 May 1500 quoted in Jaime Batalha Reis, Estudios Géográphicos y Históricos, Lisbon 1941, p286.
Part IVa
Albertin di Virga’s map of 1410-1419 and Zheng He’s integrated map of the world 1418.
Summary
This memo summarises the evidence for that Albertin di Virga met Admiral Zheng He’s fleet in Egypt in 1414. There he obtained a copy of Zheng He’s integrated map of the world which he copied. He substituted his own 1409 map of the Mediterranean for those parts on the Zheng He map. He also used Arab maps for depictions of North Africa and the Persian Gulf. Di Virga then published his map with these amendments c.1419. (Tai Peng Wang research)
Introduction Di Virga’s map.
Provenance
Mr Albert Figdor found this map in a second hand bookshop in 1911 in Srbrenica, a Bosnian town near Dubrovnik. He took it to the Austrian State University in Vienna (Austria then ruled Bosnia) where it was examined by the leading cartographer of the day, Professor Franz Von Wieser who authenticated the map in his thesis “Die Weltcarte Des Albertin De Virga (The world map of Albertin di Virga). The map was photographed and authenticated photographs were purchased by the Biblioteque Nationale Paris and by the Egyptian Collector, Prince Youssuf Kamal. Prince Kamal’s collection is now in the British Library where it can be seen in The Map Library at Tome IV Part III at page 1350.
Mr. Figdor decided to auction the map in 1932 but it was stolen and has never been recovered. The map was brought to public attention by Leo Bagrow in “The History of Cartography” in 1952, then again in the 1992 issue of Cartographica (vol 29 no.2) and once more by Dr. Gunnar Thompson in 1996 in his book “The Friar’s Map”. I am indebted to Dr. Thompson for bringing the map to my attention in 2003.
The enormous importance of di Virga’s map is that it shows the world from Greenland to Australia, from Siberia to South Africa, from Japan to the Azores before European voyages of exploration had started. Africa is shown with its correct shape before Europeans knew of it. The whole world is remarkably accurately drawn. Di Virga must therefore have copied the maps from some non-European party.
Zheng He’s integrated map of the world 1418
Provenance
In the spring of 2001, Mr. Liu Gang, a distinguished Chinese lawyer, purchased an original old world map written in Chinese in a second hand bookshop in Shanghai. The map is finely illustrated on bamboo paper with ink and colours. On the upper right hand corner of the map are six Chinese characters which mean “general chart of the integrated world”. A statement written by the map maker on the lower left hand corner of the map says “(this chart is) drawn by Mo Yi Tong, a subject (of Qing dynasty) in the year of 1763 by imitating a world chart made in 1418 showing the barbarians paying tribute (to Ming dynasty)”.
The left hand hemisphere of the map shows the world just as di Virga does – from Greenland to Australia, from Siberia to South Africa, from Japan to the Azores. It is centred on precisely the same place as Albertin di Virga’s map is centred – the Aral Sea. A photograph is shown below. (Image 14)
There appear to be two significant discrepancies between the two maps – the positions of Australia and the shape of Greenland. Both of these apparent discrepancies are analysed later.
Each map is now described in more detail
Di Virga 1419
Zheng He 1418
As copied in 1763
Circular world map centred on the Aral Sea on Parchment 69.6 x 44 cm, world map proper 41cm. Signed Albertin di Virga me fecit in Vinexia 141 – the last number of the date having been erased by a fold in the parchment. The map is centred in the Aral Sea. The map is in colour with the seas left white except for the red sea which is coloured in vermillion. Landmasses are coloured in yellow with islands a variety of colours. Mountains are greenish brown, lakes are blue and rivers brown.
Names of various locations are written in either red or black ink always inside a small box or cartouche.
Two Hemispheres, the western centred on the Aral Sea. The map is in colour with the seas blue. Landmasses are in burnt sienna with islands the same colour. Mountains are greenish brown, lakes are in blue and rivers greenish brown.
Names of locations shown on Zheng He’s maps are in black ink always inside a box or cartouche surrounded in red. Names not so enclosed were not on Zheng He’s map.
The similarity
Visually the maps are strikingly similar. Here is the comment of a leading expert on Albertin di Virga’s map, Dr Piero Falchetta, map librarian of the Correr and Marciano museums, Venice. When Dr. Falchetta delivered this speech in 1997, Zheng He’s map had not been discovered:
Partial Translation by Marcella Menzies of pages 5 to 9 of Dr Pierro Falchetta’s address entitled “ Carte Geografiche e cartografi a Venezia al tempo di Giovanni Caboto” (c.1497) – Toronto 1997.
….. “Bearing this in mind, it seems di Virga had access to information of Arabic or Chinese origin. But what source of information could it possibly have been? From stories of merchants and mariners? Or from maps and accounts of foreign travels?”
“Because the testimony is very uncertain, it is necessary to take a fresh look at a paragraph of Ramusio to which no one has paid much attention despite it appearing in Chinese documents.”
“This paragraph, which appears in his introduction to the 1583 edition of the ‘Milione’ gives information about some old charts which were situated in the monastery of the island of San Michele in Venice where Fra Mauro compiled his celebrated globe which we now call ‘Marciano’.
“Ramusio says that the Abbot of the Monastery of San Michele in Murano, the same Monastery where Fra Mauro lived and worked, had told him that Fra Mauro had copied his celebrated globe from a beautiful old Marine chart and from a globe which were brought from China by Marco Polo and that Marco Polo had annotated on this chart the towns and countries which he had visited. It is strange that this testimony of Ramusio which appears absolutely plausible has been greeted with such skepticism.
“The same Fra Mauro does not in fact refute this when he refers to navigation in Australasia.”
“But it is only after the publication by Fuchs in 1953 and Chang in 1970, about the very first news of Chinese Cartographic documents of the 13 and 14 hundreds, that Ramusio’s account becomes more credible.”
“The chart entitled ‘The Countries of the S.W. seas’ of Chu Ssu Pen compiled in 1320 (the copy which reached us thanks to the copy of Hung Ssien in the middle 1500s) shows in a summarized fashion that the Chinese cartographers (of the 13 and 1400s) had a precise knowledge of the shape of Africa. According to Chang, this knowledge was the fruit of continuous reports of the topography – coastal and internal – of Africa by merchants and mariners whom for centuries had frequent and extensive contact with cities alongside the Southern coast of China.
“The cartography of Chu Ssu Pen should therefore be based on information gleaned from Arabs for the Indian Ocean and Africa whilst descriptions of China were compiled from regional cartographic documents of the type that Marco Polo should have possessed – according to Ramusio.”
“So if I had to summarize, there were Chinese charts with an Arab input, documents which Marco Polo should have eventually brought home from China.
………” the di Virga globe is a document which remains isolated in its uniqueness particularly because the questions that di Virga’s globe poses were not developed by other Venetian cartographers in the 1400’s, and, then only partly by Fra Mauro….”
To, broadly summarize Dr. Falchetta, he postulates that di Virga obtained his information from Arabic and Chinese sources.
There now follows what, in my submission, were these “Chinese sources” that is Zheng He’s 1418 map. Zheng He inherited a considerable number if Kubilai Khan’s maps of the world which maps would have been available to Marco Polo. My comparison of Zheng He’s 1418 and Albertin di Virga’s maps goes anticlockwise – the Atlantic and West Africa; Indonesia, Philippines and W. Pacific; China; Japan; Manchuria and the Being Straits; Siberia; NE passage; & Greenland. Apparent differences – Australia and Greenland are discussed at the end.
Detailed comparisons
The Atlantic and West Africa
By 1418/1419 European voyages of exploration had just started. Madeira had been discovered in 1419/1420 but the Azores had not. The Azores are shown on both the 1418 and 1419 maps (di Virga) (and also on Kubilai Khan’s map the Kangnido – 1402). Sao Tome and Fernando Po (discovered by Europeans 1469) appear on di Virga but not Zheng He. They have Arabic names so I imagine di Virga got those from Arab maps. St. Helena and Ascension appear on both di Virga and Zheng He but were not found by Europeans for another 50 years. The Niger, Congo and Orange Rivers appear on both maps – more than 5 decades before Europeans reached them. In summary south of the Bight of Benin, I believe that di Virga took all his information from Zheng He’s map. (There are a number of Zheng He’s other maps showing that his fleets penetrated far further South – right down to the Weddell Sea).
The Indian Ocean
The first European ship to enter the Indian Ocean was da Gama’s in 1498 followed by Cabral and Dias. Madagascar and the Maldives appear on both di Virga and Zheng He’s maps – seventy years before Da Gama.
South East Asia
The Irrawaddy River and the island of Hainan appear on both maps. Australia appears on di Virga (Java Major) in its correct position relative to China but on Zheng He’s Australia appears far further east – an apparent longitude error of 35 degrees. Europeans did not reach Australia until two centuries later.
China
Di Virga’s map has a plethora of Chinese place names (Zaiton etc) in their correct position. Both maps show the yellow and Yangtse Rivers.
Japan
Both maps show Shikoku, Honshu, Hokkaido, and Sakhalin islands. The first European to reach Japan was Saavedra over a century later (1528). Zheng He’s fleets made frequent visits to Japan, Marco Polo did not.
Manchuria, the Bering Straits and Siberia / the North East Passage
Both maps show the Amur River, the Sea of Okhotsk, the Gulf of Anadyr. (First European Deznev 1648). Both show the River Ob emptying into the Kara Sea. Both show the Irtysh River to Khanty Mansisk. (The first European (Russian) settlement on the Ob was at Odorsk in 1595. A Cossacks brigade led by Yermak employed by the Stroganoff family reached the Irtysh in 1579 – they found Chinese settlements along the banks.)
Zheng He’s passage from Northern Europe to China and on to Australia and New Zealand?
The 1418 and 1419 maps show the NE passage clear of ice along its entire length. The old Chinese map attached to Robin Lind’s email of 4th November 2005 found in the Library of Congress shows a “red route” passing from the Chukchi Sea through the Bering Straits to China.
At Fraser’s Island on the NE coast of Australia Brett Green and others have found the wrecks of large, very old Chinese junks and a quantity of Chinese jade jewellery buried nearby. Near the jewellery are buried old Pskov coins dated 1426 – 1434. Pskov, with Novgorod, was the most important city of Muscovy in the mid 15th century, this is evidence of trade between N Russia and Australia before1426. There is further extensive corroborative evidence that there were large Chinese settlements along the rivers Ob and Lena which the first Russian explorers found as they conquered Siberia.
The 1418 and 1419 maps show the Ob, Bering Straits (with St. Lawrence Island) and Australia. Only the 1418 map shows New Zealand (North, South and Chatham Islands.) There is extensive corroborative evidence (please see www.gavinmenzies.net ) of Zhou Man’s fleet being wrecked by a tsunami in New Zealand S. Island.)
The Northwest Atlantic and Greenland
Both the 1418 and 1419 maps show Spitsbergen, Franz Joseph Land, and Svalbad. Both maps show Greenland; di Virga’s has peculiar large wedged shaped piece of land containing Greenland, Iceland, the Faeroes, Orkneys and Shetlands. Greenland is discussed later.
Summary
Both di Virga and Zheng He’s maps depict the same eastern hemisphere of the world centered on the same place showing rivers from the Orange in S Africa to the Amur in Siberia ages before Europeans discovered them. The same Islands are depicted across the world from N Atlantic to S Pacific. Both maps were published before European voyages of exploration started. Di Virga’s map was a copy of the 1418 map with two apparent discrepancies – Australia and Greenland.
Australia
Di Virga’s map shows Australia in its correct position named ‘Java Major’ the name Marco Polo used for Australia (image 15). The 1418 map shows Australia apparently 35 degrees further east. (Images 26, 27, 28)
The 1418 map was taken from a globe (Image 27). The cartographer did not know how to project a globe onto a flat piece of paper so he chopped the globe in half (27) and (28):
This left Australia dangling in the gap between the two hemispheres so the cartographer then overlapped the two hemispheres (28) to show Australia. Pulling the two hemispheres apart again (27) shows Australia in its correct position as shown on di Virga’s map.
Greenland
Greenland is in the correct position on the 1418 map (Image 26). On di Virga’s there is a curious wedge shaped piece of land (15). This is because the cartographers of the 1418 map and di Virga’s map were both looking at globes. Di Virga’s cartographer viewed the globe with his eye looking at Alexandria (15). Rotating the globe NW to look at Greenland, his eye sees the Faeroes, Iceland and Greenland stretching out in a wedge shape from Norway (15A). This is what he draws.
In fact the two apparent discrepancies of Australia and Greenland are different ways of transposing from the same globe onto a flat piece of paper.
Part IVb – Waldseemueller’s maps (1507) and Zheng He’s integrated map of the world 1418.
Summary
The Americas shown on the Waldseemueller maps of 1507 have been copied from “Zheng He’s integrated map of the world 1418”.
The 1507 Waldseemueller maps and globes.
Waldseemueller produced a number of maps and globes at the Monastery of San Die in Lorraine in 1507. Today at least 4 copies exist – the most famous was acquired by the Library of Congress (LOC) Washington DC from the Waldburg-Woltegg family in Germany in 2003. It is in wood cut sections measuring some 8 foot by 4.5 feet. Other smaller maps are in the James Ford Bell Library; and in Germany; the most recent discovery was sold by Christies to a London dealer in June 2005. All four show the Americas – the first European maps to do so. There are small but significant differences of the depiction of South America on the four maps, in particular Christies version shows the Southern tip of Tierra del Fuego and corrects small latitude and longitude errors shown on the Library of Congress version – to be discussed later.
General structure of the Library of Congress version
The Eastern portion of the map from the Bight of Benin Eastwards incorporates the Martellus forgeries (1489) (described in ‘1421’) and is hence of no interest (Image 16 and 16a). The Western section shows North and South America bounded by the Pacific in the West and Atlantic in the East.
Importance of the Waldseemueller map.
The authenticity of the Library of Congress version and the fact that it was published in 1507 “has never been challenged and never will be” (Professor Carol Urness). The immense importance of the map is that it shows the Pacific coast of the Americas from about 55 degrees north to about 45 degrees south with the Rocky Mountains and the Andes drawn along the Pacific coast. These mountains cannot be seen from the Atlantic and so to draw them, ships must have sailed the Pacific coast before 1507 – that is before Magellan set sail (1519), before Balboa “discovered” the Pacific and before the first Europeans Cabrillo and Ferrello sailed along the Pacific coast of N America (1540s) clearly that “someone” was not European and either used massive fleets to survey 100 degrees of coastline or alternatively spent years doing so.
Difficulties in viewing Waldseemueller’s maps and globes.
None of the four maps and globes correspond precisely with each other. In particular the small globe in the 1507 L.O.C version does not tally with the map itself – the Americas have a different shape between one and the other (Image 16). Waldseemueller’s problem was that he was trying to convert what was on a globe (Christie’s version) onto a flat piece of paper (LOC version). He used a bizarre projection – heart shaped at the top, elliptical at the bottom. The bottom is extended at the tip of South Africa to accommodate the Martellus forgery (16a). Latitude scales vary all over the place – 10 degrees in the far north is more than 4 times 10 degrees of latitude at the equator. Longitude scales towards the N. Pole are one fifth the size they are near the equator. Longitude scales vary at the same latitude – African longitude being larger than America.
Revising Waldseemueller’s projection – from a flat piece of paper to a globe.
Waldseemueller’s prime meridian (360 degrees / 0 degrees) passes through the Canary Islands. I have used Greenwich as the prime meridian as that is what we are used to. This does no injustice to Waldseemueller as I have used his latitudes and longitude scales throughout and his depiction of land masses of the Americas throughout – i.e. using Greenwich rather than Canaries as zero makes no difference at all. (Image 17)
Method
I first photocopied the Americas shown on Waldsemueller’s map (16) in black and white (17), then marked Waldseemueller’s latitudes and longitudes in colour. I went down the coasts of first South America then North America marking points every 600 miles as A, B, C etc noting Waldseemueller’s latitudes and longitudes at each point. These points are shown in 17a. Point A is 2.5 degrees N, 90 degrees W; B is 5 degrees N and 80 degrees W and so on. Please look at the following 3 Images.
16 shows Waldseemueller’s map.
17 shows GM’s Waldseemueller appendix
17a shows GM’s working out
So we now have Waldseemueller’s coordinates for the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of South and North America in a table. The third step is to take these coordinates and use them to re-create South and North America on a globe. Image 18 shows the results.
As may be seen, Waldseemueller’s depiction of North and South America on a globe is astonishingly accurate. S America’s position relative to Africa is correct, landmass is correct, the shape (which encompasses the Galapagos islands) is instantly recognisable, the Rockies and Andes are in their correct position, the shape of Central America is broadly correct. There are two errors – the Venezuelan Coast is shown 10 degrees too far South and Patagonia 8 degrees too far east. Both of these errors were corrected on the Christies 1507 version.
Summary
The “someone” who charted the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of North and South America and West Africa was able to determine latitude and longitude along some 23,000 miles of coast line – and at a time when Europeans could not determine longitude and before they had set sail for the Pacific.
Comparing the 1418 map and Waldseemueller’s depiction of the Americas.
Step 1 – show the two maps with the same prime meridian.
Zheng He’s 1418 map has the hemisphere showing Americas to the East of China (Image 26). Waldseemueller has the Americas to the West of Africa (Image 18). We in the West traditionally show the two hemispheres of the world as on Waldseemueller’s map rather than as on Zheng He’s – both are equally accurate. The adjustment is simple.
i) Cut out the left hand hemisphere of Zheng He’s map (Africa to Japan). (Image 27)
ii) Take the former right hand hemisphere of Zheng He’s map (the Americas) and place it to the left of the former left hand hemisphere – i.e. the two hemispheres reversed in position (image 29)
As may be seen, Zheng He’s depiction of South America’s mass and position relative to Africa is the same as Waldseemueller’s.
Zheng He’s depiction of South America
At first sight it appears that Zheng He’s orientation and shape of South America differs from Waldseemueller’s. However, both maps are drawn from different perspectives – Zheng He’s landmass is depicted from 40 degrees N (the latitude of Beijing). This can be seen from image 33 in which Zheng He’s depiction of the Americas is compared with a modern globe (Encarta). If the globe is now tilted southwards to show the Americas centred on the equator, South America appears as on the Waldseemueller.
Summary
If the 1418 map and the Waldseemueller are positioned with the same prime meridian and from the same perspective (the equator) the Waldseemueller (1507) depiction of the Americas appears as a copy of Zheng He’s 1418 map. Both were taken from the same globe.
Di Virga’s (c. 1419), the 1418 map and Waldseemueller (1507) all copies from the same original globe. All were produced before Europeans had reached these parts of the New World shown on the 3 maps.
How did di Virga get his copy?
The little that is known about di Virga’s states that he owned a small fleet of ships which traded with Alexandria. In those days all foreign ships visiting Alexandria had to deposit their maps and globes for copying (Ed Liu research)
The Ming Shi (Martin Tai translation) says “…Year 6 [1408] Zheng He went to Hormuz and other foreign countries, returned home year 8 [1410]…”
“…countries visited but for which there was no return tribute are listed as an appendix…”
Mayidong, Kalimantan, Misr, Mulanpi, Kilin, Sunha…”
Misr in those days was Egypt and Mulanpi lands ruled by the Almoravid dynasty i.e. in
