Slashdot Mirror


Maps Suggest Marco Polo May Have "Discovered" America

An anonymous reader writes in with news about maps attributed to Marco Polo that seem to show the coast of Alaska. "For a guy who claimed to spend 17 years in China as a confidant of Kublai Khan, Marco Polo left a surprisingly skimpy paper trail. No Asian sources mention the footloose Italian. The only record of his 13th-century odyssey through the Far East is the hot air of his own Travels, which was actually an "as told to" penned by a writer of romances. But a set of 14 parchments, now collected and exhaustively studied for the first time, give us a raft of new stories about Polo's journeys and something notably missing from his own account: maps. If genuine, the maps would show that Polo recorded the shape of the Alaskan coast—and the strait separating it from Asia—four centuries before Vitus Bering, the Danish explorer long considered the first European to do so. Perhaps more important, they suggest Polo was aware of the New World two centuries before Columbus."

8 of 276 comments (clear)

  1. And then... by dgatwood · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...he built the first American Swimming pool. You can guess where this is going.

    --

    Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    1. Re:And then... by itzly · · Score: 5, Funny

      No, that was his brother, Water Polo.

  2. That's the Italian way for you by marcello_dl · · Score: 5, Funny

    A guy who is reported as traveling in China in fact was getting into America 200 years before a guy who bumped into America when trying to reach India using a shortcut which in fact was much longer.

    --
    ---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
  3. You discover countries... by having flags! by fantomas · · Score: 4, Funny

    Oblig. Eddie Izzard clip... no flag, no country!

  4. It's fake by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Funny

    Poloshopped

  5. Get in line by paiute · · Score: 3, Funny

    When Columbus pulled into harbor that day in 1492, he had to wait for a berth as the docks were crowded with Vikings, Chinese, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Micronesians, and extraterrestrials.

    --
    If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
  6. Re:So the Italians win the latest round ... by halivar · · Score: 3, Funny

    Oh yeah? Then explain why the first bible is in King's English, why don'tcha?

  7. I solved the mystery by slashmydots · · Score: 4, Funny

    Actually, there is strong evidence that the Native Americans discovered America.