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Maps Suggest Marco Polo May Have "Discovered" America

Posted by samzenpus on from the he-saw-it-first dept.

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."

50 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.

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

      No, that was his brother, Water Polo.

    2. Re:And then... by Thanshin · · Score: 4, Informative

      The correct way to shape that joke is to omit the "Polo".

    3. Re:And then... by Tablizer · · Score: 3, Interesting

      ...he built the first American Swimming pool

      My brothers and I would call out instead: "Marcus...Welby...Marcus...Welby..." to avoid being too conventional.

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  2. Big Old Liar by Quato · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There has been much research suggesting Marco Polo was a liar. a quick Google search showed this site: http://website.lineone.net/~mc... Many scholars believe that he may have just traveled to India and talked to travelers from China. They point out that Marco Polo never pointed out major inventions like paper, that were unseen in Europe but common in China.

    1. Re:Big Old Liar by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 2

      It's all irrelevant. Even if 2 centuries before Columbus, he's still even more centuries after other explorers who have already been shown to have been here at the North American continent.

    2. Re:Big Old Liar by CRCulver · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Whether Marco Polo was in China or not continues to be hotly debated by scholars. Only two years ago, the German historian Hans Ulrich Vogel published a major new work presenting evidence for Marco Polo's sojourn in China on the basis of economic data.

      I've often found unconvincing the argument that Marco Polo did not go to China because he did not mention certain habits of the Chinese that dazzle Westerners. As an American by birth and upbringing but long resident in Europe, it amuses me that American visitors immediately express amazement at certain customs here that I've grown so used to that I don't even notice anything special about them myself, and I'd be unlikely to include them in any rambling oral account I told about life in Europe.

    3. Re:Big Old Liar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah, I still don't get the Columbus story. The "everyone thought the world was flat" BS annoys me. Everyone knew the world was round, Columbus' argument was he thought the world was SMALLER than it was (and smaller than everyone thought)... and he was wrong. So, basically, we celebrate a man who was both wrong and just plain lucky as a great explorer...

    4. Re:Big Old Liar by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

      Those arguments seem hilarious to me. Furthermore, whenever someone visits a foreign place and writes about it, for every thing he writes about, you can find a dozen others that he omitted! What exactly does that prove?

      --
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    5. Re:Big Old Liar by kamapuaa · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is a little stronger than "ha ha I forgot to mention, you don't have to leave tips!" He (essentially) wrote a book about China, and didn't mention chopsticks, foot-binding, or tea? But does mention a race of men who had dog-heads instead of human-heads? He also claimed to be governor of Yangzhou and other obvious bullshit.

      Centuries before Marco Polo, Arab Traders were well-established in China, Italians had extensive contacts with the Persian and Arab world, and it seems very likely that Marco Polo just compiled stories he had heard. We know his stories were full of BS, exactly how much is BS is impossible to say.

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    6. Re:Big Old Liar by CRCulver · · Score: 3, Insightful

      He (essentially) wrote a book about China, and didn't mention chopsticks, foot-binding, or tea?

      And those minutiae of fashion or dining are exactly the sort of details that today expatriates may well leave out if they were asked to recount life abroad.

      But does mention a race of men who had dog-heads instead of human-heads?

      Marco Polo's account was set down not by Marco Polo himself, but by Rustichello da Pisa, who is known to have also added other European stories of the East. At this particular point in history, belief in races of people somewhere out there with e.g. dog's heads, with faces in their chests, or with a single leg was common in Europe, and this may well be da Pisa's own interpolation.

      He also claimed to be governor of Yangzhou

      In the new book by Vogel that I cited, Elvin (who wrote the preface), notes a longstanding controversy about whether Polo held some kind of office in Yangzhou, or whether he simply stayed there, the Italian words for these two activities being similar enough that an error in transmission is understandable.

    7. Re:Big Old Liar by Rick+in+China · · Score: 5, Informative

      What? "never pointed out major inventions like paper" - he pointed out specifically and meticulously the use of paper money and salt. http://www.history.com/news/ma...

      "Historians before him have touched on these issues while defending Marco Polo’s honor, but Vogel also relies on another compelling body of evidence: the explorer’s meticulous descriptions of currency and salt production in the Yuan era. According to Vogel, Polo documents these aspects of Mongol Chinese civilization in greater detail than any of his Western, Arab or Persian contemporaries, a hint that the Venetian relied on his own powers of observation. Polo’s claims about the size of paper money and the value of salt, among other aspects, check out against archaeological evidence and Chinese documents maintained by Yuan officials, Vogel concluded."

      One thing I find interesting - is that they teach Chinese students of Marco Polo in China. I would imagine that, if presented with "Hey, look, this dude from Europe visited you guys hundreds of years ago and did trade with the Mongols!" the first to refute and expose that would be the Chinese, as it would seem that their history would more likely be the source of truth (or closer to the source) rather than simply speculating on the contents of his verbal transcript.

    8. Re:Big Old Liar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yea that is why we celebrate him. Pray what the fuck have you ever done that ranks in significance to what he has done. We should always celebrate explorers. Whether he was 100% correct in everything he tried to do. Are you going to make fun of astronauts in the Shuttle Columbia because they couldn't even land their space plane, and besides they really didn't build it in the first place.

      "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. "
      -Uncle Teddy

    9. Re:Big Old Liar by CRCulver · · Score: 2

      It's important to note that Marco Polo wasn't writing a book about his experience. He casually narrated his experiences to da Pisa, and da Pisa published this account with a boatload of poetic license and interpolation of other, more sensational claims about the Orient.

      To summarize, people who have visited other places *do* talk about those differences, no matter how long they have spent in those places.

      Again, I disagree. Having lived in Eastern Europe for many years, what I tend to include in any account of life here to people elsewhere can differ markedly from what foreigners consider important. If I describe Romania to someone who has never been, I usually wouldn't mention the Roma people, because they simply don't strike me as such a prominent aspect of the country that they wouldn't have to compete for space in my account with numerous other aspects of the country. And yet, for so many foreigners, gypsies are something they would well-nigh demand in any account of the Balkans.

    10. Re:Big Old Liar by mcvos · · Score: 2

      I suspect AC has not murdered hundreds of people, nor sold their daughters into sex slavery. As such, I think AC deserves quite a bit more celebration than Columbus.

      But if you've got to celebrate explorers, there are far more noble ones than that bastard Columbus. He was really truly a despicable person. He does not deserve that kind of credit. He was wrong, he was not the first, and he was a terrible person. But he brought in lots of wealth for the colonial powers, and that's why he's famous.

  3. Native Americans anyone? by Dorianny · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I am not sure how any European can claim to be the first to discover America when the continent was populated by humans for thousands of years.

    1. Re:Native Americans anyone? by Thanshin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Because of the subconscious "us" vs "them".

      To think of the discovery as "The moment Americans and Europeans met for the first time" requires a very objective and open mind. And we know that way of thinking isn't common because otherwise there wouldn't be wars.

      I believe the main reason is that thinking in "us vs them" terms is evolutionary superior to "we are all one humanity" unless there's a third party involved. Or, in other words, had there been an enemy to humanity other than itself, man would be friend to man.

    2. Re:Native Americans anyone? by will_die · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If from that persons discovery set in motion a long string of event eventually ending with the people that the uneducated man informed, and if they did not know about America, being the predominate civilization then yes he would have a right to be proclaimed the discoverer.

    3. Re:Native Americans anyone? by __aaltlg1547 · · Score: 2

      The claim was never that Columbus or anyone was the first PERSON to "discover America." The question is who was the first EUROPEAN to discover it and make it known to Western civilization.

      Lief Erikson was the first European to discover it, but he didn't end up making its existence known outside of Iceland and maybe Norway. Then the knowledge got buried.

      When Cristorforo Colombo discovered the Americas, they stayed discovered permanently and their existence became common knowledge across Eurasia.

      And it's worth noting that while the Native Americans knew of the existence of the Americas, they didn't know of the existence of Eurasia or Africa. If they had built ships and sailed the other way and carried the knowledge back to their homelands and that became part of their cultural knowledge, they'd have been credited by their people with discovering Europe and Asia. As far as we know, they didn't and weren't because a few centuries ago, European sailing know-how was the best in the world and enabled Europeans to sail farther (and return) than anybody else.

  4. It's like the metric system... by otaku244 · · Score: 2

    We will be the last ones to rid ourselves of the ridiculous idea that Columbus "discovered" the new world. Read historical accounts of the guy!!! He was a crook looking for gold. The vast majority of the wayfaring sailors of the time knew the Earth WAS NOT FLAT. And there is plenty of evidence to show that the Vikings knew that the Western Hemisphere existed. There is absolutely no reason why we should keep acknowledging this idiot.

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    1. Re:It's like the metric system... by CRCulver · · Score: 5, Insightful

      While the Vikings were in North America first and had a few tangles with the Skrælings, Columbus was the first to enslave the indigenous inhabitants, forcibly convert them and use them to extract precious metals. Because Columbus was serving the centralized Spanish state with its missionary zeal and interest in mining, not a small group of Norse freeholders who just wanted to be left alone and farm, his visit marks the start of catastrophic social upheaval in the Americas, and so it's understandable that he remains so prominent a figure.

    2. Re:It's like the metric system... by Sique · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Columbus' travel never was about the world being flat or not. That's a made up story from the late 18th century. There is no evidence in Middle Age scholar's writing that the Earth was considered being flat at all. The only sources are two obscure byzanthine scholars from the 4th and 6th century, but they are never quoted in later writings.

      Columbus' travel was about the circumfence of the Earth. While most scholars in the 15th century estimated the circumfence to be about 26,000 miles, quite close to reality, Columbus was convinced it was only 15,000, making a travel westward to India to seem actually feasible and shorter than the Portuguese way around the Cape of Good Hope.

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    3. Re:It's like the metric system... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      > Columbus was the first to enslave the indigenous inhabitants

      I believe that many of the native inhabitants practiced that well before he got here.

    4. Re:It's like the metric system... by will_die · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You can always find a few flat world, even today, however the widespread myth of the Christians believing the earth was flat is a creation of two atheists (White and Draper) who pushed this.
      Easy way to see that Christians did not believe this is look at the art they created, from the 300s, you will find various art works of the Christ where he is holding a representation of the earth with a cross over it and that representation is a round sphere.

    5. Re:It's like the metric system... by gtall · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yep, life in the Americas was a Bunny Life. The next tribe over the hill enslaved your women and killed your warriors in a spirit of love an harmony. The Aztecs were a hippie culture which cherished medicinal "herbs" and sang Kum-by-Ya by the firelight in the evenings before going off to make free love.

    6. Re: It's like the metric system... by caveqat101 · · Score: 4, Informative

      If you checked back, it, slavery, was even practiced though out the world. From the earliest writings, slaves were counted. It's not an European, white man thing. But mentioned in the creation of earth by the Assyrians. Later the eqyptians had slaves in their writings. Same with the Greeks and the Chinese. Don't forget the writings of the slave ships on how the people were obtained. They were bought from slave traders, from their native lands. Not excusing it, or condoning it, but its part of earths history.

  5. 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.

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  6. Re:So the Italians win the latest round ... by TheInternetGuy · · Score: 5, Informative

    So the Italians win the latest round, the North American Discovery trophy moves back to Italy.

    Nope that trophy still belong to the Norsemen. (If we are going to continue to insist on not counting the native Americans, that is). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

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  7. John Cabot? by fremsley471 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If the journey were reversed, Columbus would have discovered the Azores. The first exploration by Europeans [who recorded their discovery] of continental North America in 1497 was led by John Cabot. He was always thought of as the discoverer of America until the early C19th (why would a bunch of British immigrants credit a Spaniard?).

    Then came the War of 1814, burning of the White House, etc. and a wave of anti-British sentiment. Suddenly, the US's founding father became good ol' Christopher.

    1. Re:John Cabot? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cabot, aka Giovanni Caboto;( c. 1450 – c. 1499) was an Italian navigator and explorer )

    2. Re:John Cabot? by markass530 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      yea but he was commissioned by England

    3. Re:John Cabot? by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 2

      Then came the War of 1814

      War of 1812.

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  8. Because of european perspective by aepervius · · Score: 3, Informative

    Because discovery imply being unknown before. If you are already inhabiting the body (carabic, australia, americas) this is already known to you. So naturally discovery implies the perspective of somebody for which it was previously unknown. Combine that with the fact most of the history here around is seen from the european perspective at worst, eurasian at best, and it is immediately understandable why this is seen as a discovery.

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    1. Re:Because of european perspective by hackertourist · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'd say being able to spread the knowledge of your discovery is an important part of that discovery. After the Vikings reached America, one tribe knew about the discovery and it was subsequently forgotten. After Columbus discovered America, this knowledge spread throughout Europe.

  9. Re:So the Italians win the latest round ... by Thanshin · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's "Discovery by a civilized man", so Norsemen mustn't count.

    Essentially, to discover a continent you apparently need:
    1 - To be white.
    2 - A cup of tea. (ideally, with biscuits)
    3 - A towel.

  10. Re:So the Italians win the latest round ... by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

    "Native"? The only native people are Tanzanians! ;-) Or some Africans, anyway.

    --
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  11. You discover countries... by having flags! by fantomas · · Score: 4, Funny

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

  12. Re:So the Italians win the latest round ... by mwvdlee · · Score: 5, Informative

    The first English monarch postdates Jesus by about 9 centuries. There was no "English King of that era".
    The Knights Templar started about 11 centuries after Jesus, and they were French.

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

    Poloshopped

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  14. Re:So... by Tablizer · · Score: 2

    he saw (old) Chinese maps...It does not mean he actually was there.

    The back even says "Made in China".

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  15. Re: So the Italians win the latest round ... by tehcyder · · Score: 2
    I don't think OP is coherent enough even to reach the low level of intelligence needed for racism.

    It reads more like the rambling of someone embarking on an impressive psychotic episode.

    --
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  16. Re:So the Italians win the latest round ... by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 2

    The northmen only lacked the tea :)
    They where around their time likely the most civilized people in Europe/Scandinavia, if count bathing and washing etc.

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  17. 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.

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  18. 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?

  19. Bering Straits by tomhath · · Score: 2

    People had been crossing over from Asia for thousands of years when Marco Polo was in China. It shouldn't be a surprise that some knowledge of the other continent was circulating.

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

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

    1. Re:I solved the mystery by ignavus · · Score: 2

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

      No. Their ancestors did. The Asian people who first discovered North America were not, by definition, native to America - they were native Asians. Their descendants were native Americans, but by then, North America had already been discovered.

      --
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  21. Re:So the Italians win the latest round ... by JoeMerchant · · Score: 2

    I think the reason the "Native Americans" don't count is because they didn't return to their point of origin to share their discovery....

    So, since Marco Polo failed to tell anybody about the Alaskan coast in any way that the world understood for many hundreds of years, can he really get any more credit than the Vikings?

  22. Re:So the Italians win the latest round ... by quantaman · · Score: 2

    It's "Discovery by a civilized man", so Norsemen mustn't count.

    Essentially, to discover a continent you apparently need:
    1 - To be white.
    2 - A cup of tea. (ideally, with biscuits)
    3 - A towel.

    To discover a continent you need to find a continent your culture wasn't previously aware of.

    So early Native Americans discovered the Americas while coming over from Siberia.

    A long time later the Thule (ancestors of the Inuit) also came from Siberia and discovered North America.

    Then the Norse discovered the Americas from Europe, but that knowledge wasn't really preserved even among Norse culture.

    Meaning the Americas were still available to be discovered by Columbus when he sailed over.

    The reason we generally consider Columbus to discover North America is because most of us are culturally white Europeans and for us his was the discovery that stuck around.

    If you consider an uncontacted tribe in the Amazon jungle, have one of those tribesmen go on a long journey and find Rio De Janeiro. Within his tribe I'd say that tribeman had discovered Rio De Janeiro.

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  23. Re: So the Italians win the latest round ... by neoritter · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Bathing in Europe broke down because of the black plague. Up until that point the public baths built by the Romans were still in wide usage. People incorrectly associated bathing with the Black Plague and of course decided to cut it out as much as possible from their lives.