Chinese Discovery America in 1421

[Urban Ranger]

It could be a corruption of Wutang.

[aaglo]

Nope. It's vise versa.

[Al'Kimiya]

Originally posted by aaglo

One of the Mayan deity's was named "Votan"

Isn't there a character called Wotan in the Viking saga's?

Wotan is the German name of Odin.

[Berzerker]

The spanish conquistadors may have brought that statue to the new world...

Umm...the Spanish were in the habit of stealing treasure, not depositing it in Aztec temples. The archaeologists who found it said the sculpture was buried deep in the temple with no evidence the Spanish brought it.

[aaglo]

But what if the statue was in some spanish colony, which was (or was any of them) raided by Aztecs? And this statue was taken as treasure back to the temple?

Could it be possible thus?

[Sava]

Well, according to the Raelians, we're all genetically, engineered alien clones, so I'm sure our ancestors knew the layout of the whole world.

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by Berzerker
According to Piri Re'is, Colombus had a copy of that map. That might explain why Colombus under estimated the circumference of the world by so much when the Greeks had already measured it with sufficient accuracy. The map shows the Caribbean without identifiable place names and could lead one to believe they were looking at SE Asia - Colombus' goal, hence "Indians". That's why the Spanish nobility thought Colombus was nuts, they knew the approximate circumference of the world and couldn't fathom why SE Asia was so close.

Columbus also overestimated the extent of Asia to the east.Weird conjectures. Piri Reis didn't say, Columbus had a copy of that map. He said he had a map from Columbus! The "nobles" or better said scholars at the University of Salamanca thought in Aristotelian patterns, not in Ptolemaic. They were right, Columbus not, but it wasn't because they had the correct data - most of them thought that our globe wasn't terraqueous, but a combination of a smaller sphere of earth and a larger sphere of water where only a bit of the earth-sphere rises like an island - thus they expected larger distances.

But this map from Piri Re'is also shows Antarctica, supposedly not discovered until much later. The appearance of Antarctica on these old maps is dismissed by modern scholars as the depiction of a proposed land mass ancient mapmakers believed to be there to balance the world. The fact the maps are amazingly accurate in depicting Antarctica apparently doesn't faze "the consensus".

The balance theory has not been invented by modern scholars, but has a tradition that reaches well into antiquity. It is nothing but a myth that the Terra Australis Incognita on Piri Reis map differs much from that on other prior maps and they're not at all "astoundingly accurate", take a closer lookm and compare with you atlas at home, it's not even close!

Archaeologists discovered a Roman sculpture buried in an Aztec temple, and the sculpture has been verifed as Roman dating to about AD100-200. Might explain the legends of Quetzalcoatl and Kukulcan, the bearded white man from across the eastern sea. One of the Mayan deity's was named "Votan", a name that does not resemble the indigenous langauge, but does resemble "Odin". But here's a real mystery , the Aztec name foe water and the eastern sea is "Atl" - Atlantic/Atlantis?
Try: "The Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings" by Charles Hapgood.

Even more stupidities. Don't know about the statues, but simlar claims are made every decade and generally don't get far. In 100-200 AD, there were no Aztecs living in central Mexico for another 1000 years. I don't know in which temple this should have been burried, but NOT in an Aztec temple (Aztecs: 1350-1500AD). Anyhow, Nowhere it is said that Quetzalcoatl came across the ocean, Kukulcan supposedly came to Yucatan with ships from the Mexican East Coast . The Aztecs didn't call the eastern sea "atl". Atl gererally is the word for water and the "tl" is only the ending of all nouns, thus water is essentially "a"! Duh!
About that "Votan"-God I haven't heard a single word, although I know a couple of them.

[Wernazuma III]

Here's what I wrote on Civfanatics on the topic:
To be honest, I'm very sceptical. Again, as usually, the alleged Portuguese map of 1428 is not shown, only maps from after 1492. If this map existed, it were a unicate, for there's no other Portuguese map of that time that shows more than a few semi-mythical islands in the Atlantic (of course Portuguese scholars vow that these are actually discoveries of America which had been mistaken for islands...). Such singular maps without someone copying most parts is highly unusuak. And Piri Reis says on his map explicitly that he used a map of Columbus. Moreover, between the alleged discovery and the Portuguese map there's only a few years, no way, not even through Conti, the information would have spread so far so fast - it absolutely doesn't fit into the general patterns of scientific transfer. Third, the Chinese art of World Maps was, well, very underdevelopped compared to the Portuguese maps of those times. It's highly unlikely that they would have mapped their discovery in such a way that the Portuguese could have integrated the information in their map.
Findings of Chinese ships prior to 1500 are only alleged, no real evidence. A few odd objects (an anchor!), but nothing too convincing. The DNA analysis seems very unlikely to establish a link, sounds more like a hoax. Finally, the Chinese speaking people - WTF?! Not a single chronicler (and yes, some have also been to China) noticed that, more importantly no linguist pointed to similarities, that's simply bullsh*t.

But the tradition of the Chinese having discovered America is old and can already be found in the 17th century. It's not impossible either, but surely not this large expedition.
Resuming: Not much remains from the author's tale.

[Kontiki]

Dunno if the story is true, but I've always wondered why there was such a migration out into the Pacific, including to rather remote islands (Marquesas, anyone?) and then it just stopped. It just seems logical to me that someone would have ventured further out at some point, even though there was no colonization (and that's just timelines).

[Wernazuma III]

Kontiki: How, then, do you explain the lack of e.g. pigs or ANY Polynesian agricultural product in the Americas (they've taken them WHEREVER they went)?

[DaShi]

I discovered the Chinese a few years ago.

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Wernazuma III
Kontiki: How, then, do you explain the lack of e.g. pigs or ANY Polynesian agricultural product in the Americas (they've taken them WHEREVER they went)?

I dunno. They took pigs everywhere they've settled, but maybe they just hadn't gotten that far yet. I'm just saying that it seems logical that there had been some exploration, if not any actual settlement. Then again, maybe I'm wrong. Just speculation on my part.

[Wernazuma III]

Well, an isolated landing is definitely thinkable.

[Kingof the Apes]

Did the expidition (if it existed) ever make it back? Or did they stay and colonize the West Coast?

[Sten Sture]

I thought the whole fleet turned around at the Cape because they had discovered all habitable land.

If they had kept going you would think they would have followed the coast north to Portugal instead of just venturing out across the Atlantic.

It would have shocked the bejezus out of the Portugese!!