Friday, June 19, 2009

Gavin Menzies On Chinese Scientific Achievements



Louis (as in Hissink) reminded me I needed to read this guy so I took a brief look and this is what I found.

"Over ten years ago I stumbled upon an incredible discovery, a clue hidden in an ancient map which, though it did not lead to buried treasure, suggested that the history of the world as it has been known and handed down for centuries would have to be radically revised." -- Gavin Menzies, historian, 2002

"I decided to see if there were other charts like the 1424 map, showing continents that had been surveyed before the European voyages of discovery. The deeper I dug, the more bombshells I uncovered. I was astonished to find that Patagonia and the Andes had been mapped a century before the first Europeans sighted them, and Antarctica had been accurately drawn some four centuries before Europeans reached the continent. The east coast of Africa was shown on another chart, with longitudes that were perfectly correct -- something Europeans did not manage to achieve for another three centuries. Australia appeared on another map, three centuries before Cook, and other charts showed the Carribean, Greenland, the Arctic and the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of both North America and South America long before Europeans had arrived." -- Gavin Menzies, historian, 2002

"They [China] had solved the problems of latitude and longitude and had mapped the earth and heavens with equal accuracy." -- Gavin Menzies, historian, 2002

"There was also a wealth of physical evidence: Chinese porcelain, silk, votive offerings, artefacts, carved stones left by the Chinese admirals as monuments to their achievements, the wrecks of Chinese junks on the coasts of Africa, America, Australia and New Zealand, and the flora and fauna transplanted far from their places of origin and thriving when the first Europeans appeared." -- Gavin Menzies, historian, 2002

"A new observatory would be at the epicentre of Beijing. Zhu Di took a personal interest in astronomy, and in the means by which he could build on the wonderful legacy he had inherited in this field. Chinese astronomers had well over two thousand years of experience of recordng events in the night sky. They had noted the appearance of a new star in 1300 BC, had charted every arrival of Halley's comet since 240 BC, and by 1054 were describing the remnants of the supernova explosion known as the Crab Nebula...." -- Gavin Menzies, historian, 2002

"The library of Henry V (1387-1422) comprised six handwritten books, three of which were on loan to him from a nunnery, and the Florentine Franceso Datini, the wealthiest merchant of the same era, possessed twelve books, eight of which were on religious subjects." -- Gavin Menzies, historian, 2002

"The great Chinese fleets undertook scientific expeditions the Europeans could not even begin to equal in scale or scope until Captain Cook set sail three and a half centuries later." -- Gavin Menzies, historian, 2002

"The methods of navigation employed by Zhu Di's admirals are revealed by one of the few documents of the era to have survived, the Wu Pei Chi. These Chinese sailing instructions, essentially a manual of the arts of seamanship and naval warfare, somehow escaped the purges of the mandarins. There were instructions, inscribed on a long, thin strip of paper, for each regular voyage they made, giving detailed directions including star positions, latitudes, bearings and the physical description of islands, prominent headlands, bays and inlets that would be clearly visible along the route. By studying these sailing directions, it is possible to deduce not only the course the Chinese had steered but the accuracy of their navigation and their ability to set a course by the stars. It is an invaluable document." -- Gavin Menzies, historian, 2002

3 comments:

Fungus the Photo! said...

Great post.
Westerners seem to think of european history and the bible as 'history'.
We know Angkor Wat was a canal civilization serving millions, while London was rife with plague and rats.

Unknown said...

Long before the westerns took ships to "Unkown Lands", the portuguese ceilors knew that world was round and... Populated lands in Asia acessible by sea.

The portuguese Crown had a great number of maps that showed the world as today we just can see with satelite instruments. Like the Piri Reis map, for example. In that time, oficial policy was to cover all "discoveries" by all means, even to kill who made revelations. The restritive secrecy of knowledge about the "unkown" lands, travel routes and acess by sea to goods and merchants on other side of the world was oficially the policy by portuguese Crown.

Long before Cook, portuguese sailors knew Australia. However, because a lack of population and trade goods to offer, that land was covered to other Cowntries and people.

Long before Columbo arrived in actual Cuba, his ancestors wife had traveled to actual Canada, USA and Central America, such Caraíbes. It was covered to make sure all that lands will benefit portuguese Crown. He worked to spanish Crown because portuguese wanted to assure that spanish will spent his resources in one parte of "New World". It was a plot by portuguese Crown. Insted portuguese Crown established the route to India, to trade with them. But before portuguese Crown fooled the spanish, a treaty with Spain was signed (Tratado de Tordesilhas) and Brasil a his gold were assured to be portuguese possessions.

The portuguese crown in that time had the best western scientific knowledge because muslins, jewish and others scientists were welcomed to work for portuguese Crown. The portuguese school of nautic sciencies atracted scientists that were expulsed in others lands.

All western history is fabricated by anglo-saxonic view of the world. No! No! Portuguese had acess a information in that time that could called "heresy" by european thinkers. Specially by religious fanatics.

However, the portuguese Crown knew the Vikings sagas; knew the Egiptian knowledge; knew the Turquish knowledge; knew the north-african school of math and algebra; knew that Atlantis was somewhere after The Hercules Gates and... Algarve today. Knew a lot of things that was heresy in others parts of Europe.

Yes, portuguese Crown had a secret knowledge about the world. It was the real secret that allowed a small cowntry like Portugal, with only about one million and half of people, that travelled to the new lands. That conquered lands in all around the world. That "discovered" the new sea routes and trade valuable ressources. Yes, it was in Portugal that the Templar Knitghood had permission to survive until today. The famous Henry, The Navegator, was the Master of the Templar Knigth Order, as it was his ancestors, since the begining of Portugal. More than three centuries before. All the portuguese ships who belonged to the Crown and to Henry, The Navigator, used the Templar Cross flag, to show who really roules that power. All portuguese ships portraited Templar Knigthood flags. That was the same that portuguese ships belonged to Templar Knigths and vice-versa.

Today the western history is rubish because the anglosaxon point of view of the world fixes what is truth and what is mithology.

But, long before western ships arrived in that new lands, the portuguese crown knew that they were not the first to arrived in that lands. And that such knowledge was ancient and diverse what others Europeans believed.

PS Sorry about my english, but my mother tongue isnt english and im not good in languages.

Fungus the Photo! said...

Hi Kom!
Good english! Or anglo.... Portugal has a very old ally....
The old captains would keep their routes secret. Australia supplied sea slugs and purple dye. Also Gold. NZ provided jade. Many a captain set out but did not return. Sinbad was a good example of an adventurous sailor who travelled to NZ, inter alia, where he encountered giant birds calling them Rocs.
I think it likely that Da Vinci was employed to copy documents taken from eastern sources, along the lines opened up by Marco Polo.
The Anglo-Dutch according to LaRouche, suppress knowledge the better to exploit it when current obsolescent stocks run out.
OIM probably knows more about that than me tho'!