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Before Columbus Sailed The Ocean Blue

Did Marco Polo discover America in 13th century?
Parchment maps suggest he set foot on Alaska two centuries before Columbus reached the Americas
By David Millward, US Correspondent
7:39PM BST 26 Sep 2014

Conventional wisdom that the Americas were discovered by Christopher Columbus has been cast into doubt by centuries-old maps and documents suggesting that Marco Polo got there first.
According to Smithsonian magazine, a fresh analysis of 14 parchments by experts has prompted speculation that Polo could have set foot on Alaska during his 24-year odyssey through Asia in the middle of the 13th century.

The maps were studied by Benjamin Olshin, author of the "Mysteries of the Marco Polo Maps".
"I have been looking at these for maps for over 10 years," he told the Telegraph. "I am the evidence guy and there are a lot of maps.
"They are interesting in that they show that there was a deeper knowledge that Marco Polo may have got from a variety of sources.
"He could have sailed there," Prof Olsen said, But sounding a note of caution, he added: "He also could have been told that there was land on the other side of the strait."
The traditional Polo narrative, he added, made no mention of a voyage across the strait, Prof Olsen added.

“A number of the maps here are suggestive of knowledge of the farthest reaches of northeast Asia -- and perhaps beyond -- in a very early period, before the later, well-documented explorations by Europeans in that area.”
Written on sheepskin, the documents include what appears to be a map detailing the Alaskan coast.

If they are verified as genuine, the records would suggest Polo, a Venetian merchant, could have discovered the New World two centuries before Columbus, and the Bering Strait, the 51-mile stretch between Alaska and Russia, more than 400 years before Danish explorer Vitus Bering.

etc...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... ntury.html

. . . . 8)
 
In what sense would he have "discovered" it, even if he'd gone there? The existence of the maps surely shows Chinese knowledge of Alaska (not too terribly surprising, when you think of it) prior to his going there. He would only have gone because the Chinese took him.

I am resigned to the notion of "discovery" meaning "somebody became the first civilized person from the Eastern Hemisphere to see this after the population in the Americas had settled down enough to be considered indigenous" for purposes of these discussions. We really need another common way to frame this. The nature, methods, and frequency of global cross-cultural contact is an interesting and important topic. The notion of discovery of one group of humans by another quickly devolves into imperialist nonsense at worst; at best, into a pointless argument over who "discovered" that cool eatery on the corner that was chugging along selling lunches to the working people in the neighborhood for ten years before some trendsetter stumbled into it.
 
TheQuixote said:
<snip> When sailors tried to reach it and approached to its shores, mountains and valleys, the island was covered by mist and vanished.
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That is very similar to Mannannan & his cloak (of mist) hiding The Isle of Mann.

8.4 Myth, legend and folklore


In Manx mythology, the island was ruled by Manannán mac Lir, a Celtic sea god, who would draw his misty cloak around the island to protect it from invaders. One of the principal theories about the origin of the name Mann is that it is named after Mananna
 
Did the Celts build America’s Stonehenge 4,000 years ago?

Though perhaps not as stately as the archeological site in England, America has its own version of Stonehenge, aptly named “America’s Stonehenge,” and some archaeologists believe the Celts built it around 2,000 BC.

Standing in a site dubbed Mystery Hill in North Salem, New Hampshire, the megalithic structure leaves archaeologists with a number of questions. There is sound evidence pointing to the Celts being the creators, including inscriptions in the archaic Irish language Ogham, though other archaeologists believe Native Americans or Phoenicians were responsible.

The site includes stone monoliths and chambers spread across 30 acres, positioned in what is believed to be complex astronomical alignments. ...

http://www.irishcentral.com/roots/histo ... 29191.html
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“Carbon-14 results coincide with the date of a major immigration by Celts. The Celtiberian [Celtic-speaking people of the Iberian Peninsula] interacted with Carthagians, a nationality almost certain to have the still to cross the Atlantic.”
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Ah yes, you need a still to create the Water of Life! ;)
 
rynner2 said:
“Carbon-14 results coincide with the date of a major immigration by Celts. The Celtiberian [Celtic-speaking people of the Iberian Peninsula] interacted with Carthagians, a nationality almost certain to have the still to cross the Atlantic.”
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Ah yes, you need a still to create the Water of Life! ;)
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Shouldn't that be 'Carthaginians'?
 
Muslims found Americas before Columbus says Turkey's Erdogan

Muslims discovered the Americas more than three centuries before Christopher Columbus, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said.
He made the claim during a conference of Latin American Muslim leaders in Istanbul, pointing to a diary entry in which Columbus mentioned a mosque on a hill in Cuba.
Mr Erdogan also said "Muslim sailors arrived in America in 1178".
He said he was willing to build a mosque at the site Columbus identified.

The Turkish president - whose AK Party is rooted in political Islam - gave no further evidence to back up his theory, instead stating: "Contacts between Latin America and Islam date back to the 12th Century."

Columbus is widely believed to have discovered the Americas in 1492, while trying to find a new route to India.
But in a disputed article published in 1996, historian Youssef Mroueh said Columbus' entry was proof that Muslims had reached the Americas first and that "the religion of Islam was widespread".
However many scholars believe the reference is metaphorical, describing an aspect of the mountain that resembled part of a mosque.
No Islamic structures have been found in America that pre-date Columbus.

Mr Erdogan said he thought "a mosque would go perfectly on the hill today" and that he would like to discuss building this with Cuba.

The first people to reach the Americas came from Asia. They are believed to have crossed the Bering Strait about 15,000 years ago.

The first European visitors to North America are widely thought to have been Norse explorers, about 500 years before Columbus.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-30067490
 
The Americans discovered Turkey.
Meleagris gallopavo
 
(The comments below the article are more interesting than the article itself)

A team of expert researchers reckon they have unearthed astonishing evidence that Roman ships visited North America in antiquity - ‘during the first century or earlier’ and long before Columbus landed in 1492.

The main discoveries include a Roman sword found submerged just off Oak Island - and what is believed to be a Roman shipwreck.

Pulitzer says this sword is ‘100 per cent confirmed’ and described it as the ‘smoking gun’ to his theory.

“The ceremonial sword came out of that shipwreck,” he said. “It is one incredible Roman artifact.”

http://www.bostonstandard.co.uk/new...-to-rewrite-history-of-the-americas-1-7118097
 
but it's only a tpq isn't it?
 
That sword is in excellent condition.
Handle sculpture looks a little like the Cerne Abbas giant. To me, it doesn't look obviously Roman (but what do I know).
 
A Roman shipwreck?! This story has got my juices flowing!

The proximity to the Oak Island Money Pit could be over-egging the pudding. On the other hand, the two artefacts may be linked in some way we haven't yet grasped.

Clearly we need to have all the info laid out, with the 'experts' identified. But the story may evaporate like the morning dew - too many exciting 'discoveries' have failed to live up to their promise.

One niggle I have from my own research into Roman shipping of the 1st century AD is that the Romans were actually not very good sailors. They preferred to sail by day, although they could set courses at night by the stars. But this was in the Med - crossing the Atlantic is a very different ball game. I shall have to dig out my over-50-year-old notes to refresh my memory!

And could an Antikythera type mechanism be useful for ocean voyaging?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

But if the sword is genuine, and bronze, then the voyage to Oak Island was possibly much earlier than the 1st century AD, so deep sea sailing might have been even more primitive.
 
Mythopoeika said:
That sword is in excellent condition.
Handle sculpture looks a little like the Cerne Abbas giant. To me, it doesn't look obviously Roman (but what do I know).
Click to expand...


Yeah a bit too good for my liking, I'd like some independent tests done, not those from the history channel. I've seen this show and it's like the monster hunter shows, a little too good to be true.

I truly believe that Vikings and probably other cultures visited the Americas, pre-Columbus (Viking visits to Canada are pretty much considered fact these days yes?), but these guys finds I'm not so sure of.

http://www.andywhiteanthropology.com/blog/but-wait-theres-another-sword
 
But it still only gives a tpq. It doesn't say anything about the date of deposition apart from that.
 
TPQ? It's another TLA.
 
I would say that I think it is not a Roman sword. Might be Greek, if genuine.
 
Naughty_Felid said:
one of the comments on the Boston article site was quite good re: Chinese fake swords on Ebay so I had a look.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.Xbronze sword.TRS0&_nkw=bronze swords&_sacat=0

I'd put my money on the Oak Island sword being one of these faked swords.
Click to expand...

I think it's one of these as well.
If the Romans went searching for new lands then I think they would have written about it. Or they got there by mistake. What we need now is someone who knows a bit about maritime stuff and boats to tell us how plausible it would be for a ship in European waters to accidentally end up in North America. And if it is something that is likely to happen, then what's to say it hasn't happened many times, before even the Vikings?
 
The Romans weren't big on sailing on open water. Even in the med they tended to hug the edges and go around. The crossing to the British Isles was daunting.

Which isn't to say that individuals couldn't have gone against the prevailing culture - but it's not like the Vikings....
 
davidplankton said:
I think it's one of these as well.
If the Romans went searching for new lands then I think they would have written about it. Or they got there by mistake. What we need now is someone who knows a bit about maritime stuff and boats to tell us how plausible it would be for a ship in European waters to accidentally end up in North America. And if it is something that is likely to happen, then what's to say it hasn't happened many times, before even the Vikings?
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I agree although I think it is plausible for a roman trading vessel to have made it over to the Americas. It would be interesting to see if say a vessel plying it's trade along the coasts of Spain or France could drift over to the other side of the Atlantic? Would currents allow this? I always thought that the North Atlantic trade winds blew towards Europe?

If you look at this map of the currents. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Atlantic_Current#/media/File:Ocean_currents_1943_(borderless)3.png

If currents don't change and are roughly the same as they were back then it's possible to drift from the coast of Africa to the Americas.

Having a quick scoot around the net, the African trade took off more to the end of the Roman Empire and beyond and I'm taking that as before the Empire divided.

I think there is a big difference between a planned trade mission than a ship getting into difficulty and drifting, with good weather, the right currents and lot's of luck.

There's also the Legend of St Brenden who possibly made a similar trip out on the North Atlantic on a leather hulled boat.

Also look at the huge journey's the Pacific Islanders made in sea-going canoes.

Rynner what do you think?
 
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Naughty_Felid said:
I agree although I think it is plausible for a roman trading vessel to have made it over to the Americas. It would be interesting to see if say a vessel plying it's trade along the coasts of Spain or France could drift over to the other side of the Atlantic? Would currents allow this? I always thought that the North Atlantic trade winds blew towards Europe?

If you look at this map of the currents. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Atlantic_Current#/media/File:Ocean_currents_1943_(borderless)3.png

If currents don't change and are roughly the same as they were back then it's possible to drift from the coast of Africa to the Americas.
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Yes, that's well known in the sailing world. The map you link to shows the currents are favourable from Spain and Portugal, past the Med, and from the NW coast of Africa.
Thor Heyerdahl crossed the north Atlantic by this route in a couple of Egyptian style reed boats!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor_Heyerdahl#Boats_Ra_and_Ra_II
I think there is a big difference between a planned trade mission than a ship getting into difficulty and drifting, with good weather, the right currents and lot's of luck.
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Probably not that much difference, actually! The sea's a tricky place in a small sailing craft with poor abilities to windward.
There's also the Legend of St Brendan who possibly made a similar trip out on the North Atlantic on a leather hulled boat.
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Tim Severin attempted to recreate the Brendan voyage:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Severin#The_Brendan_Voyage_.281976.E2.80.931977.29

We can spin many 'What if..' and 'Perhaps..' tales around ancient sea voyages, but evidence is hard to come by...

It may be that the Vikings took advantage of easterly winds around the Arctic High pressure region to cross the north Atlantic. But I find it hard to imagine the Romans getting so far north and then picking up such a wind. And further south in the North Atlantic (say from the British Isles) a crossing would be in the teeth of the prevailing westerlies.
 
davidplankton said:
I'm going with Felid's fake Chinese swords. It looks more ceremonial than practical.
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The two brothers from the show, (admittedly I've only seen a couple), seem genuine guys and have sunk a lot of their own money into the project. The guy who "found" the sword, doesn't come across as that honest and always struck me as a History Channel "fixit" man to help make the show work.
 
J. Hutton Pulitzer Alleges a Roman Sword Was Found Off Oak Island Several Decades Ago

Many of you have undoubtedly heard the big news coming from Treasure Force Commander J. Hutton Pulitzer that a Roman sword was discovered at Oak Island, suggesting that the Romans reached Nova Scotia at some unspecified period in the past. The claim appeared in an obscure British regional newspaper, the Boston Standard of Lincolnshire, which is a very odd place to announce the discovery of a major artifact. But that’s par for the course with people like Pulitzer, who try to inject unsupported ideas into the mainstream by filtering them through small and obscure publications with lower editorial standards in the hope that it will legitimize their unconventional ideas. It’s hard not to think that Pulitzer chose the Boston Standard because it can easily be confused for a paper from Boston, Mass., and thus offer greater prestige. However, since the author says that Pulitzer spoke to the parent company, Johnston Press of Edinburgh, that might not be the case.

The sword was set to be featured on Curse of Oak Island this season, but Pulitzer seems to have wanted his version of the story out before the episode airs. (Pulitzer appeared in an earlier season of the show.) The sword is allegedly to be shown only “briefly” on Oak Island, suggesting that the Lagina brothers, the stars of the show, may not give much credence to the tale Pulitzer spins about it. Pulitzer used the article to complain that Oak Island didn’t give him enough screen time because the show wasn’t interested in anything but Knights Templar.

In an interview with the Standard, Pulitzer said that the sword had been discovered either “some years” or “several decades” ago, by an unnamed individual who allegedly kept the sword hidden for fear that the government would seize it as illegally recovered from Oak Island, where treasure hunting without a permit has been illegal since 2010. Of course Pulitzer provided no documentation to confirm that the sword had been uncovered where and when he alleges. ...

http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/j...-was-found-off-oak-island-several-decades-ago
 
J. Hutton Pulitzer must be getting desperate. He’s started lashing out at anyone and everyone who criticizes him. He says that he sent a letter of complaint to the CanadianChronicle Herald newspaper that criticized his claims about the alleged “Roman” sword of Oak Island, and in a podcast last night he asked his fans to send hate mail to that newspaper to protest their alleged “bias” against him and his ideas. In so doing, he made a number of false statements about me and Andy White, some of which bordered on the libelous. I will let White speak for himself, but I will take issue with Pulitzer’s assertions about me.

I’m not sure why Pulitzer has decided to start attacking me, but when I tried to use Google to get to his various websites, I think I see one reason: My blog posts about him and his websites come up before his own sites in Google searches for his name and those of his websites. (Your results may vary depending on your search history and Google’s algorithms.) For example, when I lost the link to the podcast, I had the damnedest time trying to use a search engine to call it up again and kept getting results from my own website. There’s a lesson in that for Pulitzer: Try having just one main website and filling it with quality content rather than having dozens of half-assed websites that dilute your impact and make it hard to find where your content is. ...

http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/d...er-and-accuses-me-of-being-paid-to-attack-him
 
New evidence of Viking life in America?
Dan Snow
.............

Vikings conquered Normandy in France - the land of the Northmen - even parts of Italy and the Levant. They also founded Dublin, made deep inroads into England and island-hopped across the North Atlantic. Orkney, Shetland, Fair Isle and Iceland.

They even crossed to Greenland, where I visited stunning Viking sites on the coast, dodging icebergs to get ashore. But perhaps their greatest achievement is the one shrouded in the most mystery. Did they get to North America? If so, was it a fleeting visit or did they colonise that distant coast too, centuries before Christopher Columbus?

The descendants of the Vikings left sagas - beautiful works of literature in which fact and fiction are often poetically intermixed. They clearly state that the intrepid Leif Erikson led an expedition to the east coast of North America. They describe good harbours, and an abundance of natural resources. One of the most fascinating mysteries in history is whether these can be believed.

In 1960, a site on the very northernmost tip of Newfoundland in Canada, L'Anse aux Meadows, was investigated and archaeologists were convinced that it was a Viking settlement. The world woke up to the fact that the Vikings had reached North America before any other Europeans. But no other site has been identified, the search for Viking America stalled. Until now.

Sarah Parcak uses satellite imagery to look for irregularities in the soil, potentially caused by man-made structures which lie beneath. She has used this technique to find ancient sites in Egypt and a few years ago she scoured the Roman Empire where she identified the site of the great lighthouse at Portus near Rome and several other buildings, from a fort in Tunisia to ramparts in Romania. Last year, she decided to search for the Vikings.

It wasn't easy. They travelled light and left nothing behind. No massive stone theatres for them. They voyaged in longships with a strong oak keel, and thin overlapping planks fanning out to form the iconic, graceful hull - the gaps between the planks stuffed with animal hair and tar. The rudder was fixed on with a twisted birch sapling. Sails spun from wool. Food was pickled herring, lamb smoked using reindeer droppings, fermented salmon. Almost everything on a Viking ship would get recycled or rot away. But they did leave a trace, and Parcak's team were determined to pick it up, however faint.

They scanned satellite pictures from across the east coast of America. Several sites appeared worth following up, but they had to decide on one for a dig. In the end they opted for a headland, almost the very western tip of Newfoundland, 400 miles further south and west than the only known Viking site in North America.

It overlooked two bays, offering protection for ships from any wind direction. Parcak saw oddities in the soil that stood out - patterns and discolourations that suggested artificial, man-made structures, possibly even Viking longhouses, once stood there.

It was time to leave the lab, and head out into the field. For a couple of weeks Parcak led the team as they carefully probed the ground that she had first spotted thanks to a satellite hundreds of miles away in space.
Newfoundland's climate is as brutal as ours in the British Isles with hail, gales, sweltering sun and driving rain. Exploratory trenches were flooded, equipment blew away, but they toughed it out and found something tantalising.

Months before, in her lab, Sarah had shown me an image that she thought might be the site of burning or metalwork. Sure enough, when she started to dig on the exact spot, she found something. Something that might prove to be a breakthrough. Carefully peeling back the layers of earth, she found what seemed to be a hearth.
A blackened rock testified to intense temperatures. Beneath it were piles of charcoal mixed with cooked bog iron - an iron deposit that needs to be baked to drive off impurities and allow the iron to be extracted for smelting. Surrounding the hearth appeared to be a turf wall of the kind built by Viking settlers across the North Atlantic.
"I am absolutely thrilled," says Parcak. "Typically in archaeology, you only ever get to write a footnote in the history books, but what we seem to have at Point Rosee may be the beginning of an entirely new chapter.
"This new site could unravel more secrets about the Vikings, whether they were the first Europeans to 'occupy' briefly in North America, and reveal that the Vikings dared to explore much further into the New World than we ever thought."

She immediately checked that there could be no other explanation for these deposits. Newfoundland historian Olaf Janzen was certain, no other groups of settlers roasted bog iron in Newfoundland. Nothing has been proven yet, but it looks like Parcak might have found evidence for Viking exploration in North America that goes much further than just that one site discovered in the 60s.

This find "has the potential to change history" says Douglas Bolender, an expert on Viking settlement who has spent 15 years tracking the Vikings across the north Atlantic. "Right now the simplest answer is that it looks like a small activity area, maybe connected to a larger farm that is Norse." He is excited and can't wait to see what further excavation reveals. He's hoping that seeds or other organic matter that can be carbon dated will be unearthed.

If Parcak has found evidence of another Viking site, it will ignite a new search for Viking settlements across eastern Canada and New England, perhaps as far south as New York and even beyond. Technology has unlocked long forgotten stories from our past, and that technology is getting ever more sophisticated. For those of us who are fascinated by the travels of the intrepid Norsemen, the next few years will provide ever more inspiration.

(Pics and more on page.)
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In The Vikings Uncovered Dan Snow tracks their expansion west, first as raiders and then as settlers and traders. He travels through Britain, to Iceland, Greenland and Canada to see what could be the most westerly Viking settlement ever discovered. The programme will be on BBC One on Monday 4 April at 20:30.
 
rynner2 said:
New evidence of Viking life in America?
​
In The Vikings Uncovered Dan Snow tracks their expansion west, first as raiders and then as settlers and traders. He travels through Britain, to Iceland, Greenland and Canada to see what could be the most westerly Viking settlement ever discovered. The programme will be on BBC One on Monday 4 April at 20:30.
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If like me you missed this last night, it's now on iPlayer:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b076r0sr/the-vikings-uncovered

I'm about halfway through its 90 minutes. Quite good so far, with effective use made of what I take to be drone footage for aerial views of various places. (Gotta be cheaper than a helicopter!)
 
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