Archaeologica.org

so hes spanish or portugeses living in catholic europe and he can't speak italian
tell me something more believable
because theres plenty proof that he wrote in Italian

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Prophecies
with notation in Italian by Columbus

he didn't speak Italian because he didn't want to
theres only one reason why

he didn't speak Italian because he didn't want to
theres only one reason why

I'd venture to guess he didn't care for the pope much.

marduk wrote:he didn't speak Italian because he didn't want to
theres only one reason why

I'll bite.
Why?

what ?
hes one of the Vaticans poster boys

Too bad...I have to go to a funeral service tonight for my sister's mother-in-law, so I can't squeeze the answers out of you one line at a time. I hope by the time I return tonight, someone's made some progress at getting answers.

what ?
hes one of the Vaticans poster boys

That would probably explain it.

According to what I've read Marduk his command of Italian in his writings was rather poor, hence the question of his origins.

Although Genoese documents have been found about a weaver named Colombo, it has also been noted that, in the preserved documents, Columbus wrote almost exclusively in Spanish, and that he used the language, with Portuguese or Catalan phonetics, even when writing personal notes to himself, to his brother, Italian friends, and to the Bank of Genoa. His two brothers were woolweavers from Genoa and also wrote in Spanish.

From Wiki.

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/columbus1.html


Note Tuesday, Sept 25

that was clouds

With what he received from the natives he must have realised that he wasn't in China, but it's unclear what he did think. Perhaps he was honest enough to admit to himself that he didn't know.

you didn't read his official journal properly Roy
he claimed he was heading west and the first Island he hit was the dominican republic
thats impossible

Read around a bit.
He admits he kept two logs. An offical one and a personal one. And he kept different distances in each.
It is unclear if he honestly thought he was on his way to Japan or if he just said that to get financing.
Either way, he knew sosmething was there before he started. And he had a good idea how far it was. And he knew he had to lie about the dia of the Earth to sell the Japan story.

But back to the rock art. The motitves around these trips were entirly different. Columbus was broke, but had dreams of glory and prestiage. A little money wasn't bad either. He had to work within the system.
But the earlier traders were betting their own money. Keeping low key about their findings was in their best intrest.

Ok, I am not a cartographer in any sense of the word, but I try to keep up on who knew what and when.

DISCLAIMER: I never advocate the use of Wikipedia as a primary source.

In any case I was poking around for some photos of maps I'd seen images of over the years and came upon the whole lot of them represented on Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_world_maps

*note I am linking to this site for IMAGES only...please do NOT blame any of the text on me or infer that I would find that site reliable in any way. {sorry, but it's my job, and we do not EVER accept Wiki, ever.}

Please note the two circular interpretations, the first, then the second and the changes they appear to mark.

And he knew he had to lie about the dia of the Earth to sell the Japan story.

in the ancient world the belief that the Earth was 18,000 miles in circumference was accepted
that had been stated by both Pliny secundus and Poseidonius along with their belief that the earth was egg shaped
Erastothenes who did get the circumference measurement correct was widely discarded
the only people who would have known that at the time of columbus would be someone who had access to the Library of Alexandria

so you either have to believe that Columbus
1) came up with these two ideas independantly (this is what he claimed)
2) had access to time travel (this would be believable compared to 1.)
3) had help from someone who had access to alexandrian library records (now who could that be)

the fact that he lied to his crew about the distance they covered is well known
every time he travelled a certain distancehe told them it was considerably less
there are two reason he would do this

1) he suspected the actual distance was further
2) he was a habitual liar
whos for both



either way the orthodox account of his travels reads like fiction to anyone armed with modern geographical knowledge
something which at the time of writing no one would have noticed

In regards to the Zheng He map, fake or not, I have no idea, however I happen to know the real story and subsequent sale of the item in the link below...it was found in the U.S. as the print states and IMHO the finder was a HUGE sucker for letting it out of his posession. I can link you all to the original finder's story if you're interested.

http://www.asiawind.com/zhenghe/

ah, found it.

http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/ ... 920.0.html