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A few months back I wrote a story about the unveiling of an early 15th-century map that, some historians claim, seems to support the notion that the Chinese were the first explorers to reach the New World. Many experts wrote the map off as a fraud and the theory’s main supporter, Gavin Menzies, as a bit of a kook. Regardless of the ideas he presented in his book “1421: The Year China Discovered America”, a lot of the criticism lobbed at Menzies had to do with his less-than-impressive credentials as an amateur historian.
Enter Paul Chiasson, a one time professor of historical architecture at Yale and real, live academic. Looks like Menzies has at least one friend in high places.
Currently milling on some bestseller lists, Chiasson’s recent book entitled “The Island of Seven Cities” describes his discovery of a wall and road remnants on his native Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. Chiasson claims the ruins predate John Cabot’s 1497 “discovery” of the island and were, in fact, leftovers from a once-thriving Chinese settlement.
Are these the first murmurs of a historical movement, I wonder, or is thinking the Chinese got here first just the latest “trend” that will eventually trickle away into oblivion (see: New World, Italian discovery of; New World, Polynesian discovery of…etc.)??
August 10th, 2006 at 12:11 pm
An article in the Cape Breton Post says “”Lynn Baechler said the road dates back to the early 1950s when a large forest fire burned on the mountain for several days.
“The bulldozer that they took up there built roads and built barriers around to contain the fire, and for many years that showed up in aerial photographs and it still does,” Baechler said.” Now Chiasson has an aerial photo in his book showing his ‘ruins’, which he dates to 1929. But the Natural Resources Canada National Air Photo Library dates it to 1953. 1947 photos don’t show these ‘ruins’. Seems a fatal mistake by Chiasson. Thanks to Paul Heinrich for this information
August 24th, 2006 at 11:11 pm
Heather- (couldn’t find a direct link so I’ll post this here in hopes it reaches you)
I always find your articles delightful and fascinating and often send links to them out to my like-curious friends.
I just finished reading about the longest running experiments (I knew about the pitch- drop but the rest were news) and it reminded me of a local phenomenon- the oldest working lightbulb at the Livermore (CA) Fire Station- 102 years and glowing strong.
http://www.centennialbulb.org/facts.htm
August 27th, 2006 at 2:53 pm
I recently watched a special on the Discovery Channel that claimed
these settlements were in fact a Viking colony.
That certainly makes more sense since they were far closer.
Besides in Menzie’s book he claims that while the Chinese
explorers were away there was a revolt in China and their
discoveries were forgotten.
Therefore the colony in NS can’t be from China.
September 11th, 2006 at 4:14 pm
stanflouride - Just saw your posting. Better late than never I suppose! Thanks for your comments and the link - I did miss that one. You’ll have to keep me updated on the bulb. Here’s to another 100 years!