The Truth About Christopher Columbus

There was never a islamic Scientific Revolution

they just stole it all from other cultures and people and claimed it as there own.

everyone knows this




[edit on 26-1-2008 by winterass]

In Wyoming County, West Virginia. a petroglyph remains for all to see:”America's first Christmas message”, left between 500 and 800 A.D., by Irish Christian missionaries. The message deciphered by Dr. Barry Fell, reads:
At the time of sunrise, a ray grazes the notch on the left side on Christmas Day, the first season of the year, the season of the blessed advent of the savior Lord Christ. Behold he is born of Mary, a woman.
We may never know the identity of the person or persons who carved the message, but the fact that it exists, provides important proof of the old claim that Irish monks sailed to America to spread the gospel long before Columbus and the Vikings. An Irish monk named Brendan wrote of that in the Sixth Century (The Navigatio) , but no one believed him. Now, in view of earlier settlements found in New England, it should be obvious that the Irish had the map all along. See
www.catholicism.org...

Lewis & Clark wintered with the Mandan Indians along the upper Missouri in the Dakota Territory. They described the Mandans in great detail, commenting on how many similarities they had with Europeans compared to surrounding tribes. They compared their language to Welsh and their religion to Christianity. They possessed a sacred object which L&C said was a Roman coin.

There is a Welsh legend of a Prince Madoc who came to America and founded a Welsh colony in late Pre-Columbian times. The site of his landing has been set as Mobile Bay (a very long ways from Wales for small boats) and three Pre-Columbian stone wall sites in the Southeast (Old Stone Fort in Tennessee, Fort Mountain in Georgia and the Welsh Caves at Desoto Falls in Alabama, all within 100 miles of Chattanooga) were all traditionally attributed to these Welsh. www.geocities.com...

Finally, New Bedford Mass is home to numerous Americans of Portuguese descent. Local legends indicate that some of their ancestors summered on nearby Cape Cod long before Columbus. They weren’t after the surf, but the fish which they dried in the sun and brought back at the end of the season. Like the Basques, they weren’t talking about their fishing spot.

reply to post by tomaidh

That's pretty odd, considering the first mention of "Christmas" doesnt date back that far (1000 AD).

reply to post by thelibra


This was a great post! It was well put together; quite informative. My compliments!

But then, I support Freight Tomsen's post of 25th Jan. in which he points out that " Discover" means "to take the lid off something that has been covered-up".

Yes, Discover also means:

1.Get to know or become aware of, usually accidentally;

2.Make known to the public information that was previously known only to a few people or that was meant to be kept a secret;

3.Determine the existence, presence, or fact of...

Therefore, while all that you have written is true, the then "New World" did not know that one could sail towards the West to reach the East! And Columbus (1451-1506) sailed Westwards and on reaching land, thought he had reached the East (Indies). So it was an accidental discovery?

For example, when an ornithologist "discovers" a new species of bird, the bird has always "existed" and people would have seen it too - without knowing it was a new species. That doesn't mean that the new species was "not discovered"..

The aim of Christopher Columbus' voyage to the West was to reach the coasts of the Spice Islands (or the Indies) and to establish commercial relations between Spain and the several Asian kingdoms. But the Spanish soon realized after Columbus' voyages that the lands were not a part of Asia, but a new continent.

As far as the proof of the "world being round" is concerned, to the best of my knowledge, Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521) made the first known successful attempt to circumnavigate the Earth. He became one of the first individuals to cross all the meridians of the globe. He was the first person to lead an expedition sailing westward from Europe to Asia crossing the Pacific Ocean.

Amerigo Vespucci (1454 - 1512) was an Italian explorer who undertook two voyages exploring the east-coast of South America, much farther south than believed by Columbus and other European explorers crossing the Atlantic, who thought they were reaching Asia (the Indies). The European public learned about the newly discovered continent for the first time; its existence became generally known throughout Europe

In 1507, Martin Waldseemüller produced a world map on which he named the new continent "America" after Vespucci's first name, Amerigo.

Some think that Amerigo Vespucci usurped Columbus's glory!

reply to post by thelibra


Oh, I'm aware. I just made mention 'cause every time some red-haired mummy falls out of the desert or a cliff tomb or something, some knucklehead always go "See, white people were here first!" It really gets on my nerves at times.

I know that Kennewick Man's skull measurements were different from those of "normal" Native Americans. This is not all, however. There is, after all, an almost complete skeleton, and DNA tests have been run. What these further examinations have shown is that the remains are closer to South Asian or Ainu populations than anything else. Kennewick Man is, in every shred of likelihood, the descendant of an ancient Asian coastal people, of the same group that gave rise to the Ainu, the Polynesians, the Indonesians, and the Taiwan natives. If I had to wager, he is likely descended from an Ainu / Siberian group that followed the kelp forest during the postglacial period.

I would actually be incorrect on presuming he'd be a full-on Polynesian, unless the radiocarbon dating was WAY off. Those fellas didn't reach the extremes of their turf - Rapa Nui and Ao Tea Roa - until what, about the 13th century?

Also, don't confuse "Caucasoid" with "Caucasian." It's a pretty common mistake, but they mean quite different things.

Both: Another thing to consider is the possibility of far-Northern polar travel. Though I haven't seen any theory like this yet, personally, during class last night, the Professor was talking about how the Muskovy Company got founded when it was suddenly realized you could sail northward and find a route all the way to Russia's northern shores. That got me thinking about the recent claims on the North Pole as global warming makes it more and more accessible to sea travel.

Perhaps during one of the "rapid unstable warming periods", enough north-pole ice melted that the short distance through the polar region would have been possible. It would have been cold, trecherous, and probably fatal the vast majority of the time, but it would not have been impossible during certain time frames.

It's a plausible theory, but there's two snags. One, the Inuit walked into what was, as far as anyone can tell, uninhabited land, round about three thousand years ago. There is no evidence of a previous American arctic sea culture, whether couched in Inuit myth, or hidden in Archaeological evidence. Even in genetics, the Inuit are almost completely northeast Asian, with some mingling with "Standard" Native American from Inuit expansion southward into the territories of the Athapascan and Cree people. The other snag, is whales. Following whale migrations is about the only sane excuse I can think of for a migration of people paddling through the arctic ocean (remember, "Warm" is a relative term when we talk about the poles). And whale hunting as an individual activity didn't appear in Inuit culture until a few hundred years ago.

So while the possibility is there, it's very likely it never happened. Mostly because, I would wager, even the ancient people of Siberia and North Europe were smart enough to not paddle around the Arctic ocean chasing thirty-ton things that don't like having spears stuck into them.

My personal pet supposition is that the Kennewick Man probably sailed to America from an area similar to Finland, or North Russia, across the North pole (not exactly along the pole, but enough so to vastly shorten the journey from Asia to Canada), which would have been rich with food, since the area was not fished, recently opened for spawning, but not have enough time for predators to have spread in the area, and the krill would have been much more exposed, providing the fish and seals a more readily available food source.

Well, I presume you mean the people he was part of, since I seriously doubt the dead guy in question ever saw anywhere more than a few dozen miles from his birthplace. In all likelihood, he was born and raised near where he died, into a family that had been there long enough that they believed themselves to have always been there.

My personal theory, since we're sharing, is that his culture, whatever it was, had its origins on Asia's pacific coast, and followed the kelp forest that stretches from China north, then east, then down to California. putting down settlements as it traveled.

Now, you want something interesting on the subject of the "Real" first Americans?

There have been discoveries through South America, from Brasil south to Tierra del Fuego, of extinct native cultures unrelated to the current inhabitants. Pre-dating and totally different. Know who these cultures and remains most resemble? Australian aborigines. The Natives of Tierra del Fuego, the Yaghan and Selk'nam, were almost fully identical to Australian Aborigines (the last full-blooded Fuegan native died in 1999)

Now, we know the Aborigines have been in Australia for a long, long, LONG time. So it piques the interest. The ancestors of the Australian natives were able to boat around the Indian and pacific oceans, settling Sri Lanka, the Andaman Islands, the Phillipines, Melanesia, and Australia. It's not at all far-fetched to think that these people, all these many, many, MANY thousands of years ago weren't content to stick to the Indian and South Pacific, and boated up the Asian coast, and into North America, where they expanded and migrated through both continents.

Kind of a neat image, really. And again, entirely plausable. Perhaps they were the first big push of human migration.

reply to post by winterass


Everyone does, huh?

Did you know that up until the Mongols came along, Christian Europe was basically a bunch of people throwing poo at each other?

You just stole and claimed as your own the advances that the Mongols had stolen and claimed as their own from the Chinese who had stolen and claimed them as their own from the Indians, who had stolen and claimed as their own from the Arab traders who had stolen and claimed as their own from the Greeks, who had stolen and claimed it as their own from the Egyptians, who had stolen and claimed it as their own from the Phoenicians, who had stolen it and claimed it as their own from the Sumerians, who had stolen it and claimed it as their own from the Harrappans, who had stolen it and claimed it as their own from Mohenjo-Daro, who had stolen and claimed it as their own from who the hell knows where.

The saying is, there is nothing new under the sun. And as much as you might love trying to denegrate the achievements of one culture, the fact is, yours is pretty damn dumb too.

[edit on 27-1-2008 by TheWalkingFox]

Originally posted by TheWalkingFox
Did you know that up until the Mongols came along, Christian Europe was basically a bunch of people throwing poo at each other?

If by "throwing poo" you mean using siege engines that shot projectiles capable of going straight through a person, then yes.

reply to post by merka


You're thinking of the Romans. I was talking about post-Roman Europe. You can't really deny that between the fall of Rome and the 14th century, Europe was more or less the inbred hillbilly corner of the world. Even the Europeans call it "the dark ages" and I would defer to them as hte experts in this case.

reply to post by TheWalkingFox

So what, you think that from a Roman legionnaire a heavily armoured knight just popped out of the ground?

The Dark Ages wasnt particularly dark. In the 19th and beginning of the 20th century perhaps, modern science barely even use the term "dark age" anymore cause today we know its wrong. It was called the Dark Ages because WE where in the dark about them.

reply to post by freight tomsen

Give Columbus a break.

He was the first southern European to visit the islands off the east coast of North America. Give him credit for something.

Originally posted by merka
[So what, you think that from a Roman legionnaire a heavily armoured knight just popped out of the ground?

Rome fell in 476. "Heavily armored knights" didn't ride onto the scene until very nearly a thousand years later. I'm sorry if you've been misled by pop culture images of King Arthur or whatever, but we have plenty of information about the time, and full plate was not in use until about the early 1400's.

The Dark Ages wasnt particularly dark. In the 19th and beginning of the 20th century perhaps, modern science barely even use the term "dark age" anymore cause today we know its wrong. It was called the Dark Ages because WE where in the dark about them.

Quite to the contrary, as I just noted. We know plenty of the time period. It's why school hiustory books, which are among some of the most incomplete and spacy pieces of historical work anywhere, spend chapter after chapter after chapter giving great detail, dates, and so on about this period. A better source can tell you even more. Fact is, Europe was the armpit of the world at the time.

Now to bring us somewhat back to topic, situations in Europe improved once the Europeans got a taste of such things as pepper and oranges, and started exploring to find an easy source for these goods, which led to trading with hte more advanced cultures and people around Africa and Eurasia, leading to the Renaissance and European scientific revolution... all of which was based on the discoveries of earlier people, elsewhere i nthe world.

I think Newton said something about seeing far by standing on the soulders of giants?

There is evidence that the Vikings themselves where quite aware of at least North America by 1100 AD, if not sooner. They had settlements in Greenland and Iceland by this time. Eric the Red and Leif Ericson were two of the more famous Viking leaders who are believed to have known of the existence of Nova Scotia and possibly the mainland of what is now the United States.Mystery Hill, New Hamsphire, is a possible early Viking settlement.
The Aztecs, Incans and Mayans told of fair skinned visitor's from 'beyond the sea'.
Even the Native-Americans of eastern Canada and the U.S. have stories and legends of 'fair skinned' people having landed and inter-acted with them as far south as the Carolinas by the end of the first millenium.
European contact with them may have extended to North America as early as the time of the Phoenicians.
There is evidence that the Chinese themselves may have been visiting and trading with Native-Americans along the west coast of the america's by 1421.
So I myself do not believe Christopher Columbus was the first non Native-American to have set foot on land in the Western Hemisphere. He was just among the first to have been recorded as having done so. That's all.

Originally posted by Wally Conley
The Aztecs, Incans and Mayans told of fair skinned visitor's from 'beyond the sea'.
Even the Native-Americans of eastern Canada and the U.S. have stories and legends of 'fair skinned' people having landed and inter-acted with them as far south as the Carolinas by the end of the first millenium.

Please don't state the above as if it were factual unless you are prepared to provide a decent reference.

Originally posted by Wally Conley
So I myself do not believe Christopher Columbus was the first non Native-American to have set foot on land in the Western Hemisphere. He was just among the first to have been recorded as having done so. That's all.

This is demonstrably true, as you know. You already mentioned the known presence of Vikings in North America long before Columbus.

Harte

reply to post by citizen smith

Hi Citizen Smith- Yes, Gavin Menzies has presented a convincing argument for the Chinese fleets. As a commander in the Royal Navy, he sailed the routes of Magellan and Cpt. Cook. His book is very thoroughly researched, and his evidence is extremely convincing. I've corresponded with him, and he is very cordial and extremely intelligent. For those that wish to find out more about his works, I suggest you visit his website:
www.1421.tv...

That's cool! you're teaching me stuff I learned in highschool all over again

I was always intrigued by how he tested out if his sword was sharp enough by telling his men to grab an indian and tell or make them stick their arm out and then he would slash it off like nothing.

*star for you bringing me back my old learning days *

This is an interesting thread. As a long time lurker I feel the need to add my two cents. After reading the thread I found three things that need addressing. First, as for gavin menzies, his entire theory is based on poor translations of mistranslations and assumptions about documents that he has little experience or knowledge of. Most of Zheng He's travels are well documented. His vessels were the largest in the history of the world at that time. He was muslim, extremely educated and loyal to the emperor. The places he traveled to, like the coast of africa, the arabian peninsula, madagasgar, and even australia are well documented with hard evidence such as ceramic pottery and silks, and painted reliefs in china itself. The menzies theory has been dismissed by people with real historical knowledge of the subject. This is because there has been no hard evidence of the chinese visiting america, only vague things such as the appearance of sculptures depicting gods with facial hair from people lacking it, small amounts of jade(ite) in central america and possibly anchor stones from junks of the oregon coast. Interesting mental masturbation but nothing solid, like writing,art, pottery(ceramics) or silks.

Kennewick man made a stir because when people applied a facial reconstruction method to the skull, the result kind of looked like Patrick Stewart, and then news outlets scrambled to talk about the ancient "white" skeleton found in the Pacific north west of the americas. Ignorant folk ran with the story, further clouding the discovery. The skull morphology, analyized by several universities, was similar in nature to the ainu, but the date of the skeleton meant that at best they had a common ancestor. Does this mean much? I mean don't all humans have a common ancestor?

As for Christopher Colombus, all the billsnit about being first, or discovery, or the vikings, or irish monks, or the basques, or whatever is that after he came, alot of other people followed. The vikings had a settlement in newfoundland. It was so great it lasted for maybe a couple of decades and then everybody FORGOT about it for almost 1000 years, until it was "re-discovered" in the 1960's. When Colombus came, the americas were radically, totally, completely, and irrevocally changed. For better or for worse(leaning to worse). That is why we remember colombus. After he came, more followed. No matter what happened(as in contact with the pre-colombian americas) before him, the effect was so little as to be negligable at best(the vikings) or at worst, not even debatable( the phoenecians, egyptians, irish monks, celts and templars). Evidence is key.
Thanx.
PS. the pyimids in egypt and south america are constructed completely differently. With only a vague similarity in shape. Evidence is the key.

tomaidh,

Sorry to burst your bubble, but I come from McDowell County, West Virginia, sister county to Wyoming. No one I have ever met believes that those glyphs are Irish Ogham. I think you need to read the following link.

cwva.org...

cormac

reply to post by JohnWorfin

All I ask you to do, is consider the possibility that Gavin is right. One of the things you have to consider is the fact that many times when a new theory is posed, it is immediately attacked by the establishment.
I know Gavin, and I also am aware of the many people who worked with him that not only speak Chinese but ARE Chinese.
I spent eight years as a tenured professor and I can tell you that academia is brutal when it comes to research. Anyone that challenges the establishment is a big target. Sometimes, new theories take hundreds of years to prove. Look at how long it took for the sun-centric solar system to finally be accepted.
Understand that when anyone poses a new idea, miriads of "experts" will pop up to oppose it. There is no money in saying "I agree".
Remember that we should be open to alternative ideas. After all, that is what most of us here at this site are here for. It doesn't mean we have to accept them, but at least be OPEN to possibility that they are correct.
Also remember that much of what Gavin brought up embarrassed the establishment, because he did uncover things that others should have, but didn't.
I ask you to look at how the plate tectonics theory came about. In 1915, Wegener posed his theory of continental drift, purely based on observational evidence. Although the details of his theory were later dis proven, he did lay the groundwork for the well accepted theory of plate tectonics today, but it was a struggle.
I am not saying that Gavin is right about everything, but much of what he brings up will, I believe , be proven as time goes by.
Please try to keep an open mind. Science and history will never advance if all we do is accept what is known today. Visionaries become immediate targets. Look at Tesla, he was considered a quack, but more of his ideas are now in play, and are being given a second look.

reply to post by ProfEmeritus

I am not saying that gavin's theory is not interesting, or even that I don't believe it but there is still not conclusive proof. I love his theory and his book is a good read but I watched him on pbs get run in circles by an interviewer using some basic logic and a critical eye on his writing. I am not saying what he wrote is out of the realm of possibility, there is simply no hard evidence. The vikings came to north america, settled, and left EVIDENCE of the visit. The viking visit Predated the SUPPOSED chinese visit by almost 500 years and was only in a little corner of newfoundland yet they left hard evidence that we found. Acording to gavin, the chinese not only traveled to every part of the globe except europe(where there are obviously no records of something as spectacular as a chinese junk visiting) but he also claims that they settled in north and south america and greenland. He also claims they sailed over the top of europe and asia. It is hard to believe that the largest fleet in history at that time would sail right by europe and not stop by to trade or at least talk. He gives evidence that european explorers found chinese people all over the americas yet few of these explorers had ever been to china or for that matter seen a real chinese person. He claims that the fleet was wrecked off bimini yet there is not a single piece of "junk" that indicates the chinese ever set foot or boat anywhere near bimini. No junk means no junk. And don't try to say people arenn't looking, spanish galleons went down full of gold all over the carib' and people look for sunken ships all the time. Hell, people found a sunken city off cuba. If people find hard proof (ceramics, silk, art or text) like what is known about zeng he's voyages to india, arabia, africa and madagasgar I will change my tune but until then, by all means keep looking, but evidence is still the key. Anyone in academia should know this.
John

If you read the book, your question about why the fleet did not stop in Europe was addressed. As the fleet sailed up the west coast of Africa, it encountered the prevaling current, which took them straight to the area called Hispaniola.
Take a look at the left globe map at the site:
oceancurrents.rsmas.miami.edu...
or any other ocean current map. If you roll your cursor over the south west coast of Africa, you'll see it's almost a given that a ship under sail will be immediately carried to S.America, then Hispaniolo, and in fact, it is virtually impossible for a ship sailing up the west coast of Africa to make it directly to Europe, without being carried across the Atlantic.