Pizzigano map
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The Pizzigano map is one if the cartographs used by historian Gavin Menzies to advance his thesis that China discovered the Americas before Columbus in the book 1421: The Year China Discovered the World. It was supposedly drafted in 1424 and contains strange islands in the Atlantic Ocean. Menzies claims the islands represent the Caribbean islands of Puerto Rico and Guadeloupe, the former being called Antilia, and the latter Satanazes, or "Satan's Island," by the mapmaker.
While critics argue that the islands are in the wrong latitude, the wrong longitude, and are oriented incorrectly, Menzies proposes that they correspond with Puerto Rico and Guadaloupe, and therefore the map is evidence, as it dates from 1424, that someone reached the New World before Christopher Columbus.
Menzies also does not consider that between America and Europe there is an other group of volcanic islands, namely the Azores, which much better fit the description on the map than American islands.
[edit] Sources
- Menzies, Gavin. 1421: The Year China Discovered the World. (2002)
[edit] External links
Categories: Cartography | Pseudohistory | Maps | 1424
