Posted on 07/27/2010 6:11:29 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
A team of 11 Chinese archaeologists will arrive in Kenya tomorrow to begin the search for an ancient shipwreck and other evidence of commerce with China dating back to the early 15th century. The three-year, £2m joint project will centre around the tourist towns of Lamu and Malindi and should shed light on a largely unknown part of both countries' histories.
The sunken ship is believed to have been part of a mighty armada commanded by Ming dynasty admiral Zheng He, who reached Malindi in 1418. According to Kenyan lore, reportedly backed by recent DNA testing, a handful of survivors swum ashore. After killing a python that had been plaguing a village, they were allowed to stay and marry local women, creating a community of African-Chinese whose descendants still live in the area.
A likely shipwreck site has been identified near Lamu island...
The project forms part of a recent effort by the Chinese government to celebrate the achievements of Zheng, a Muslim whose ships sailed the Indian and Pacific Oceans many decades before the exploits of more celebrated European explorers such as Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama. Starting in 1405, Zheng made seven journeys, taking in south-east Asia, India, the Middle East and Africa, in fleets of up to 300 huge ships with nearly 30,000 sailors in total, according to Chinese records...
In Siyu village they conducted DNA tests on a Swahili family whose oral history and hints of Chinese facial features led them to believe they were descendants of Zheng's shipwrecked sailors. The tests reportedly showed evidence of Chinese ancestry and a 19-year-old woman called Mwamaka Shirafu was given a full scholarship to study traditional medicine in China, where she remains.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
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Gods |
africa ming ship Zheng site:freerepublic.com |
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500-Year-Old Shipwreck Found By Diamond Firm
The Telegraph (UK) | 5-1-2008
Posted on 04/30/2008 8:44:11 PM PDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2009527/posts
That’s a tough one. On the one had the Chinese are rightly proud of their mighty admiral. On the other hand the Politburo is rightly scared shitless about muslims (see ongoing funtime baton and teargas lovefest of Uyghurs)
Wonder if they’ll ever come to grips with those tall, red headed royal mummies in their midst.
Ages ago I was reading something in a book (a book, my goodness, I'm sure dating myself with that one) about Penang ~ at that time the ISLAND which is today part of Penang State ~ being devoid of soil thereby requiring the early Ming settlers working to establish the Ming military base to CREATE SOIL so they could grow vegetables.
I'm guessing that was at the lower levels ~ they have a hill here, so if one of those Indonesian tsunamis cleared the decks, it was a humdinger.
The Great Treasure Fleet set sail from Penang ~ later acquired by the Brits to serve as a fortress to guard the Straits of Malacca.
This fleet may well have sailed to every part of the world and been the source of the maps later acquired by Christopher Columbus.
As you can see, the fact that Admiral He was Moslem has LITTLE OR NOTHING to do with his relevance to history. In fact, that's the least of it.
In his first book, 1421, Gavin Menzies argues that a huge Chinese fleet circumnavigated and charted the world years before the first great European voyages of discovery. The evidence for this comes in many different forms: from shipwrecks and ancient maps, to local peoples accounts and their DNA.
Explore Gavin’s website to find out more on this fascinating subject.
Enjoyed the book.
‘to local peoples accounts and their DNA’
I’d like to see the DNA results.
‘In Siyu village they conducted DNA tests on a Swahili family whose oral history and hints of Chinese facial features led them to believe they were descendants of Zheng’s shipwrecked sailors. The tests reportedly showed evidence of Chinese ancestry and a 19-year-old woman called Mwamaka Shirafu was given a full scholarship to study traditional medicine in China, where she remains.’
Until about 1550, the most technologically advanced, educated, and wealthiest people on earth were the Chinese.
China was poised to take over the world.
The had gunpowder, iron, paper, the center pivot rudder and magnetic compass. Their trade empire extended as far as South Africa. They had explored far west as the Cape of Good Hope, and far enough east that Chinese style anchors from that period are still occasionally found in California coastal waters.
We would all be speaking Chinese right now, if the Mandarins hadn’t been freaked out about the new ideas flooding into China with the trade goods. In fear of losing control they so throughly crushed trade by regulations and taxes that it utterly vanished from history until recent rediscoveries of sunken Junks (as large as many modern freighters) forced a re-examnation of long forgotten records.
To this day it remains bureaucracy’s most stunning achievement...
(Although the Obama administration is giving it a run for its money)
Most of the evidence comes from Menzies hyperactive imagination. It’s a nice yarn, but holes start sprouting up the instant you start looking for them.
Those Chinese archeologists aren’t going to Kenya to look for a sunken ship. That is a ruse. They are going to find and confiscate Obama’s birth certificate for their own use, what ever they decide that may be.
:-)
Thanks ct!
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