17 June 2006 (The Straits Times, by way of the Singapore Heritage mailing list) – A Ming dynasty medal unearthed in North Carolina suggest Chinese contact with America before Columbus. The 1421 thesis is highly controversial and academics have provided a point-by-point rebuttal of Gavin Menzies’ work in 1421 Exposed. (Unfortunately, the Straits Times is a pay-site and a link cannot be provided. I’d be happy to forward the article to you if you email me.)
More proof that Zheng He founded America?
MORE evidence has been unearthed which suggests that Chinese Ming dynasty explorer Zheng He might have founded America decades before Christopher Columbus did in the late 15th century.
A seven-cm-wide brass medal, complete with Ming dynasty inscriptions and dug up kilometres inland from the North Carolina coast, was yesterday unveiled here for the first time.
The six-Chinese-character inscription, ‘Da Ming Xuan De Wei Ci’, on the medal translates into ‘Awarded by Xuan De of Great Ming’. It refers to the period between 1426 and 1435, the reign of Emperor Xuan Zong – long before Columbus landed in the New World in 1492.
This, claimed the medal’s owner Lee Siu Leung, ties in with the fact that Xuan Zong had, in 1430, commissioned Admiral Zheng to embark on his last voyage to announce his accession to the throne to foreign nations.
