About ten days ago I had posted an article here from The Economist about the Chinese admiral Zheng He, and a map of the world that he supposedly produced 70 years before Columbus set sail which showed the Americas. Well, it seems that the map is probably fake.
Stefan Lovgren in National Geographic:
A recently unveiled map purporting to show that a Chinese explorer discovered America in 1418 has been met with skepticism from cartographers and historians alike.
The map depicts all of the continents, including Australia, North America, and Antarctica, in rough outline.
An inscription identifies the map as a copy made in 1763 of an original drawn in 1418.
Antiquities collector Liu Gang, who unveiled the map in Beijing last week, says it proves that Chinese seafarer Zheng He discovered America more than 70 years before Christopher Columbus set foot in the New World.
But experts have dismissed the map as a fake.
More here.