Map points to Chinese as the first foreigners in Africa
Thursday, November 14, 2002
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Cape Town
The unveiling in South Africa's parliament of a replica ancient Chinese map that includes a recognisable outline of Africa is raising intriguing questions about which foreigners first explored the continent.
"The idea is to take us beyond what we have been . . . brainwashed into believing," declared Speaker Frene Ginwala at the opening of the exhibition at which the map is on show.
The "Da Ming Hun Yi Tu", the Amalgamated Map of the Great Ming Empire, dates back to 1389, decades before the first European voyages to Africa. Among recognisable features are the Nile River and South Africa's Drakensberg mountain range.
The map also shows a great lake, covering almost half the continent's land mass. Researchers suggest it may have been drawn on the basis of an Arab legend that stated "farther south from the Sahara Desert is a great lake, far greater than the Caspian Sea".
"We have the world's best researchers working on it," said the South African parliament's senior researcher, Heindri Bailey. "Until we are able to gain the knowledge we won't speculate on it."
The original of the map is in Beijing, where it has remained wrapped up, sealed and stowed behind a locked door since the fall of China's last emperor in 1924. Fewer than 20 people have had access to it since then.
The digitised reproduction of the map, on silk, is almost four metres high and more than four metres across.
Place names are written mostly in Manchu, a virtually extinct language.
Karen Harris of the historical and heritage studies department at the University of Pretoria said that as early as the first century AD, records had been found in China mentioning places in Africa.
"They had the capability, definitely [to travel to Africa]," she said. "There's not so much evidence to prove it, but it isn't a closed book yet."
Ms Harris said that at the time the Chinese were seeking tribute for their emperor rather than trade, and so would not have set up bases or left physical signs of their presence, as was the case with Europeans. "You wouldn't find human remains because the Chinese took their bodies back to their ancestral lands," she added. |
