SC - Chinese Explorers

[Kappler, MMC Richard A.]

Master Adamantius wrote:

One account includes the claim that Chinese explorers discovered an
extremely large land mass across the Western Ocean, after having passed
some smaller islands...

Milord, I must presume that your fingers typed what your brain intended,
and therefore point out that the 'Western Ocean' to the Chinese would be
what we now call the Indian Ocean.  This fits well with your descritpion
as there are thousands of islands between the Pacific and the East Coast
of the African continent, so not knowing your sources, may I presume to
say that you would indeed be talking about Africa, not North America?


And then Elysant wrote:

There are some puzzling similarities in Mexican and Egyptian
pyramid/temple 
construction though.  Perhaps a few learned Egyptian architects came
across 
the seas from the Med in a Kontiki type of raft one day, floated into
the 
Caribbean and showed the Olmecs, Toltecs etc. or whoever else was there
how 
to build pyramids.  And you're talking BC for even the last of the
Egyptian 
mummies, 1100 AD or so for the Aztecs, and 1400's for Columbus.  But of
a 
time span there!  And this side of the pond has the later dates (at
least by 
present dating methods).


I agree there are puzzling similarities, and suggest that they are
puzzling because there have been no connections reliably made between
the two of which I am aware.  The idea that a few Egyptian architects
jumped in a boat and went off to teach the Americans how to build
pyramids has, IMHO, just too much going against it.  Mind you, I am a
proponent of the idea that ANYTHING is possible, but also aware that
many things are highly unlikely, this being one of them.  First off, the
architects of the day were highly prized technicians in the eyes of the
Pharoahs, allowing one or more of them to go forth and spread knowledge
is highly unlikely.  Secondly, navigation at the time just does not
support this type of voyage.  Reliable determination of both latitude
and longitude is a relatively modern invention.  Latitude, the east-west
lines ringing the planet that include the equator, is easily determined
by looking at your position relative to the stars, but longitude, the
north-south lines, requires a reliable and extremely accurate timepiece
to determine.  We in the modern era are so used to being able to jump in
a mode of transport and go from point a to point b that I think some of
us forget that such mobility is very very modern.  I don't doubt the
concept that there were Europeans, Asians and Africans in the western
hemisphere long before Columbus, but I posit that they were either
intrepid explorers who didn't care where they were going, only that they
went, or hapless souls carried off by storms or inattention to their
craft who had no intention of leaving their homeland, and arrived at
these shores by terrible accident.  They had no GPS.  Columbus isn't a
great historical figure because he discovered America, there is now
ample evidence that Norsemen, among others, were here long before, and
even penetrated the North American continent as far as the Great Plains.
Columbus' place in history is that he was able to reproduce his results
reliably and repeatedly.  Naval architecture has been able to support
world travel throughout the ages, Joshus Slocum proved it doesn't take
much.  Navigation, on the other hand, has only recently been sufficient
to support accurate and reproducable exploration.  QED, the idea that a
few learned Egyptian architects jumped in a raft and vacationed in
South/Central America seems highly unlikely to me.

Skipper, Naviguesser and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer of the 'Happy
Wanderer', Puck
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