![]() ![]() The map was bought for about $500 from a small Shanghai dealer in 2001 by Liu Gang, one of the most eminent commercial lawyers in China, who collects maps and paintings. The copyist distinguishes what he took from the original from what he added himself. In the lower left-hand corner is a note that says the chart was drawn by Mo Yi Tong, imitating a world chart made in 1418 which showed the barbarians paying tribute to the Ming emperor, Zhu Di. Six Chinese characters in the upper right-hand corner of the map say this is a “general chart of the integrated world”. The map (shown above) will be unveiled in Beijing on January 16th and at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich a day later. ![]() “It will revolutionise our thinking about 15th-century world history,” says Gunnar Thompson, a student of ancient maps and early explorers. It is a copy, made in 1763, of a map, dated 1418, which contains notes that substantially match the descriptions in the book. Next week, in Beijing and London, fresh and dramatic evidence is to be revealed to bolster Zheng He's case. ![]()
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