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Did Marco Polo Explore Alaska? A Review of Benjamin B. Olshin's "The Mysteries of the Marco Polo Maps" (2014)

12/16/2014

32 Comments

 
Later this week, America Unearthed will be asking whether Marco Polo discovered America. The topic seemed familiar, and I knew that the series was shooting its episodes in September of this year. It took only a few seconds to discover that the writers, who are clearly running on fumes at this point, were adapting a news report that appeared in Smithsonian magazine’s October edition and in British newspapers in late September. (So much for the Smithsonian conspiracy to suppress the truth!) According to the claim, a map drawn by Marco Polo depicting the Bering Strait was found in San Jose, California in the 1930s but not analyzed until this year.
Picture
Alleged Marco Polo map of East Asia and Alaska
Well, sort of… Like the notorious fraudulent Zeno hoax map, the Marco Polo map is not an original, or at least doesn’t claim to be. Its advocate is Benjamin B. Olshin, who wrote a book called The Mysteries of the Marco Polo Maps about the Marco Polo map and its attendant documents for the University of Chicago Press. The book was released about six weeks ago. As it happens, the claim that the maps were not studied until this year is also false. After they appeared in the 1930s in the possession of a certain Marcian Rossi (who claimed to have inherited them from a long chain of ancestors), the Library of Congress and the FBI both investigated the maps. Olshin’s analysis is the most thorough since the maps’ emergence, but Olshin was not able to establish the authenticity of the maps.

Rossi was an amateur historian (whose key interest was early exploration), an autodidact, a map collector, and a science fiction enthusiast who wrote the novel A Trip to Mars in 1920. In that book, Rossi’s characters consult with Nikola Tesla, travel to the Red Planet, and discover that Mars is ruled by ancient Romans. It sits a bit uncomfortably with me that a polyglot science fiction enthusiast with a fringe history bent and knowledge of exploration and old maps would just happen to be the owner of documents “proving” that Marco Polo beat Columbus to America. Only at the end of the book does Olshin reveal that Rossi had been peddling these documents since 1904, that he displayed them in St. Louis at the world’s fair alongside an obvious hoax—a map drawn by Pliny the Elder of the Caribbean!—and other hoax manuscripts, such as manuscript (!) texts of Pliny allegedly describing an Etruscan colony in the lesser Antilles. Oh, and Rossi later claimed all of the hoax texts except the Polo documents were destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Later, Rossi peddled other apparent hoaxes such as an Italian account of the California coast from the early 1500s. Olshin makes no mention of the improbability of any of these being real.

Here I would add that the map appears at first glance to be modern. It looks like someone who drew freehand the geography of the Pacific while looking at a modern map. It doesn’t seem to have the kind of utility one might expect of a medieval map. It would be useless for sailing, for example, since it changes scale from north to south. It’s a picture of the Pacific rather than a map, and very different from the precision of Chinese cartography at the time. When comparing the Marco Polo map to other European maps of its century, it looks very different, closer akin to the disputed Vinland map, allegedly of the fifteenth century, than to medieval European maps of the early 1300s. One could, I suppose, put this down to copying material poorly, but to what purpose?

Therefore, I turned to Olshin’s short book to try to find out what I could about the Marco Polo map—or, rather, maps. There are apparently twelve documents in a variety of languages (Italian, Arabic, and Chinese) featuring multiple maps, most appearing similarly to be freehand pictures rather than attempted scale representations. Olshin begins by explaining that mainstream scholars are afraid of the topic because of their “aversion to risk,” but that he bravely sought to investigate the truth. He gained access to the documents from Rossi’s great-grandson Jeffrey R. Pendergraft. Olshin makes nothing of Rossi’s special interests or previous peddling of apparent hoaxes, even though he mentions these in passing. Olshin reviews earlier opinions on the map of “Alaska,” most of which expressed doubts to its authenticity, ranging from claims of outright fraud to suggestions that a genuine medieval map of Asia had been added to much later, perhaps in the eighteenth century. Analysis of the writing on the maps showed that it did not conform to medieval or Renaissance style and could not have been written before the eighteenth century. The only question, then, was whether the maps were eighteenth century copies of a real original or a modern fraud.

It’s instructive to compare the Polo documents to the Zeno hoax, with which it share many similarities. In that hoax, Nicolò Zeno the younger fabricated “recreations” of his memory of a map and letters from his ancestors, the Zeno brothers, that showed that these men had traveled the Arctic in the 1300s and therefore were worthy of greater honor than that upstart and knave Columbus. According to the hoax, the Italians heard tell of a land that could be read as America. If you were to try to create a hoax to outdo the Zeno brothers you would need four things: (a) an Italian more famous than the Zeni, (b) an Italian older than the Zeni, (c) a story of actually reaching America, and (d) actual medieval maps and letters, not just recreations. By sheer coincidence the Marco Polo papers meet all four of these criteria.

Olshin, though, is more interested in trying to establish a reasonable path by which the maps might be real than to examine them for evidence of fraud. To that end, he traces the genealogy of Rossi to see if his ancestors really did interact with the Polo family, and he looks into the absence of evidence for any Polo maps (never mentioned by Polo in his book or his will, not used by any cartographer after him) for holes that would allow such maps to pass through unnoticed by history. Anyway, he gives a translation of the various documents, and the part referring to Alaska, related to Polo by a Syrian, but appearing on a different document than the map of Alaska, reads this way:
He had been trading in pelts for a good thirty years, and many times [he had gone] as far as another peninsula towards the north and east called Marine Seal, which is twice as far from China. There, there are people who speak the Tartar language, and [something] hardly anyone could believe, had they not seen it themselves: the people go about dressed in sealskins, living on fish, and making their houses under the earth.
A second text, this time attributed to Marco Polo himself, says that Polo sailed with ten ships to a great peninsula: “There they found caves here and there. They [i.e., the inhabitants] wear trousers and shirts of the skin of seals and deer.”

The implication, of course, is that these people are Eskimos. That this not necessarily the case Olshin accidentally notes in claiming that the story is “reflected” in the 1459 Fra Mauro map, which refers to people who “live on wild game and wear animal hides; they are men of bestial habits, and to the very north they live in caves and underground because of the cold.” One can also note that similar (though not identical) material appears in Olaus Magnus and in the Zeno hoax derived from it. It was apparently a common trope associated with northern peoples in the late medieval period, and at any rate could have derived if nothing else from an actual and known voyage to the Arctic—by the Vikings, who met the Dorset and/or Thule people (Skraelings), who conform to such descriptions, as well as the peoples of the European Arctic.

Only much later does Olshin consider whether the creators of the text (if it has any genuine basis in history) might have pulled a reverse Columbus—speculating, due to ignorance of North America, that if you went east of China you’d end up in the Norse Arctic. Olshin compares the Syrian’s account to later European maps that mention men who fish and wear skins, as many Arctic peoples did on both sides of the Bering Strait.

Olshin also compares the account to the famous Fusang passage of the Liang Shu from 635 CE, which claimed that the people of the far east of China use deer for cattle, and he suggests that this refers to reindeer of the Arctic. The Fusang passage is challenging on its own because it is largely mythical and encrusted with fiction. The name (as “Fusan”) actually appears on one of the supposed Marco Polo maps. Because this connection between Fusang and America occurs only in the eighteenth century, the map would almost certainly be after this date, and (I would add) probably after Leland’s popular book about the Chinese discovery of America, Fusang, in 1875—where other toponyms on the Polo map, including “Uan Scian” and “Ta Can” can be found as Wen-schin and Tahan (modern transliteration: When Shen and Da Han). While these toponyms have been known in Europe (specifically in French—as Ven-chin and Ta-han) since the 1700s, the versions used on the Polo material seem to me to be closer to nineteenth century English spellings converted back into Italian than French material, but an eighteenth century date can’t be ruled out. Olshin, though, omits Leland’s transliteration and instead stresses that the Polo versions don’t have Francophone elements and therefore must be genuine translations from Chinese. I therefore dissent from Olshin’s analysis of the toponyms as unlikely to have been back-formed from French because Leland provides everything needed to back-form the Italian without needing to return to the original Chinese or use the French. (In case you care, the “Can” in Ta-Can is a Venetian dialect use of “c” to represent “h.”) Olshin is limited in his analysis by his assumption that any presumed modern creator of the documents would have been a European working in early modern Europe rather than, say, an Italian science fiction and medieval map enthusiast living in twentieth century California.

Olshin notes that the Polo material makes reference to material from Ptolemy, whose work was lost to the West until long after Polo’s day. It is therefore unlikely to be genuine, but Olshin holds out hope that the authors of the map were medieval people with special access to hidden reserves of Ptolemaic knowledge.

Olshin contends that the other Polo material is unlikely to be a complete fabrication because one of the maps (of the Atlantic Ocean, nominally made right after Columbus) features the location of the toponym “Antilla,” referring to an imaginary island, whose mythology was not studied extensively until Babcock in the 1920s and Cortesão in the 1950s, and therefore unavailable to a forger of the 1700s or 1800s. Say what? I found this confusing but seems to refer to the idea that the mapmaker calculated his own system of longitude rather than borrow one wholesale from earlier writers. For example, in his 1474 letter to Columbus, Paul Toscanelli famously said that “From the island Antilla, which you call the seven cities, and of which you have some knowledge, to the most noble island of Cipango [Japan] are ten spaces, which make 2500 miles, or 225 leagues.” However, the map takes its measurements instead from the unique land of Transerica Pons appearing only on it. I’m not sure why this is a problem, and you’d think Olshin would be more wary of “Transerica Pons,” a name that looks a lot like a truncated Latin form of “Trans America Pons,” the “bridge across to America.” But since this map is admittedly one of the New World and makes mention of Columbus, it is frankly not relevant to the main question.

Olshin further takes as confirmation of the documents’ authenticity a parallel found in an unusual account of Marco Polo in Ramusio’s 1558 account of geography, which suggested that Polo traveled to northeast Asia. Olshin, who doesn’t think like a hoaxer, sees this as reflecting an essential truth about the Polo texts, when it could equally well be the basis for a hoax. Besides, unrelated by Olshin, the French geographer Michel Antoine Baudrand attributed the discovery of the “southern continent” to Polo in 1681, and the Padre Dottore Vitale Terra-Rossa attributed the discovery of every land on earth to the Venetians in the 1680s. Olshin notes that Johannes Schöner mistakenly placed Polo in America when he confused cities in Mexico and China in an account of the 1530s, as did later writers like Frei Gregorio García who conflated Mexico and China and assigned both Polo and John Mandeville Mexican voyages. 

I would love to further analyze the written texts, supposedly by the daughters of Marco Polo, but I have already gone on too long. They contain little that could not be imagined from Victorian literature and a good library of Renaissance and medieval travelogues.

Olshin concludes by evaluating the evidence for and against a hoax. He concludes—wrongly, I think—that the documents are unlikely to be a complete hoax because they are too complex and have too many details from non-Polo sources. That’s precisely why it would be good as a hoax: Simplistic hoaxes are easily exposed. He then continues his obstinate idea that if there were a hoax it had to occur in the early modern period, even though, as I have demonstrated above, someone working around 1900 would have had all the material necessary to complete it—and, in the wake of the Columbus celebrations 1892, good reason to undercut that wretched Genoese, just like the proponents of Viking, Venetian, and Sinclair discoveries of America were already doing in those same years. Olshin concludes that the documents may be modernized copies of genuine medieval material, to which details were added in later centuries.

Olshin’s book is, overall, a fair and balanced account of the controversy and an interesting read. But because Olshin doesn’t think like a hoaxer and failed to consider an American rather than European provenance for the documents, he missed important avenues to consider before declaring them authentic.

32 Comments
EP
12/16/2014 07:37:55 am

I'm shocked that the University of Chicago Press would publish a book like this.

Also, I've read Olshin's paper on the I Ching and it is really terrible. He could make a passable popular writer, but he really has no business in the academia.

Reply
Scott Hamilton
12/16/2014 09:14:25 am

Is that a drawing of the stern of a Chinese boat to the right of the map? Has Gavin Menzies gotten his hands on these yet?

Reply
Shane Sullivan
12/16/2014 11:42:15 am

"Olshin compares the Syrian’s account to later European maps that mention men who fish and wear skins, as many Arctic peoples did on both sides of the Bering Strait."

Yes, I also thought it seemed counterintuitive to pass by all those Siberian peninsulas where people wear skins and eat fish (Kamchatka, Chukchi) and only treat as remarkable the one that's furthest away.

Reply
EP
12/16/2014 12:25:33 pm

Excellent point yet again, Mr. Shane!

Moreover, reference to Tartar language suggests that we're possibly talking about the Yenisei Kyrgyz people, who could have been found around the present-day Vladivostok at that time. The peoples you meniton do no speak "Tartar" (Turkic) languages.

Reply
Shane Sullivan
12/16/2014 01:52:31 pm

Ah, the language--I knew I forgot something.

If there was any veracity to the story at all, I figured the explorers in question just went, "I dunno what the hell language they're speaking, so, probably Tartar." Not that I would have thought of the Yenisei Kyrgyz anyway, as I hadn't realized the Turkic languages had extended that far southeast historically.

Steve StC
12/16/2014 12:29:01 pm

“It looks like someone who drew freehand the geography of the Pacific while looking at a modern map.”

Jason Colavito, renowned “Xenoarchaeologist,” can tell, at a glance, that a map is a modern forgery. Amazing.

“Olshin makes nothing of Rossi’s special interests or previous peddling of apparent hoaxes, even though he mentions these in passing.”

So which did you and your keyboard decide, Jason? Did he make nothing of it? Or did he mention it in passing? I leave it to your acolytes, especially Emergency Poop, to decide. (You don’t need to read the book Emergency Poop. Just jump right in with your learned opinions.)

“Olshin, though, is more interested in trying to establish a reasonable path by which the maps might be real than to examine them for evidence of fraud.”

Well then, Jason. He must be a fraud. The proper way to research anything to do with early contact in North America is to arrogantly decide it’s a fake and then to ignore any evidence whatsoever. No signs of life have been found on Mars, so no searches for life on Mars are necessary - case closed.

Yet those crazies at NASA keep spending our tax dollars on the search !!

(I’ve tried the above logic on Jason-and-his-keyboard before but to no avail.)

“Olshin, who doesn’t think like a hoaxer…”

How dare he !!

“He concludes—wrongly, I think”

Wow, that’s conclusive! No, you’re not “think”ing. You’ve already hardened your opinions long ago. Like so many wanna-be academics before you (and all around you among your acolytes) you don’t think. You already (arrogantly) “know.”

“He then continues his obstinate idea…”

There it is. Jason-and-His-Keyboard reveal their true arrogance. I know Ben Olshin personally and he is the antithesis of “obstinate” Jason-and-His-Keyboard. Ben Olshin had an open-enough mind to travel to Halifax, Nova Scotia for the first Atlantic Conference, put on by the -- wait for it -- Saint-Clair family. Doing so exposed him to attack by a bunch of completely arrogant assholes on a group called MapHist, similar to Jason-and-His-Keyboard’s acolytes except they actually have academic credentials rather than just posing as such. They insulted him personally and relentlessly. Sound familiar boys? In the end, Ben added a wonderful perspective to our conference. He understood that non-academics (read: lack of arrogance) might well find their way to new discoveries. And he presented what I found to be the best logic of the entire conference of possible early trans-Atlantic contact. (You can’t Google it, Jason-and-his-keyboard. It’s not online. And you certainly would never attend such a conference. It would spoil your changes of being accepted by credentialed academics who will never accept you anyway, no matter how much you slam those who explore early trans-Atlantic contact.)

“Olshin’s book is, overall, a fair and balanced account of the controversy and an interesting read.”

You should leave it at that, Jason-and-his-keyboard. But you just can’t. You have to add that Ben “doesn’t think like a hoaxer”

That’s the only way you think. And in so doing, you are quickly revealing yourself as a close-minded hoaxer.

So far, Emergency Poop, Scott Hamilton, and Shane Sullivan have commented on your blog post. Have any of them read the book you’re so even-handedly reviewing? Of course they haven’t. That’s why they are so welcomed here.

Reply
Jason Colavito link
12/16/2014 12:55:36 pm

I take it, Steve, that having found no way to defend America Unearthed after its recent promotion of a hoax you contented yourself with attempting to criticize my objections of Olshin's conclusions, which I may remind you, are based on a review of texts, not a scientific analysis of paper or ink. You would seriously complain that I, logically enough, say that Olshin discussed the other apparent hoaxes in passing but did nothing with the material? He mentioned the existence of the documents but failed not note they were likely hoaxes; therefore, he did nothing with the facts--he built them into no argument, sort of like the way you fail to make an argument every time you spew insults and imagine it wit.

We can drill down into the specifics at a granular level if you'd like: Olshin, for example, describes the "Island of Women" as Chinese lore, but he neglects to note that it enters Chinese lore from Arabian lore, and in turn from Greek and Roman myth; therefore, the appearance of the Island of Women in the Polo material cannot be prima facie evidence of genuine Chinese content in the maps. And on it goes.

Olshin failed to consider several possibilities. It's worth considering them because, should he overcome those objections, it would make his argument stronger. You would prefer that we all shut up and let you have your fantasies without objection, but that only makes for weak theories and the embarrassment of you and Scott Wolter talking about Cistercians and honeybees as though it were the secret to finding your missing royal heritage.

Reply
Steve StC
12/16/2014 01:20:01 pm

Did I mention Scott or AU? Yet you mentioned him and AU more then once. Why do you have such a hard-on for Scott?

Just a few words in answer will suffice. Please don't dodge this question, Jason. It's important.

“which I may remind you, are based on a review of texts…”

Are they based on anything more than that? I see no sources by which I or your willing acolytes might check your opinions against the research of others far more learned than you-and-your-keyboard. You know, credentialed academics with initials after their names.

“…sort of like the way you fail to make an argument every time you spew insults and imagine it wit.”

I’m not “spewing insults” and “imagining it wit,” clever Jason. I’m calling into question your motives, your complete arrogance, and your credentials to judge others, especially those like Benjamin B. Olshin, Ph.D about whom you know so little. Your agenda is so nakedly apparent.

Gee, Jason! You missed those important initials!

YOU LEFT OUT THE Ph.D.

Why do you so often leave out the Ph.D when you’re attacking a Ph.D you disagree with? Is it so that other PH.Ds who might also disagree with Benjamin might decide they like you and award you an honorary degree?

A simple “yes” or “no” will suffice.

“Olshin failed to consider several possibilities”

Really? How much of his work have you explored?

A short list of his work that you've studied will suffice, Jason-and-His-Keyboard.

Perhaps he should have consulted your eminence, the amazing Xenoarchaeologist (blogger), before he published his book. Perhaps everyone should.

As you know by now, Jason-and-His-Keyboard, I’m not here to debate your hardened and transparent opinions. I’m here to expose your arrogance.

Time for your acolytes to jump in.

Jason Colavito link
12/16/2014 01:38:41 pm

I mentioned him because you are only heard due to your repeated defenses of him, and your upcoming appearance on the show.

You seem to have a problem with the concept of review. There are no other researchers publishing on this material, but as the author notes, almost all earlier scholars considered the material less than genuine.

Do you have any arguments against my points? I thought not.

Olshin at one point discusses whether Rossi had motive to hoax and then in the same paragraph claims that the hoax (if it were one) was in the eighteenth century, without recognizing the contradiction. Here is the important point: All of my points come from an impeccable source, Olshin himself. He just didn't put together the pieces scattered through his own book.

EP
12/16/2014 02:08:27 pm

The fact that Benjamin Olshin would participate in the "Atlantic Conference" Sinclair-fest (along with such luminaries as David Brody, author of "Cabal of The Westford Knight: Templars at the Newport Tower") tells us everything we need to know about his priorities.

I know the academic job market is hard, especially when you're a mediocrity whose area of competence is of no more than a niche interest (like Olshin). But doesn't change the fact that he's doing all he can to demonstrate that he is basically using his academic credentials to sell pseudohistory.

This makes exposing him all the more worthwhile.

Only Me
12/16/2014 05:53:09 pm

>>>Jason Colavito, renowned “Xenoarchaeologist,” can tell, at a glance, that a map is a modern forgery. Amazing. <<<

Kinda like how Scott Wolter can tell, at a glance, that an artifact or rock is genuine because it "looks old"?

>>>The proper way to research anything to do with early contact in North America is to arrogantly decide it’s a fake and then to ignore any evidence whatsoever.<<<

Or, one could use the Scott Wolter method and arrogantly decide it's *true* and then ignore any evidence whatsoever. Similar to your Jarl Sinclair in America nonsense.

>>>You’ve already hardened your opinions long ago. Like so many wanna-be academics before you (and all around you among your acolytes) you don’t think. You already (arrogantly) “know.”<<<

Sounds like a "pot meet kettle" scenario to me.

>>>You have to add that Ben “doesn’t think like a hoaxer”<<<

Just like you and your ilk insisting everyone who doesn't buy into what you're selling should be "open-minded".

>>>Why do you have such a hard-on for Scott?<<<

Better question: Why do you have such a hard-on for Jason?

>>>Is it so that other PH.Ds who might also disagree with Benjamin might decide they like you and award you an honorary degree?<<<

At least they'd go through the proper channels and the award would be legitimate...unlike Scott Wolter's.

>>>Your agenda is so nakedly apparent.<<<

Sauce for the goose, Steve.

>>>I’m here to expose your arrogance.<<<

And only succeed in exposing your own.


Clint Knapp
12/16/2014 04:10:26 pm

Psst. Steve. It's not 'trans-Atlantic" contact if he sailed from China to Alaska. Regardless where Polo himself originated.

Reply
Manfred
12/17/2014 04:28:42 pm

Who is Steve? You mentioned he was going to be in a future show?

Reply
EP
12/17/2014 05:12:52 pm

He's the man with magical Jesus blood and Scott Wolter's angriest fanboy. The two of them went on journey to France to look for bees.

I am not making any of this up.

Jerky
12/17/2014 05:27:14 pm

Oh yes, I forgot all about the bees thing.

So whats Steve's beef with Jason? I see why Scott has issues with Jason...

Clint Knapp
12/17/2014 05:43:10 pm

The full story is a little hard to condense, but the gist is that Steve and his StClair DNA research project seek to identify the 'true" descendants of one Henry Sinclair who, according to a hoax, is supposed to be a Holy Bloodline descendant. So yeah, he thinks he and his family are so special that he has to sort the "true" StClaire/Sinclairs from the false. Scott Wolter considers this true and one of the lynchpins of his absurd Templar fantasies.

They aren't fans of Jason's work occasionally demonstrating how absurd the whole mess really is, and Steve sometimes shows up to complain and hurl insults. You know, like Jesus would.

For further reading, see any of Jason's earlier reviews of the Zeno Narrative, the first season of AU, or the review of Wolter's latest book.

EP
12/17/2014 05:59:45 pm

Also, there's this from Urban Dictionary:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=st.+clair&defid=1871732

"St. Clair: For a male to perform oral sex on another male at a unrinal in an open area of a bathroom for everyone to see. (Man, I walked into the bathroom and this dude was giving another guy a St. Clair, I was in shock but I soon realized I was in a gay bar. )"

Steve got really mad when I brought it up and called me "Emergency Poop". Clever, no?

Jerky
12/17/2014 06:52:36 pm

Ohhh so is he that guy from the last episode of AU's season 1? where Scott went looking for the holy grail or some crap like that and told the guy with him "We are going to find your families treasure" (or something along that line), That's this Steve guy?

Jerky
12/17/2014 08:42:47 pm

I got to say, Clint Knapp, that is some good reading...

I guess I can some what see where Steve and Scott fit into things, But then there's Gunn And Phil and trying to fit them into it is just making my head hurt.

Clint Knapp
12/17/2014 08:44:57 pm

That's the one. In that particular review he comments under full name and links to his site. He shortened it to the current form, but it's the same guy.

Clint Knapp
12/17/2014 08:54:33 pm

Gunn is a different person using a pseudonym out of admiration for Steve and his own convoluted history of promoting Kennsington Rune Stone related ideas. Phil is a friend of Scott Wolter's who worked with him on Wolter's book about Lake Superior Agates.

Jerky
12/17/2014 09:14:06 pm

Oh?

I think I get it now. They are all connected to each other in one way or another: Steve to Scott, Gunn to Steve, Phil to Scott. And at lest two of them come here to defend Scott (Phil and Steve, And Steve also showing up to promote his holy bloodline claims and DNA project?) will Gunn came here to promote stone hole stuff (Still not sure where Steve exactly fits into that or why Gunn has admiration for him). And Scott showed up a few times to try and defend him self.

Is that all correct?

EP
12/18/2014 03:01:59 am

I see we're talking about my favorite poster of all time... ;)

EP
12/16/2014 01:48:03 pm

Sup, Steve! Glad you're back! I was beginning to worry that you don't love me no more...

Reply
tm
12/16/2014 02:42:09 pm

Who won the Atlantic Conference this year?

Reply
EP
12/16/2014 02:54:18 pm

The Sinclair Atlantic Conference: Whoever Wins, We Lose

Reply
tm
12/16/2014 03:06:19 pm

Sounds like the program didn't include training in critical thinking skills. :)

Kal
12/17/2014 12:10:08 pm

Don't feed the trolls.

What JC seems to mean is that the maps look like drawings traced in modern times. This totally makes sense to an art fan. It is too perfect in places, but the wrong perspective, like a modern sketch of something he saw, perhaps a map of Alaska in the 1900s. The effect of stretching a map from a globe makes Alaska and other parts look much bigger than they are. That is likely what he means.

I cannot confirm if it's a forgery or not but neither can the other bloggers here. Like SW I would say it's something at a glance.

I suppose next week on AU they will have evidence PT Barnum also discovered America.


Reply
EP
12/17/2014 01:57:18 pm

When are they going to air Scott & Steve's UnBEElievable Adventure? (Pssst... It's the one with bees...)

Reply
Mike Morgan
12/17/2014 02:54:35 pm

SW, on his blog under "Custer"s Blood Treasure", posted the following response to a comment I can no longer find:

Scott WolterDecember 8, 2014 at 2:23 PM

As far as Moncure goes, we also had a hard time finding out much about him.

As far as the Templar's go; stay tuned for our final episodes of the season. You'll get a lot more than you expected I'm sure!

EP
12/17/2014 05:13:58 pm

More than you'd expect, less than you'd hope :)

PaulN. link
12/17/2014 05:41:11 pm

Just a few observations on the "Marco Polo" map.
1.) The map appears to be using four different types of ink, slate gray for the ship and floral border, sepia for most of the writing and the map, darker sepia for what looks like corrections, enhancements or changes, and black for the last part of the inscription, Chinese characters and the directional arrows at the top.
2.) The ships prow is in 3/4 profile with billowing sails. The overall effect looks like something from the 15th century or later.
3.) The map is framed. A style that was not used until a much later date.
4.) The style is reminiscent of the Vinland map. Shapes that are rough enough to be vaguely familiar without any real detail but could be perceived to be actual land forms.
I'm sure others could pick out other details and anomalies, but here is a link to a site dealing with real Medieval maps.
http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/LMwebpages/LML.html
I particulary like #230.

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          • Eumalos on Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Gómara on Atlantis
          • Sardinia and Atlantis
          • Santorini and Atlantis
          • The Mound Builders and Atlantis
          • Donnelly's Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Morocco
          • Atlantis and the Sea Peoples
          • W. Scott-Elliot >
            • The Story of Atlantis
            • The Lost Lemuria
          • The Lost Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Africa
          • How I Found Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Termier on Atlantis
          • The Critias and Minoan Crete
          • Rebuttal to Termier
          • Further Responses to Termier
          • Flinders Petrie on Atlantis
        • Lost Cities >
          • Miscellaneous Lost Cities
          • The Seven Cities
          • The Lost City of Paititi
          • Manuscript 512
          • The Idolatrous City of Iximaya (Hoax)
          • The 1885 Moberly Lost City Hoax
          • The Elephants of Paredon (Hoax)
        • OOPARTs
        • Oronteus Finaeus Antarctica Map
        • Caucasians in Panama
        • Jefferson's Excavation
        • Fictitious Discoveries in America
        • Against Diffusionism
        • Tunnels Under Peru
        • The Parahyba Inscription (Hoax)
        • Mound Builders
        • Gunung Padang
        • Tales of Enchanted Islands
        • The 1907 Ancient World Map Hoax
        • The 1909 Grand Canyon Hoax
        • The Interglacial Period
        • Solving Oak Island
      • Religious Conspiracies >
        • Pantera, Father of Jesus?
        • Toledot Yeshu
        • Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay on Cathars
        • Testimony of Jean de Châlons
        • Rosslyn Chapel and the 'Prentice's Pillar
        • The Many Wives of Jesus
        • Templar Infiltration of Labor
        • Louis Martin & the Holy Bloodline
        • The Life of St. Issa (Hoax)
        • On the Person of Jesus Christ
      • Giants in the Earth >
        • Fossil Origins of Myths >
          • Fossil Teeth and Bones of Elephants
          • Fossil Elephants
          • Fossil Bones of Teutobochus
          • Fossil Mammoths and Giants
          • Giants' Bones Dug Out of the Earth
          • Fossils and the Supernatural
          • Fossils, Myth, and Pseudo-History
          • Man During the Stone Age
          • Fossil Bones and Giants
          • American Elephant Myths
          • The Mammoth and the Flood
          • Fossils and Myth
          • Fossil Origin of the Cyclops
          • Mastodon, Mammoth, and Man
        • Fragments on Giants
        • Manichaean Book of Giants
        • Geoffrey on British Giants
        • Alfonso X's Hermetic History of Giants
        • Boccaccio and the Fossil 'Giant'
        • Book of Howth
        • Purchas His Pilgrimage
        • Edmond Temple's 1827 Giant Investigation
        • The Giants of Sardinia
        • Giants and the Sons of God
        • The Magnetism of Evil
        • Tertiary Giants
        • Smithsonian Giant Reports
        • Early American Giants
        • The Giant of Coahuila
        • Jewish Encyclopedia on Giants
        • Index of Giants
        • Newspaper Accounts of Giants
        • Lanier's A Book of Giants
      • Science and History >
        • Halley on Noah's Comet
        • The Newport Tower
        • Iron: The Stone from Heaven
        • Ararat and the Ark
        • Pyramid Facts and Fancies
        • Argonauts before Homer
        • The Deluge
        • Crown Prince Rudolf on the Pyramids
        • Old Mythology in New Apparel
        • Blavatsky on Dinosaurs
        • Teddy Roosevelt on Bigfoot
        • Devil Worship in France
        • Maspero's Review of Akhbar al-zaman
        • The Holy Grail as Lucifer's Crown Jewel
        • The Mutinous Sea
        • The Rock Wall of Rockwall
        • Fabulous Zoology
        • The Origins of Talos
        • Mexican Mythology
        • Chinese Pyramids
        • Maqrizi's Names of the Pharaohs
      • Extreme History >
        • Roman Empire Hoax
        • American Antiquities
        • American Cataclysms
        • England, the Remnant of Judah
        • Historical Chronology of the Mexicans
        • Maspero on the Predynastic Sphinx
        • Vestiges of the Mayas
        • Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel
        • Origins of the Egyptian People
        • The Secret Doctrine >
          • Volume 1: Cosmogenesis
          • Volume 2: Anthropogenesis
        • Phoenicians in America
        • The Electric Ark
        • Traces of European Influence
        • Prince Henry Sinclair
        • Pyramid Prophecies
        • Templars of Ancient Mexico
        • Chronology and the "Riddle of the Sphinx"
        • The Faith of Ancient Egypt
        • Spirit of the Hour in Archaeology
        • Book of the Damned
        • Great Pyramid As Noah's Ark
        • Richard Shaver's Proofs
    • Alien Encounters >
      • US Government Ancient Astronaut Files >
        • Fortean Society and Columbus
        • Inquiry into Shaver and Palmer
        • The Skyfort Document
        • Whirling Wheels
        • Denver Ancient Astronaut Lecture
        • Soviet Search for Lemuria
        • Visitors from Outer Space
        • Unidentified Flying Objects (Abstract)
        • "Flying Saucers"? They're a Myth
        • UFO Hypothesis Survival Questions
        • Air Force Academy UFO Textbook
        • The Condon Report on Ancient Astronauts
        • Atlantis Discovery Telegrams
        • Ancient Astronaut Society Telegram
        • Noah's Ark Cables
        • The Von Daniken Letter
        • CIA Psychic Probe of Ancient Mars
        • Scott Wolter Lawsuit
        • UFOs in Ancient China
        • CIA Report on Noah's Ark
        • CIA Noah's Ark Memos
        • Congressional Ancient Aliens Testimony
        • Ancient Astronaut and Nibiru Email
        • Congressional Ancient Mars Hearing
        • House UFO Hearing
      • Ancient Extraterrestrials >
        • Premodern UFO Sightings
        • The Moon Hoax
        • Inhabitants of Other Planets
        • Blavatsky on Ancient Astronauts
        • The Stanzas of Dzyan (Hoax)
        • Aerolites and Religion
        • What Is Theosophy?
        • Plane of Ether
        • The Adepts from Venus
      • A Message from Mars
      • Saucer Mystery Solved?
      • Orville Wright on UFOs
      • Interdimensional Flying Saucers
      • Flying Saucers Are Real
      • Report on UFOs
    • The Supernatural >
      • The Devils of Loudun
      • Sublime and Beautiful
      • Voltaire on Vampires
      • Demonology and Witchcraft
      • Thaumaturgia
      • Bulgarian Vampires
      • Religion and Evolution
      • Transylvanian Superstitions
      • Defining a Zombie
      • Dread of the Supernatural
      • Vampires
      • Werewolves and Vampires and Ghouls
      • Science and Fairy Stories
      • The Cursed Car
    • Classic Fiction >
      • Lucian's True History
      • Some Words with a Mummy
      • The Coming Race
      • King Solomon's Mines
      • An Inhabitant of Carcosa
      • The Xipéhuz
      • Lot No. 249
      • The Novel of the Black Seal
      • The Island of Doctor Moreau
      • Pharaoh's Curse
      • Edison's Conquest of Mars
      • The Lost Continent
      • Count Magnus
      • The Mysterious Stranger
      • The Wendigo
      • Sredni Vashtar
      • The Lost World
      • The Red One
      • H. P. Lovecraft >
        • Dagon
        • The Call of Cthulhu
        • History of the Necronomicon
        • At the Mountains of Madness
        • Lovecraft's Library in 1932
      • The Skeptical Poltergeist
      • The Corpse on the Grating
      • The Second Satellite
      • Queen of the Black Coast
      • A Martian Odyssey
    • Classic Genre Movies
    • Miscellaneous Documents >
      • The Balloon-Hoax
      • A Problem in Greek Ethics
      • The Migration of Symbols
      • The Gospel of Intensity
      • De Profundis
      • The Life and Death of Crown Prince Rudolf
      • The Bathtub Hoax
      • Crown Prince Rudolf's Letters
      • Position of Viking Women
      • Employment of Homosexuals
      • James Dean's Love Letters
      • The Amazing James Dean Hoax!
    • Free Classic Pseudohistory eBooks
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