| August 13th 2010 |
Greetings and welcome to the August 2010 newsletter!
It has been a busy couple of months for us here at HQ! Gavin and Ian have been hard at the grindstone over the summer, getting the new book Lost Treasures of Atlantis ready to hand to Orion in October.
It also seems that there has been quite a lot going on with friends of 1421 around the world.
International Zheng He Symposium, Malacca
We are pleased to say that all reports from the International Zheng He conference seem to suggest a well attended and enlightening conference. We are gradually collecting papers delivered by friends of 1421 and will be posting them up on our website in due course.
To read SL Lee's news release on why he believes the Matteo Ricci 1602 map is based on Chinese knowledge, please click here: http://www.gavinmenzies.net/assets_cm/files/pdf/slleericcinewsrelease.pdf Dr. Lee also delivered talks in Quanzhou, Nanjing and Beijing. He says that his "... approach and view points were quite well accepted, at least with little challenge from the top scholars in cartography, geography, and Ming history..."
This was emphasised by a full front-page piece in China's oldest newspaper, Tai Kung Pao which you can read here:
http://www.asiawind.com/zhenghe/TaiKungPo-20100809.pdf Mark and Laurie Nickless also presented a paper to the conference entitled: Was Luo Mao Deng's Feng Tu, In Fact, the Great Pre-Columbian Native American City Now Known as Cahokia. We hope to be able to send you an exclusive excerpt next time!
Charlotte Harris Rees went on to give talks at Tsinghua University and the National Library of China. You can read a piece about Charlotte in the China Daily here:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/life/2010-07/09/content_10086210.htm
She will be giving a series of lectures in California, September 11th - 14th, then in British Columbia, September 16th - 20th. Please keep checking her website www.HarrisMaps.com for further details.
We are pleased to see all our friends making good progress with their research and wish them continued success!
Chinese shipwrecks in Africa
The Chinese government have officially launched a new initiative in Africa on the Kenyan coast.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-10761840 (Note above how the BBC are using Liu Gang's 1418 / 1763 map for illustrative purposes!) http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/25/kenya-china Porcelain exhibition in Singapore
One of the oldest and most important marine archaeological finds of the late 20th century will be showcased in Singapore. The exhibition will focus on the 1998 discovery of a ninth-century shipwreck and its cargo of about 60,000 objects from Tang dynasty China, ranging from mass-produced ceramics to rare items of finely worked gold. http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_558350.html "Nan'ao-1" wreck
Archaeologists in diving suits board the salvage ship in waters off Shantou City, south China's Guangdong Province, July 18, 2010. The salvage ship resumed the salvage mission of the ancient merchant vessel "Nan'ao-1" after the passage of Typhoon Conson. More than 3,000 porcelain items have been recovered from the wreckage of the ancient ship "Nan'ao-1", which was found in May 2007 by fishermen and was believed to be from late Ming Dynasty (1368--1644 A.D.). http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90782/7073699.html Book launch DVDAfter a few technical hitches we have now got the office running back up to speed. If you would like a copy of the DVD film which shows the book launches at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) in April please email us back with "DVD" in the message title. The film lasts 1hr 25 mins and details the work of Emeritus Professors Johannessen and Sorenson (see www.archivesofculturalexchanges.org ) as well as the launch for Gavin's new book Lost Treasures of Atlantis. We hope you have enjoyed this latest update, and look forward to hearing from you soon! Best wishes, The Gavin Menzies Research Team |
