Re: Book lays out how Portuguese found Australia

Eric Stevens wrote:

On 22 Mar 2007 12:42:36 -0700, "Jack Linthicum"
<jacklinthicum@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Australian author Peter Trickett said that when he enlarged the small
map he could recognize all the headlands and bays in Botany Bay in
Sydney - the site where Cook claimed Australia for Britain in 1770.

"It was even so accurate that I found I could draw in the modern
airport runways, to scale in the right place, without any problem at
all," Trickett told Reuters on Wednesday.

A testimonial to the ability of navigators to keep their discoveries
secret, even after they have been printed.

Book lays out how Portuguese found Australia
16th-century map sheds light on story behind secret discovery, author
says
By Michael Perry
Reuters
Updated: 3:04 p.m. ET March 21, 2007

SYDNEY, Australia - A 16th-century maritime map shows that Portuguese
adventurers, not the British or the Dutch, were the first Europeans to
find Australia, according to a new book that details the story of the
secret discovery.

The book "Beyond Capricorn" says the map, which accurately marks
geographical sites along Australia's east coast in Portuguese, proves
that Portuguese seafarer Christopher de Mendonca led a fleet of four
ships into Botany Bay in 1522 - almost 250 years before Britain's
Captain James Cook.

Australian author Peter Trickett said that when he enlarged the small
map he could recognize all the headlands and bays in Botany Bay in
Sydney - the site where Cook claimed Australia for Britain in 1770.

"It was even so accurate that I found I could draw in the modern
airport runways, to scale in the right place, without any problem at
all," Trickett told Reuters on Wednesday.

Trickett said he stumbled across a copy of the map while browsing
through a Canberra book shop eight years ago.

He said the shop had a reproduction of the Vallard Atlas, a collection
of 15 hand-drawn maps completed no later than 1545 in France. The maps
represented the known world at the time.

Why the maps were misaligned

Two of the maps called "Terra Java" had a striking similarity to
Australia's east coast, except at one point the coastline jutted out
at right angles for 932 miles (1,500 kilometers).

"There was something familiar about them, but they were not quite
right - that was the puzzle. How did they come to have all these
Portuguese place names?" Trickett said.

Trickett believed the cartographers who drew the Vallard maps had
wrongly aligned two Portuguese charts they were copying from.

It is commonly accepted that the French cartographers used maps and
"portolan" charts acquired illegally from Portugal and Portuguese
vessels that had been captured, Trickett said.

"The original portolan maps would have been drawn on animal hide
parchments, usually sheep or goat skin, of limited size," he
explained. "For a coastline the length of eastern Australia, some
3,500 kilometers, they would have been three to four charts.

"The Vallard cartographer has put these individual charts together
like a jigsaw puzzle. Without clear compass markings its possible to
join the southern chart in two different ways. My theory is it had
been wrongly joined."

Using a computer Trickett rotated the southern part of the Vallard map
90 degrees to produce a map that accurately depicts Australia's east
coast.

"They provided stunning proof that Portuguese ships made these daring
voyages of discovery in the early 1520s, just a few years after they
had sailed north of Australia to reach the Spice Islands - the
Moluccas. This was a century before the Dutch and 250 years before
Captain Cook," he said.

Secret mission?

Trickett believes the original charts were made by Mendonca, who set
sail from the Portuguese base at Malacca with four ships on a secret
mission to discover Marco Polo's "Island of Gold" south of Java.

If Trickett is right, Mendonca's map shows he sailed past Fraser
Island off Australia's northeast coast, into Botany Bay in Sydney, and
south to Kangaroo Island off southern Australia, before returning to
Malacca via New Zealand's north island.

Mendonca's discovery was kept secret to prevent other European powers
reaching the new land, said Trickett, who believes his theory is
supported by discoveries of 16th-century Portuguese artifacts on the
Australian and New Zealand coasts.


URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17722949/

I have a copy of of 'Pre-Tasman Explorers' by Ross Wiseman, Discovery
Press, 1998 ISBN 0-473-04505-2 which sets out a similar thesis with
respect to Mendonca

In fact, Wiseman discusses a number similar Portuguese voyages of the
period commencing with that of Mendonca for which there is ample
evidence, including rock art, to this day.

Wiseman also describes Fernandez setting out on a voyage of Pacific
discovery from Concepcion, Chile, in early September of 1576. On his
voyage west Fernandez discovered Easter Island and then went on to New
Zealand. Traces of his visit remain in a Maori story first recorded in
writing in 1911 and in the Hernando de Solis Map of 1598 which appears
to show New Zealand. There is also an iron helmet dredged from
Wellington harbour late in the 19th century.

Then there is the so-called Daupin Map. Of this Wiseman writes:

Begin quote:
+++++++++++++++++++++++
The best evidence of pre-Tasman explorers comes from the maps they
drew. If someone draws a map of a coastline, and five hundred years
later we recognise that coastline to be part of a continent or large
island, then the pre-Tasman explorer must have sailed along that same
coastline, particularly if there is other evidence, such as an
artefact, to support that notion.

In the case of the Portuguese during the 1500s, we have the historical
account and the Dauphin map, supported in Australia by the sighting of
a shipwreck, and in New Zealand by two rock drawings.
The Dauphin map was drawn by French cartographers in their main port
town of Dieppe. It was presented to the Dauphin, or Prince of France
in 1536. It was a world map on which was marked a great Unknown
Southern Land, or 'terra australis incognita', which was called 'Java
la Grande', or Great Java'.

There is a series of Dieppe maps of which the Dauphin is the oldest.
Another later map was the Rotz map. It does not contain nearly the
same details as the Dauphin, and its information must have come both
from the original explorer source maps and the Dauphin, considered to
have been derived solely from the original Portuguese source maps.
Today, the original Dauphin map is found in the British Library in
London.

Studying this map closely, and of course with the advantage of a more
complete geographical knowledge of the world, the most striking
feature is that Great Java is made of different maps joined together.
In other words, Great Java is a composite map.
The Dauphin map was made by men who felt they were so learned, just
like many men today, who in another five hundred years will be looked
upon as knowing so little.

In an age of discovery their ideas were not always right, and we also
know that the Dauphin map was wrongly put together. Not only were the
east coasts of Australia and New Zealand joined together, but the
north coast of Australia was wrongly joined onto the Indonesian
archipelago, with the Gulf of Carpentaria reduced in size to suit the
matching. Hence the great unknown southern land was called Great Java.
In particular, the east coast of Great Java and its offshore islands,
were evidently charted by the same original explorer because the
features demonstrate a consistent character of charting, and in
relation to the known geographical features it portrays.
Some of our modern historical cartographers however, find it too
difficult to accept that the Dieppe map makers could have failed to
ignore the Tasman Sea, thus denying New Zealand its insularity, and
joining it in a continuous landmass with Java.

But don't forget they also ignored the Arafua and Timor Seas, denying
Australia its insularity by joining it onto Indonesia.
++++++++++++++++
End quote

Wiseman also wrote of:-

Begin quote
++++++++++++++

The Hard-headed Navigator who reached Northland c.1530
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Mendonca reached Goa he said he had discovered a land that "shone
like gold, but was more precious than gold". What he talked about was
probably misunderstood by his successive masters, one of whom was the
navigator Le Testu, meaning the hard-headed one.

Le Testu produced the two Dieppe charts of 1547, showing the
Queensland coast and an island called La Joncade. Freely translated,
it means "the abundance of mangroves".

This so-called island appears to be a detailed map of northland,
covering an area as far south as Raglan Harbour. The islands of the
Hauraki Gulf he named Les Illes des Lous Marins - the Islands of
Sailors' Praises.

It seems to me that Le Testu left Goa, crossed the Tasman Sea from
Australia, sighted New Zealand near Raglan, and then circumnavigated
Northland as far south as Auckland Isthmus. Perhaps he thought
Northland was an island?

He would have found a different land from the impression Mendonca had
conveyed. Instead of gold he found an abundance of mangroves and
primitive people. That would have made the hard-headed navigator very
angry.

Judging by recent carbon-dating results, one of his ships may have
come to grief in the Kaipara harbour.

Compared with Cook's chart of Northland and considering the age, in
which Le Testu drew his chart, it is quite a masterpiece.
++++++++++++++++
End quote

Eric Stevens

Thanks for the reminders, Eric. I see we discussed some of this as far
back as 1998. And ever and anon there are refrences to "Portuguese
shipwrecks" on the Northland coast, as if this were an established fact.
A week or so ago I heard from a woman who had been visiting up
Dargaville way and heard from the locals, not only about the Portuguese
ship out there, but numerous unmarked graves in the dunes, presumed to
be those of shipwrecked Portuguese sailors! Belief in this seems almost
to be a local cult in the North Kaipara. Yet, unless I'm mistaken, none
of it has ever been verified or investigated in the sort of public,
scientific way we skeptics like to see.

As for this latest claim, I suppose we'll have to buy the fellow's book
to see whether every detail of Sydney Harbour is really on that old map.

Ross Clark
.

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