Druidus
Keeper of the Grove
http://www.desertdispatch.com/2005/11161706014319.html
Adelanto developer's maps could rewrite history
Still-to-be-authenticated relics suggest Chinese explorers discovered America 4,200 years ago
By LEROY STANDISH/Staff Writer
ADELANTO -- For more than a decade, seven fragile map books sat under Hendon Harris' bed battling dust and darkness.
Two years ago they were exhumed and could possibly prove the Chinese discovered the American land mass 4,200 years ago.
"These maps were under my bed for 10-plus years, because we really didn't know what we had," said Hendon Harris, an Adelanto developer who owns several apartment buildings and is a prime sponsor of the Adelanto Boys and Girls Club. He's also building a strip of stores off Bellflower Street and Bartlett Avenue.
Harris said the maps depict giant redwood trees, the Grand Canyon and show America as a land 3,300 miles wide.
"And that is within a few miles" of the nation's true width, he said.
The maps were discovered by his father Dr. Hendon M. Harris, a third generation Baptist missionary, in a South Korean antique shop in 1972, he said. The maps were the focal point of a book he self-published, entitled "The Asiatic Fathers of America."
Hendon Harris and his sister Charlotte Harris Rees inherited the maps in 1981. They knew of their father's theories and those of other scholars postulating about long forgotten Chinese discoveries, but did not take them seriously.
"Besides, we were busy making our own ways in the world, but we knew that if what Dad said were true this could shatter the world," Rees said.
Then, in 2003, she read a newspaper article about a book entitled "1421: The Year China Discovered the World," written by Gavin Menzies. It detailed Chinese Admiral Zheng He's oceanic voyage from 1405 to 1433 to the East Coast of the United States.
Menzies was so enchanted by the maps in Rees's possession he invited her to speak Monday at the Library of Congress about them. The event will be covered by the British Broadcasting Company, Public Broadcasting System and numerous Asian media, Rees said.
Rees said the maps have been in the office of Dr. John Hebert, chief of geography and maps at the library, for the last two years. Carolyn Brown, director for collections and services, for the library said she was unaware of any such maps in its posession. And Audrey Fischer, a spokeswoman for the Library of Congress, said the Harris' maps have not been authenticated by the library.
Rees said she has had them examined by experts from Beijing who told her two of the seven maps date from the time of the Ming Dynasty, which ruled China from 1368 to 1644.
But Menzies said via e-mail that the maps, along with others found in museums across the globe, may hold clues to a much more distant Chinese influence upon the America's than is popularly accepted by scholars today.
"The accepted history of the America's is one long fairy story," Menzies wrote. "They were not discovered by Columbus nor populated by treks across the Bering Straits ice fields but by wave upon wave of Chinese and to a lesser extent Japanese and Koreans. Charlotte Rees' maps are world maps - they show Africa and Australia as well as America ... The Harris collection of maps will, in the long run, cause an even more fundamental and agonizing reappraisal of American history than my book has. For a host of reasons I know the maps are genuine -- Chinese knew of the whole world by 2200 B.C."
Whether authentic or not, Hendon Harris is fascinated by the maps and the possibility they hold to rewrite history.
"You can't go out changing American history every day," he said. "It really doesn't make a difference in our day-to-day life, but if it really were the truth it would be a good thing to know."
Harris said the family wants to sell the maps within the next two years, preferably to the Library of Congress.
LeRoy Standish may be reached at 951-6277 or [email protected].
Adelanto developer's maps could rewrite history
Still-to-be-authenticated relics suggest Chinese explorers discovered America 4,200 years ago
By LEROY STANDISH/Staff Writer
ADELANTO -- For more than a decade, seven fragile map books sat under Hendon Harris' bed battling dust and darkness.
Two years ago they were exhumed and could possibly prove the Chinese discovered the American land mass 4,200 years ago.
"These maps were under my bed for 10-plus years, because we really didn't know what we had," said Hendon Harris, an Adelanto developer who owns several apartment buildings and is a prime sponsor of the Adelanto Boys and Girls Club. He's also building a strip of stores off Bellflower Street and Bartlett Avenue.
Harris said the maps depict giant redwood trees, the Grand Canyon and show America as a land 3,300 miles wide.
"And that is within a few miles" of the nation's true width, he said.
The maps were discovered by his father Dr. Hendon M. Harris, a third generation Baptist missionary, in a South Korean antique shop in 1972, he said. The maps were the focal point of a book he self-published, entitled "The Asiatic Fathers of America."
Hendon Harris and his sister Charlotte Harris Rees inherited the maps in 1981. They knew of their father's theories and those of other scholars postulating about long forgotten Chinese discoveries, but did not take them seriously.
"Besides, we were busy making our own ways in the world, but we knew that if what Dad said were true this could shatter the world," Rees said.
Then, in 2003, she read a newspaper article about a book entitled "1421: The Year China Discovered the World," written by Gavin Menzies. It detailed Chinese Admiral Zheng He's oceanic voyage from 1405 to 1433 to the East Coast of the United States.
Menzies was so enchanted by the maps in Rees's possession he invited her to speak Monday at the Library of Congress about them. The event will be covered by the British Broadcasting Company, Public Broadcasting System and numerous Asian media, Rees said.
Rees said the maps have been in the office of Dr. John Hebert, chief of geography and maps at the library, for the last two years. Carolyn Brown, director for collections and services, for the library said she was unaware of any such maps in its posession. And Audrey Fischer, a spokeswoman for the Library of Congress, said the Harris' maps have not been authenticated by the library.
Rees said she has had them examined by experts from Beijing who told her two of the seven maps date from the time of the Ming Dynasty, which ruled China from 1368 to 1644.
But Menzies said via e-mail that the maps, along with others found in museums across the globe, may hold clues to a much more distant Chinese influence upon the America's than is popularly accepted by scholars today.
"The accepted history of the America's is one long fairy story," Menzies wrote. "They were not discovered by Columbus nor populated by treks across the Bering Straits ice fields but by wave upon wave of Chinese and to a lesser extent Japanese and Koreans. Charlotte Rees' maps are world maps - they show Africa and Australia as well as America ... The Harris collection of maps will, in the long run, cause an even more fundamental and agonizing reappraisal of American history than my book has. For a host of reasons I know the maps are genuine -- Chinese knew of the whole world by 2200 B.C."
Whether authentic or not, Hendon Harris is fascinated by the maps and the possibility they hold to rewrite history.
"You can't go out changing American history every day," he said. "It really doesn't make a difference in our day-to-day life, but if it really were the truth it would be a good thing to know."
Harris said the family wants to sell the maps within the next two years, preferably to the Library of Congress.
LeRoy Standish may be reached at 951-6277 or [email protected].
