More evidence that Columbus wasn't the first
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The history books tell us Christopher Columbus "discovered" the Americas for Western civilisation, but recently found scripts suggest the Chinese were exploring North America at least a thousand years before the time of Jesus.
John Ruskamp, a retired chemist and amateur researcher, discovered unusual markings while visiting Petroglyph National Monument in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
He claims the markings indicate that an people from Asia were present in the Americas around 1,300 BC – nearly 2,800 years before Columbus arrived in 1492. “These ancient Chinese writings in North America cannot be fake, for the markings are very old, as are the styles of the scripts,” Ruskamp says.
The pictograms he discovered appear to be a script used by the Chinese after the end of Shang Dynasty. Known as “oracle bone pictograms”, the markings, Ruskamp claims, record a ritual sacrifice, perhaps offered to the third Shang king, Da Jia, and also a divination for a 10-day sacred period.
Ruskamp also claims to have found a Chinese pictogram of an elephant dating to 500 BC at Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, suggesting the Asian explorers had reached well into the US.
However, his views have been met with scepticism. Experts point to the lack of archaeological evidence for ancient Chinese presence in the Americas.
Sarthak Sinha
