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An amateur antique collector has formally unveiled a world map  which, if authentic, may prove that Chinese explorers circumnavigated the globe well before Columbus ever set sail.

Liu Gang, a prominent intellectual property rights lawyer,  says he bought the map in a Shanghai bookshop in 2001.

It appears to be a copy made in 1763 of a map drawn in 1418, recording the explorations of admiral Zheng He, who made several voyages to Africa and possibly beyond during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644).

The map is extraordinarily detailed, showing North and South America, Africa and even Antarctica.

Mr Liu presented a smattering of mostly circumstantial evidence to support his claim. He pointed to a map drawn by Matteo Ricci, a Jesuit missionary who lived in China in the late 15th century.

On this map, which is generally assumed to be the first world map seen by the Chinese, Ricci marked Brazil as 'known by the Chinese as Sumu'. Mr Liu asked: 'If the Chinese did not know that part of the world, how did they have their own name for it?'

Even if the map does date from 1763, it may not be an exact copy of the 1418 original. Asked if the 1763 copyist might have made 'improvements', Mr Liu said the copyist had marked his alterations explicitly.

'On the map he refers to himself [in a manner indicating] he was addressing the emperor. Why would he lie to the emperor, and risk being killed along with all his relatives?'

LIU GANG may turn out to be a discerning collector whose lucky find of an ancient map will rewrite history. Or he may be a pawn, nudged along by people whose interests lie in promoting the view that Chinese sailors discovered the Americas before Christopher Columbus landed in the New World in 1492.

Mr Liu isn't fazed by the furore generated by the unveiling   his acquisition from an antique dealer in Shanghai. 'I am quite sure that this map is real,' he says.

Mr Liu's map has rekindled a fierce debate sparked by a similar notion set out in amateur historian Gavin Menzies' book 1421: The Year China Discovered the World, which argues that Zheng circumnavigated the world and discovered the Americas.

The westward voyages of China's greatest mariner are well-documented and have been commemorated in many exhibitions, the latest of which is now at the Museum of History until May 15.

A tall, sober-faced man, Mr Liu says he always liked history and old maps. His Shanghainese family moved to the Chinese capital shortly after the communists seized power in 1949. The relentless razing of large swathes of the old Beijing over two decades of economic boom has made Mr Liu appreciate its relics even more.

The capital's rapid transformation spurred him to begin collecting old city maps in 1996, and he  now owns about 40.

Mr Liu stumbled across the highly detailed drawing  when he began making frequent trips to Shanghai  after the Commerce and Finance Law Offices, where he's a partner, put him in charge of its operations there. While scouring the antique shops of the Dongtai district during his visits, he spotted a map of the world glued on thick cardboard.

'[The inscription] was dated 1763, with the words fang ming yongle, meaning 'copy from [a document of] Ming emperor Yongle'. I looked at the map and thought, that's not right. Yongle couldn't have had a world map. I suspected it was a fake.'

Even so, Mr Liu was intrigued enough to buy it for 4,000 yuan, and began a careful examination of the chart.

A decade of studying old Beijing maps has trained him to spot forgeries, he says. Fake pest damage is easily identified, as is the wrong shade of ink. He says the ink is darkest on the upper right-hand corner of the map, in line with the traditional way of colouring and writing from top right to bottom left.

The ink is darker near the crease in the middle, which is consistent with the lower level of oxidation in places where the paper had lain folded for a long time. At least, 'we can establish that it's not the work of a contemporary forger', he says.

But Mr Liu was puzzled by the note that the content dated from 1418: it was 'very strange'. How, for example, could the mapmaker have known about Antarctica, which wasn't sighted until 1820?

He found his answer last summer when he began reading the book by Menzies, a former British naval officer turned banker and amateur historian.

The lawyer immediately sent his map off to a bank for safekeeping. A tiny piece has been sent to Cambridge University in Britain and Waikato University in New Zealand for dating, he says.

Mr Liu has since returned to his Shanghai dealer for more information. 'I took him out to lunch in a local restaurant, and told him I thought the map was a 1763 copy of a 1418 original. He was very unhappy because he sold it for so little, so to make him happier I told him he could add a little to the price the next time I bought a map or book from him.'

The dealer initially refused to say where he got the map, fearing he would be punished for dealing in pre-Republic antiques without permission.

After making a few calls, the dealer informed him that the chart had come from Jingdezhen in Jiangxi province  , a craft centre that had supplied ceramics to the imperial palaces.

Chinese officials and historians have mostly dismissed the map as a forgery.

'This map is but a poor copy of a European-style map from between 1630 and the middle of the 18th century,' says Zhou Zhenhe of Fudan University in Shanghai.

In a rebuttal of Mr Liu's claims called A Map Full of Holes, Portugal-based expert Jin Guoping says even the inscription on the map is grammatically incorrect.

Geoff Wade, a  researcher at the National University of Singapore, says  the chart was created as a 'teaser' to pique interest in a  book set for release in May by Random House, which published Menzies' book.

According to the publisher, The Island of Seven Cities by Paul Chiasson 'reveals for the first time the existence of a large Chinese colony that thrived on Canadian shores well before the European Age of Discovery'.

Mr Wade cites several reasons the map can't be authentic. For one, it refers to Hunan  and Hubei  provinces, which didn't exist during Ming times.

The inhabitants of North America are described as riding horses in the 15th century, although horses weren't introduced to the Americas by the Spanish until the 16th century.

Mr Wade suggests that the map is about five years old, drawn up by an unknown forger hoping to cash in on Menzies' theory. The British amateur historian disagrees. 'My critics for the most part are so consumed by jealousy they will say anything to gain attention,' says Menzies. 'The map is  genuine.'

Mr Liu plans to announce the findings of tests on his map at a press conference on March 22.



Who discovered America?