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Uncharted: A Rediscovered History of Voyages to the Americas Before Columbus
An exploration of the history, mythology, and evidence of those who traveled to pre-Columbian America.
Native groups have lived in the Americas for more than 10,000 years, but the voyages of Columbus surely did not bring the first visitors. Uncharted covers a range of cultures who seemingly visited the Americas long before Columbus, including Egyptians, Greeks, Celts, Vikings, as well as various people from Asia; and one large Chinese group who likely settled in the Americas in 100 BC. Wallace-Murphy and Martin delve into a wealth of evidence and stories, from potential Roman and Phoenician shipwrecks off the coast of South America to Celtic and Norse exploration of North America.
How did the Knights Templar influence the discovery of the New World? How did the Vikings navigate their way? What do the Sinclair family, the Rosslyn Chapel, and two Venetian brothers have to do with the discovery of a new continent? With source materials dating back through millennia, including very recent finds, this book will present a side of history still so readily dismissed by some.
Columbus should be remembered, but remembered for the conquering tyrant he was. These other groups did not come to conquer, but to trade, explore, and escape.
Native groups have lived in the Americas for more than 10,000 years, but the voyages of Columbus surely did not bring the first visitors. Uncharted covers a range of cultures who seemingly visited the Americas long before Columbus, including Egyptians, Greeks, Celts, Vikings, as well as various people from Asia; and one large Chinese group who likely settled in the Americas in 100 BC. Wallace-Murphy and Martin delve into a wealth of evidence and stories, from potential Roman and Phoenician shipwrecks off the coast of South America to Celtic and Norse exploration of North America.
How did the Knights Templar influence the discovery of the New World? How did the Vikings navigate their way? What do the Sinclair family, the Rosslyn Chapel, and two Venetian brothers have to do with the discovery of a new continent? With source materials dating back through millennia, including very recent finds, this book will present a side of history still so readily dismissed by some.
Columbus should be remembered, but remembered for the conquering tyrant he was. These other groups did not come to conquer, but to trade, explore, and escape.
224 pages, Paperback
Published April 3, 2023
11 people are currently reading
2471 people want to read
About the author
Tim Wallace-Murphy
42 books46 followersThe Irish born internationally known author and lecturer, Tim Wallace-Murphy, is the author of thirteen published books, has appeared in some eight or nine TV documentaries and has given lectures from Seattle and Long Beach on the West Coast of the USA, in Canada, Great Britain, France, Italy and in Prague.
Eleven of his works cover historical aspects of spirituality, including the Knights Templar, the Cathars, Rosslyn Chapel and the Western Esoteric Tradition as well as the Grail genre. The other two, including the most recent are more mainstream, namely 'What Islam did for Us' a study of how Islamic scholarship laid the foundations of so many fundamental and valued aspects of European culture and his latest work 'The Genesis of a Tragedy - A Brief History of the Palestinian People.' Tim was provoked to write this work as the Palestinian side of this conflict is rarely heard in either Western Europe or the United States and if this ongoing running sore in East West relations is ever to be solved, the pain on both sides needs to be understood.
He also acts as a tour guide in some of the most beautiful and inspiring sacred sites in Europe.
Eleven of his works cover historical aspects of spirituality, including the Knights Templar, the Cathars, Rosslyn Chapel and the Western Esoteric Tradition as well as the Grail genre. The other two, including the most recent are more mainstream, namely 'What Islam did for Us' a study of how Islamic scholarship laid the foundations of so many fundamental and valued aspects of European culture and his latest work 'The Genesis of a Tragedy - A Brief History of the Palestinian People.' Tim was provoked to write this work as the Palestinian side of this conflict is rarely heard in either Western Europe or the United States and if this ongoing running sore in East West relations is ever to be solved, the pain on both sides needs to be understood.
He also acts as a tour guide in some of the most beautiful and inspiring sacred sites in Europe.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 1, 2023
If the evidence in this book is accurate, everyone from the Japanese, Chinese, Celts, Vikings, Venetians, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Phoenicians (and probably a whole bunch more) visited the American continents for trade and exploration before Columbus ever set foot on a ship. "Uncharted" provides food for thought and information that needs to be researched. I did, however, find the writing clunky and uneven, with some topics being given more page time (the Earl St. Clair/Zeno expeditions) and detail than others (i.e. everything else). I would have loved to have learned more about the exchange of plants, animals and microbes, which gets a brief mention. A look at comparative population genetics would also have been interesting. So, interesting contents that provide food for thought and further research, but the book really could have used an editor, not to mention some extra material/ details and photographs/illustrations.
August 15, 2023
Uncharted: A Rediscovered History Of Voyages To The Americas Before Columbus, by Tim Wallace-Murphy and James Martin
For many years now I have been aware of the ubiquity of stories about the various missions of trade and exploration that have involved the Precolumbian world, and this book joins the writings of Louis L'amour, Menizes, and many others, including the author of "Lies My Teacher Told Me," concerning various voyages to the Americas in the time before Christopher Columbus. I have long stated, at least in conversation with friends about the matter, that any society which could feed and store enough water for a couple month voyage and had seaworthy enough ships to survive the Atlantic would likely have discovered the Americas at some point. Numerous societies in the ancient world had boats that were more impressive than the caravels that Columbus took with him. What is most notable about the voyages before Columbus' were that previous peoples, from the Egyptians and Phoenicians and Romans to the Norse to the Chinese, came to trade and explore, but the Europeans after Columbus came increasingly to conquer. The authors view this in a negative sense, and it is easy to understand why, not least because in seeking to wipe out Native peoples, it appears that later Europeans may have wiped out earlier European settlers who had done so more peacefully.
This book is a relatively short one at less than 200 pages in 18 chapters of about ten pages apiece on average. Th book begins with a preface, dedications, and a short introduction. The authors begin with a discussion about the distinction between fantasy and fact in the accounts of voyages to the Americas (1), before discussing the presence of maize corn in Egypt millennia before they are supposed to be there (2), the voyages of classical Greece and Rome (3), the Celts (4), and the Viking voyages (5), as well as a brief discussion of Chinese and Japanese and Polynesian contact (6) with the Americas. The authors then spend a couple of chapters talking about the maritime trade in Europe during the Middle Ages in the Mediterranean (7) and in the western Atlantic coasts (8), before the rest of the book focuses on the efforts of the Earl of Orkney, Prince St. Clair, and his actions in the late 1300s. The author discusses the Baron's rise to power (9), his early actions as the Earl of Orkney in consolidating his power over the Shetlands with Venetian help (10), his exploration of the North Atlantic with the help of the Zeno family (11), as well as his efforts to make peace with the local people there (12). There is a further discussion of the voyage to Vinland (13), a detailed discussion of the controversy of the Newport tower (14), a larger discussion of dissention and debate within the American scholarly community about Precolumbian finds (15), a celebration of history (16), the controversy over the Zeno narrative (17), and some closing harsh comments against Columbus (18), before notes and an index.
One of the aspects of this book that is particularly notable is the way that the authors have points they are trying to make, but that this book is strangely focused on one particular aspect of the European voyages before Colombus, and that is a specific set of voyages made by a specific Scottish-Norse prince in the late 1300s, who apparently settled in the area of New England and was responsible for a mysterious and controversial tower in Newport. I wonder if the authors of this book had that in mind as thee main subject for a book but realized that they did not have enough material to write strictly about that book and then decided to add a few other chapters about other voyages of trade and discovery that were much more secretive because the people engaged in them wanted to keep the Americas secret to preserve their advantage in trade, while Columbus thought he had reached East Asia in error and wanted to brag about what he had found, thus spoiling what had been a secret but mutually beneficial relationship between European and Mediterranean and East Asian merchants and the local indigenous peoples of the Americas, and in the process destroyed most of the native peoples in the process. This is a deeply moving and deeply tragic sort of tale, but it is to be regretted that the authors are more interested in showing their independent status as writers than they are in addressing the real tragedy of the situation that led the Americas to become settler colonies for Europe's superfluous and struggling population rather than a peripheral trade partner largely left on its own.
For many years now I have been aware of the ubiquity of stories about the various missions of trade and exploration that have involved the Precolumbian world, and this book joins the writings of Louis L'amour, Menizes, and many others, including the author of "Lies My Teacher Told Me," concerning various voyages to the Americas in the time before Christopher Columbus. I have long stated, at least in conversation with friends about the matter, that any society which could feed and store enough water for a couple month voyage and had seaworthy enough ships to survive the Atlantic would likely have discovered the Americas at some point. Numerous societies in the ancient world had boats that were more impressive than the caravels that Columbus took with him. What is most notable about the voyages before Columbus' were that previous peoples, from the Egyptians and Phoenicians and Romans to the Norse to the Chinese, came to trade and explore, but the Europeans after Columbus came increasingly to conquer. The authors view this in a negative sense, and it is easy to understand why, not least because in seeking to wipe out Native peoples, it appears that later Europeans may have wiped out earlier European settlers who had done so more peacefully.
This book is a relatively short one at less than 200 pages in 18 chapters of about ten pages apiece on average. Th book begins with a preface, dedications, and a short introduction. The authors begin with a discussion about the distinction between fantasy and fact in the accounts of voyages to the Americas (1), before discussing the presence of maize corn in Egypt millennia before they are supposed to be there (2), the voyages of classical Greece and Rome (3), the Celts (4), and the Viking voyages (5), as well as a brief discussion of Chinese and Japanese and Polynesian contact (6) with the Americas. The authors then spend a couple of chapters talking about the maritime trade in Europe during the Middle Ages in the Mediterranean (7) and in the western Atlantic coasts (8), before the rest of the book focuses on the efforts of the Earl of Orkney, Prince St. Clair, and his actions in the late 1300s. The author discusses the Baron's rise to power (9), his early actions as the Earl of Orkney in consolidating his power over the Shetlands with Venetian help (10), his exploration of the North Atlantic with the help of the Zeno family (11), as well as his efforts to make peace with the local people there (12). There is a further discussion of the voyage to Vinland (13), a detailed discussion of the controversy of the Newport tower (14), a larger discussion of dissention and debate within the American scholarly community about Precolumbian finds (15), a celebration of history (16), the controversy over the Zeno narrative (17), and some closing harsh comments against Columbus (18), before notes and an index.
One of the aspects of this book that is particularly notable is the way that the authors have points they are trying to make, but that this book is strangely focused on one particular aspect of the European voyages before Colombus, and that is a specific set of voyages made by a specific Scottish-Norse prince in the late 1300s, who apparently settled in the area of New England and was responsible for a mysterious and controversial tower in Newport. I wonder if the authors of this book had that in mind as thee main subject for a book but realized that they did not have enough material to write strictly about that book and then decided to add a few other chapters about other voyages of trade and discovery that were much more secretive because the people engaged in them wanted to keep the Americas secret to preserve their advantage in trade, while Columbus thought he had reached East Asia in error and wanted to brag about what he had found, thus spoiling what had been a secret but mutually beneficial relationship between European and Mediterranean and East Asian merchants and the local indigenous peoples of the Americas, and in the process destroyed most of the native peoples in the process. This is a deeply moving and deeply tragic sort of tale, but it is to be regretted that the authors are more interested in showing their independent status as writers than they are in addressing the real tragedy of the situation that led the Americas to become settler colonies for Europe's superfluous and struggling population rather than a peripheral trade partner largely left on its own.
April 5, 2023
Uncharted takes you on a journey through the Americas and the impacts that were felt around the globe, from ancient times through Columbus.
It was an interesting read, and as a historian, it opened some questions that I had not considered before. I am interested in doing some further research and seeing where it goes.
Great read overall!
It was an interesting read, and as a historian, it opened some questions that I had not considered before. I am interested in doing some further research and seeing where it goes.
Great read overall!
August 10, 2023
This investigation finds historical accounts that lead to suggested visits by explorers from China, Japan, Scandinavia, and more. Other historians, apparently, are not as sure but the stories and facts on the ground make for interesting reading.
July 25, 2025
Good info, stilted execution. Glad I read it, and will recommend it to others, but not for its prose.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews