The Jean Rotz Map
The Jean Rotz map was drawn by esteemed cartographer Jean Rotz, the official ”hydrographer” to King Henry VIII. The map was incorporated into the Boke of Idrography, presented to the king in 1542. It depicts the coastlines of Africa, Asia, India and China with great accuracy, yet more surprisingly it also shows the east, west and northernmost parts of Australia, Campbell and Auckland Island some two centuries before Cook made his ”discovery”. Somebody must have surveyed the area in depth before the arrival of the Europeans. The only nation at the time with sufficent capacity, navigational expertise and prior knowledge of the area was China.
