Marco Polo⏤The Apostle Paul?

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Marco Polo, known in the older days generally as Paulus Venetius, was an itinerant trader from Venice born in the 13th century. He is known best for the book he wrote about his travels.

The Apostle Paul (formerly Saul) of Tarsus was an avid tormentor of Christians who then converted to Christianity and wrote several of the canonical books of the New Testament that set forth the Christian dogma.

00marcopolo1.jpg

Left: Marco Polo, holding his book; Right: Three classical depictions of Paul of Tarsus

It will be observed that Marco Polo worked for a number of years as a tax-collector; that he wrote his memoirs in prison; and that he wore that red cape he’s always depicted in, you might say, “religiously.” The Apostle Paul, of course, was also a tax-collector, a prison memoirist, and a red-cape man.

Finally, let’s not forget the aquatic children’s game that shares the name Marco Polo. This is a variant of “tag you’re it” in which the “it” player simulates blindness and shouts “Marco,” compelling a reply of “Polo” from the other players. The "it" player attempts, by these echoes, to track down the competing players, who have, however, by this point usually gotten out of the pool, toweled off, and gone home in order to avoid having to play. The only game on earth that is less fun, in my opinion, than Marco Polo is Head’s up/Seven up. Be that as it may, the game is somewhat comprehensible if we remember that the apostle Paul was “blinded by the light.”


00marcopolo2.jpg

Were the Italian cities referred to by Marco Polo and his contemporaries possibly not in Europe?


I think it’s possible extra-biblical corroboration for other New Testament personages may be found in the historical works treating of, for instance, Peter Martyr and Prester John.
 
Marco Polo, known in the older days generally as Paulus Venetius, was an itinerant trader from Venice born in the 13th century. He is known best for the book he wrote about his travels.

The Apostle Paul (formerly Saul) of Tarsus was an avid tormentor of Christians who then converted to Christianity and wrote several of the canonical books of the New Testament that set forth the Christian dogma.

Left: Marco Polo, holding his book; Right: Three classical depictions of Paul of Tarsus

It will be observed that Marco Polo worked for a number of years as a tax-collector; that he wrote his memoirs in prison; and that he wore that red cape he’s always depicted in, you might say, “religiously.” The Apostle Paul, of course, was also a tax-collector, a prison memoirist, and a red-cape man.

Finally, let’s not forget the aquatic children’s game that shares the name Marco Polo. This is a variant of “tag you’re it” in which the “it” player simulates blindness and shouts “Marco,” compelling a reply of “Polo” from the other players. The "it" player attempts, by these echoes, to track down the competing players, who have, however, by this point usually gotten out of the pool, toweled off, and gone home in order to avoid having to play. The only game on earth that is less fun, in my opinion, than Marco Polo is Head’s up/Seven up. Be that as it may, the game is somewhat comprehensible if we remember that the apostle Paul was “blinded by the light.”


Were the Italian cities referred to by Marco Polo and his contemporaries possibly not in Europe?


I think it’s possible extra-biblical corroboration for other New Testament personages may be found in the historical works treating of, for instance, Peter Martyr and Prester John.
Paul was an attorney and a Roman citizen. Matthew was the tax collector.
 
Modern scholarship still cannot pinpoint the exact location of biblical "Tarsus" or Tarshish, going by the levant-palestine model of geography of course. According to the bible, Tarshish was a place far across the ocean, rich in metals, where king Solomon gained his wealth. Voyages there and back took years, as opposed to weeks and months.

Tarshish - Wikipedia
 
Modern scholarship still cannot pinpoint the exact location of biblical "Tarsus" or Tarshish, going by the levant-palestine model of geography of course. According to the bible, Tarshish was a place far across the ocean, rich in metals, where king Solomon gained his wealth. Voyages there and back took years, as opposed to weeks and months.

Tarshish - Wikipedia
Isn't it in connection with Ophir?
 
Marco Polos real name was Marko Pilic,according to old Croatian sources.
He was born on the Croatian island Korcula (his house is still standing there according to historians) which is in the vicinity of today’s Dubrovnik,then called Ragusa.
His surname would translate to “chicken” in English or more accurately to “small” or “little chicken” hence his name Polo...probably akin to the Latin translation of chicken.
 
And was Revelation, the "letter from John" written by Prestor John? Preston John reigned in an area, Argon, which was established by doubting Thomas. Preston John was famous for his "letters" he sent, which probably includes the final book of the Bible.
 
Makes you want to look deeper into the games we played as kids. Red Rover Red Rover, send somebody over. London Bridge is falling down. Hide and Go Seek. The possibilities are endless.
Matt from quantum of conscience had a similar idea with nursery rhythms. He proclaims its impossible for songs like "ring around the rosey" and "row your boat" to last through time like they do being so poorly written. I'm not articulating it like Matt but I think he's spot on. Reality has a strange way of molding our consciousness and I totally believe it's from frequency and vibration through the words we speak.
 
Marco Polos real name was Marko Pilic,according to old Croatian sources.
He was born on the Croatian island Korcula (his house is still standing there according to historians) which is in the vicinity of today’s Dubrovnik,then called Ragusa.
His surname would translate to “chicken” in English or more accurately to “small” or “little chicken” hence his name Polo...probably akin to the Latin translation of chicken.
I can believe this, and that many other figures of Balkan origin are rewritten to become Western European characters.
 
I believe so. That whole region is where S. Africa is today. Old maps before the 1890s show much of the cities in the Bible are in that region.
Wait, which map showed Ophir in Africa? Cause that would mean Ophir is of Ham's descent which he isn't.
 
Marco Polo, known in the older days generally as Paulus Venetius, was an itinerant trader from Venice born in the 13th century. He is known best for the book he wrote about his travels.

The Apostle Paul (formerly Saul) of Tarsus was an avid tormentor of Christians who then converted to Christianity and wrote several of the canonical books of the New Testament that set forth the Christian dogma.

Left: Marco Polo, holding his book; Right: Three classical depictions of Paul of Tarsus

It will be observed that Marco Polo worked for a number of years as a tax-collector; that he wrote his memoirs in prison; and that he wore that red cape he’s always depicted in, you might say, “religiously.” The Apostle Paul, of course, was also a tax-collector, a prison memoirist, and a red-cape man.

Finally, let’s not forget the aquatic children’s game that shares the name Marco Polo. This is a variant of “tag you’re it” in which the “it” player simulates blindness and shouts “Marco,” compelling a reply of “Polo” from the other players. The "it" player attempts, by these echoes, to track down the competing players, who have, however, by this point usually gotten out of the pool, toweled off, and gone home in order to avoid having to play. The only game on earth that is less fun, in my opinion, than Marco Polo is Head’s up/Seven up. Be that as it may, the game is somewhat comprehensible if we remember that the apostle Paul was “blinded by the light.”


Were the Italian cities referred to by Marco Polo and his contemporaries possibly not in Europe?


I think it’s possible extra-biblical corroboration for other New Testament personages may be found in the historical works treating of, for instance, Peter Martyr and Prester John.
This woman has a very old family library and believes that the reason why we did not know that America was already known for centuries before is because it was called Africa or Bereberia:
Luisa Isabel Alvarez de Toledo, Duchess of Medina Sidonia, traveled yesterday to Ceuta to present her latest book, Africa versus America: the strength of the paradigm, in which she demonstrates, with documents kept in her private archive, that the expedition of Christopher Columbus was not the first to set foot on American soil in the year 1492. The Red Duchess was invited to Ceuta by the Cabinet of Ethnic Affairs of the local Government, chaired by the GIL, and met with its president, Antonio Sampietro, to whom she signed a copy of the work, to explain the content of this research work. Alvarez de Toledo explained that this text is a continuation of the one he edited a few years ago and was entitled It was not us, noting that "America was called Africa or Barbary, a name that remained until the seventeenth century, and in that land were already Muslims, so there was no such discovery, although now will create a controversy that will try to silence, but the book has no replica." "There is no discussion", has sentenced the Duchess, who has challenged the researchers to check the veracity of the documents reflected in the book, "since, if they want to consult them, they have nothing more to ask for them".
LA TEORÍA DE LA 'DUQUESA ROJA'

Luisa Isabel Álvarez de Toledo was the head of the House of Medina Sidonia, the most important ducal house in Spain, with its hereditary title status since 1445. The main residence of the dukes was the Palace of Medina Sidonia, located in Sanlucar de Barrameda, Cadiz. This Palace houses the Archives of the House of Medina Sidonia, one of the most important private archives in Europe.

An atypical and controversial aristocrat, she was a historian, guardian of the ducal archives and author of numerous works. At the age of 18 she was presented in society in Estoril, Portugal, together with Infanta Pilar de Borbón. However, despite her aristocratic heritage and upbringing, she maintained strong socialist ideals throughout her life. It is said that she was a member of the then illegal Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE).

Her anti-Franco activities landed her in jail in Alcalá de Henares in the 1960s. It was from that moment on that she became popularly known as the "Red Duchess". She created and, until her death, was active president of the Casa Medina Sidonia Foundation, which manages the Archives of the House of Medina Sidonia, most of the patrimony of the House of Medina Sidonia, and continued her work as a historian and writer.

During her extensive archival research she discovered documents that convinced her that America may have been discovered long before Columbus by Arab-Andalusian or Moroccan sailors who traded with ports in Brazil, Guyana and Venezuela, and published her views in It Wasn't Us and Africa versus America.

Luisa Isabel Alvarez de Toledo died on March 7, 2008, at the age of 71, in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Spain.
Luisa Isabel Álvarez de Toledo, 21st Duchess of Medina Sidonia - Wikipedia
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However, I also have other possibilities for Marco Polo:

The legend of Prester John, despite its remarkable mythical and fantastical charge, had an incomprehensible scope within the politics and culture of the entire European lower Middle Ages.
Many official documents of emperors, popes, missionaries and merchants, along with numerous maps and books of travel or fantasy literature, allude to this fantastic character and his fabulous kingdom, as someone true.

Currently, for example, the letter that Pope Alexander III sent on September 27, 1177, to his "dearest son in Christ John, illustrious and magnificent king of the Indians" is assumed to be authentic.

The "Letter of Prester John" a gross deception, a Supreme Pontiff has not only responded to someone who supposedly does not exist, but also confirms that "people of his confidence" have been in his court.

In 1219, an enthusiastic Jacques de Vitry, bishop of St. John of Acre, wrote to Pope Honorius III (1216-1227) that "David, the king of the Indies, whom the people call Prester John", had finally attacked the infidels, and that "David, the king of the Indies, whom the people call Prester John", had finally attacked the infidels (1216-1227). had finally attacked the infidels and was on his way to Jerusalem.
Precisely in 1219, the Mongols had begun the conquest of the Persian empire of Khorasmia (present-day Iran, Urbekistan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan). Thus, this King "David", whom Vitry assumes to be a Christian, is none other than the legendary Genghis Khan.
After the death of the infernal conqueror, the Dominican Vincent de Beauvais, in his work "Speculum historiale" (1253), clears up the mess. In his writing he states that, although Prester John was the emperor of the Indies and the Tartars, the latter had rebelled guided by his godson, Genghis Khan himself, who, after killing the Prester and his family, had married one of his daughters.

"In the year of the Lord, 1187, they elected by common consent a man of their own, a man of their strength and prudence, whose name was Chinchis, as king. After his coronation, all the Tartars, who were scattered in other regions, came to him and willingly submitted to his rule. (...) Seeing himself exalted to such glory, he sent messengers to his king, requesting his daughter as his wife. This happened in the year of our Lord 1200. He received their request as a most grievous affront and responded harshly, for he said that he would sooner throw his daughter into the fire than give her as a wife to a slave of his, and outrageously expelled the envoys of Chinchis from his sight, saying to them, "Tell your lord that, since he has dared to rise to such haughtiness as to ask in marriage the daughter of his master, I will make him die a bitter death. "

("Il Millone "Chapter LII. Of the first king of the Tartars and of the quarrel with their king).
Hearing this, Chinchis "burst with anger and gathering a large army" went to the lands of Prester John, exalted by the flattering omens of magicians and astrologers. After three days of battle, the Christian priest-king was killed, "and the Tartars completely subjugated his land".
For Chinese historiography, such an event never took place. Nor did a Prester John ever exist within its boundaries. But... What happens on the other side of the Atlantic?

The information contained in the Miccinelli documents, and the evolution that the legend of Prester John underwent in Europe, coincide.
Thus, if the text of Father Anello Oliva dates the arrival of the Europeans to Peru in the XII century, it is precisely in this century when the first news about the visit of this enigmatic character to Pope Calixtus II burst in France. (Odon of Reims, 1122).
It is important to note that 24 years earlier, Godfrey of Bouillon had created the Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. From its ranks would come the founders of the Order of the Temple, created by Hugo de Payens in 1118, just three years before Calixtus II received such an enigmatic missive.

When, in 1145, Pope Eugene III promulgated the bull "Militia Dei" (Soldiers of God), the Order of the Temple acquired formal and real autonomy from the bishops, being subject only to the authority of Rome.
It was precisely in this same year when the legend of the Preste began to gain momentum in the Christian world. In his "Monumental Germaniae Histórica", Otto von Freisinger points out that Eugene III himself had received the news that "a certain John", "rex et sacerdos" ("king and priest"), was going to conquer Jerusalem.
The legend became popular in 1167, when the letters that the "Prebest John, King of the Indies" sent to the Byzantine emperor Manuel Comnenus, the Germanic emperor Frederick I and Pope Alexander III spread throughout Europe.
At the same time, from 1167 onwards, the number of Knights Templar increased significantly following the drafting of the Order's hierarchical statutes. Thus, at the same time that the legend was spreading throughout Europe, in 1270, the Order was already present in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain and Portugal.

With this territorial expansion, the Temple increased its wealth in an inordinate way, which would become greater than that of any kingdom in Europe.

Well... read below one of the extracts from the letter that Prester John sent to the Emperor of Byzantium, John Comnenus:

"We are very rich, thank God. If you want to know the lands we possess, know that I, Prester John, am the most opulent prince in the world, I have seventy-two kings at my command. I am a Christian, and all the poor Christians who come to my lands are to be helped with my alms."

Curious coincidence, no doubt.

In 1187, the Crusaders lost Jerusalem, and the legend of Prester John fell silent. The knights of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre then spread throughout the European courts, intervening notably in the Reconquest of Spain.

It was not until 1219, when, coinciding with the beginning of the Mongol invasion of the empire of Corasmia, new news of the Preste. Then, Jacques de Vitry communicated to Pope Honorius III (1216-1227) that, "David, the king of the Indies, whom the people call Prester John", had finally attacked the infidels. had finally attacked the infidels and was on his way to Jerusalem.


According to the story, this king "David" was Genghis Khan himself. But then... Why does de Vitry give him a biblical name and assume him to be a Christian?


Since the true identity of Genghis Khan was already known by then, and it was known that neither his name was David..., nor was he a Christian, the contemporary Alberic Trois Fortines tried to give an explanation to the mess by concluding that David's men were Mongols under the power of Prester John.

Evidently this assertion..., did not make sense. Basically because in Asia, there never existed a Christian kingdom capable of subduing the Mongol power. So... How could Trois Fontaines conclude that those Mongols were subjects of the mythical priest-king?


The mystery is solved if we take into account that, according to the Miccinelli documents, at that same time and in Peru, "People of the North" or what is the same, Europeans settled in those regions for a century, were having the first contacts with the people of the "Great Tartary" or Asians.

Thus, we should bear in mind that:

A. The scene does not take place in Asia, but in South America.

B. Preste Juan is the archetype of a European warlord ("People of the North"), who had controlled the regions of Peru for a century.

C. "Chinchis" or Genghis Khan, is the archetype of an Asian warlord, recently arrived in the American subcontinent.

As you can see..., Marco Polo's story, which according to the experts could never have happened in Asia, does fit perfectly with the contents of the quipu of the Inca Quipucamayoc Chauarurac. Moreover..., the confident superiority displayed by Prester John before the Tartar power, evidences that indeed, at some point there was certainty that the Christians could overcome the Asian power that had recently arrived in these regions.

However..., both testimonies would have sinned, as did Prester John himself, of excessive confidence. According to the conclusion of "Il Millone", instead of emerging victorious, the Christian priest-king was killed "and the Tartars completely subjugated his land".

The Miccinelli documents complete this information, pointing out that from this crossbreeding between Asians and Europeans, the Inca ruling caste would emerge.


And I ask myself... Can perhaps this miscegenation explain the enigmatic existence of light-haired Inca mummies?

After the loss of the territories of Peru, the Christians also lost Jerusalem, this time definitively, after the defeat of Damietta in 1244.

That is why, a year later, at the Council of Lyon it was agreed to seek an alliance with the Tartars, which would allow them to undertake a new crusade against Islam.

The Pope then sent to the Franciscan Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, a letter addressed to the "Emperor of the Tartars", which, although it did not obtain the expected success, would inaugurate the beginning of regular communications.

In 1255, Niccolò and Maffeo Polo were among these ambassadors. Years later, in 1472, the mission would be repeated..., but this time, with Marco Polo.

Juan de Pian de Carpine himself, or Marco Polo, would report in his chronicles about Preste John ..., but in terms of evident "disappointment".

The transatlantic positions had been lost. The Indies and their riches had to return to oblivion and await more propitious times for their conquest.

From then on, many were the voices that assured that not even in the most remote confines of Asia could the grandeur of the Christian kingdom of Preste Juan de Indias have a place.

Everything was erased. The Order of the Temple, eradicated; and the memory of Marco Polo, burned by an "unfortunate" fire. Only his "Book of Wonders" would survive to oblivion....

In the year 1328, Odorico de Pordenone would affirm that much had been exaggerated about the Indies of Prester John, and contradicting the famous words of Marco Polo on his deathbed, he would sentence that....
"not even a hundredth part of what has been written about him is true".

Nevertheless, the influence of this character will not be completely eclipsed. An example of this is that when the Portuguese explored the African coast in the 15th and 16th centuries, references to this legend were once again notorious.

Thus, the "mythical" kingdom of Preste Juan, sometimes located in Africa and sometimes in Asia, would not disappear definitively from the maps until the 18th century.

Be that as it may, what seems evident is that behind the legends and chivalric fantasies, a real knowledge is hidden. This is the only way to justify why the "marvelous" flooded the epistles and writings of scholars, monarchs and Popes.

Some scholars, in trying to understand why people of such high standing could believe in such absurd nonsense, concluded for example that....
"The time lent itself to such supercheries".

Since the world has been a world, information is power. It is not surprising then, that certain circles have used the most imaginative ways to keep their knowledge hidden, and at the same time, transmit information to those who... "had eyes to see, and ears to hear".

(PDF) Secrets and Silence: The Extraordinary Collection of Clara Miccinelli
Fig. 1. The Pachaquipu (Miccinelli Collection, copying prohibited,...
And was Revelation, the "letter from John" written by Prestor John? Preston John reigned in an area, Argon, which was established by doubting Thomas. Preston John was famous for his "letters" he sent, which probably includes the final book of the Bible.
I don't know if you knew this manuscript that brings a totally different history to the official one and that talks about Preste Juan?

El Becerro general: book in which the coats of arms used by many kingdoms and empires, lordships... and the genealogy of the lineages of Spain and the coats of arms they use are related.

The Manuscript: El Becerro General (The General Calf)
The author of this work is Don Diego Fernandez de Mendoza, cavallero who allo in the war of Granada, chronicler of the Catholic Monarchs ...year 1671.

It tells how Christianity becomes dogma and its faith is imposed together with the authority of Preste Juan, but with two different stories that, according to the author of the manuscript, must be understood. In the first, an alliance is established through a marriage between an Indian princess and a European knight, which results in the imposition of Christianity. In the second, the appearance of Christ would have been a decision of three magicians from the Indies, whose purpose would have been to create a spiritual leader in the image and likeness of the teachings of a worthy ancestor, choosing the patriarch Thomas, for whose custody the project and the power of Prester John is created. In a way, it tells us of two origins of the same myth: the political and the spiritual.
In this manuscript appears a historical nonsense. Or, rather, a lot of nonsense. In the first place, it casts doubt on the character of the prophet Jesus, and invites us to think that it is a character devised in the sphere of Egyptian-Persian-Indian influence, in the manner of other equivalent icons. Secondly, it questions the authority of the popes of Rome, as leaders of the Christian church from its beginnings, and grants this dignity to a priest, named John, who, on the other hand, appears as a singular leader of Eurasia in the Middle Ages, until the European colonization of the XV-XVI century, but of whose trace there is no collective conscience. Thirdly, the powers of the Dukes of Alba and the kings of Portugal are said to derive from the medieval Greek imperial lineage, and that of the kings of Aragon from a related Black Sea expedition. And, fourthly, it points to an account very different from that of Christian persecution or martyrdom in the early centuries, as well as that of the origin of Christianity as a state religion, which current official history attributes to Constantine, in the fourth century A.D., who was himself a contemporary of St. George. He relates it to a marriage alliance and, on the other hand, he situates these facts referring to medieval events, and ignoring any trace of the polytheistic Roman Empire. In other words, he narrates a chronicle that has little or nothing to do with the official historical reality. It hardly makes reference to concrete dates, and generates the reasonable doubt of the epoch in which the facts are situated, entering in frank harmony with the New Chronology of Fomenko and Nosovskiy.
Is the city of Fayum the reason for the presence of Pyramids and Obelisks in Piranesi's engravings?

First analysis of the manuscript: the law of the Gnostic Christ

Jesus, Thomas, the Magi, the Prester John and John the Baptist
Jesus in Kashmir (India)
Jesus against Horus, Apollo, Buddha, Krishna and the Cathars.
The Gnosticism of Nag Hammadi, of 1945
The Society of Jesus and the canonical Gospels
The imposition of Christianity, the result of a marriage
The reconstruction: An alliance between two empires, a marriage and the Prester John of Ethiopia The Ark of the Covenant

HB: Is there any relation between the Argon founded by Thomas and then ruled by Prester John and the kingdom of Aragon in Spain, all with coats of arms of Dragons?
The kingdom of Portugal also has Dragons.


escudos-reino-preste-juan.jpg
Coats of arms of the kingdom of Preste Juan

escudo de aragon.jpg
Aragon Coat of Arms
5.png
Things similar to Preste Juan's Coat of Arms
26.png

272894786_4701798946612497_3079826170911654203_n.jpg
Kingdom of Argon founded by the Apostle Thomas
272871391_4701807736611618_5335286862501208368_n.jpg
Kingdom of Aragon in the map of Urbano Monte 1580, there next to it we can see the same city Arsaret.
 
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A bit of a problem with your assertions is that Paul was a tax collector. Matthew was the tax collector. Paul was a pharisee.
 
Modern scholarship still cannot pinpoint the exact location of biblical "Tarsus" or Tarshish, going by the levant-palestine model of geography of course. According to the bible, Tarshish was a place far across the ocean, rich in metals, where king Solomon gained his wealth. Voyages there and back took years, as opposed to weeks and months.

Tarshish - Wikipedia
Wonder if it is a reference to Tartessos in Spain?
 
Marco Polos real name was Marko Pilic,according to old Croatian sources.
He was born on the Croatian island Korcula (his house is still standing there according to historians) which is in the vicinity of today’s Dubrovnik,then called Ragusa.
His surname would translate to “chicken” in English or more accurately to “small” or “little chicken” hence his name Polo...probably akin to the Latin translation of chicken.
It is interesting to mention that the street and the part of the city where the so-called Marco Polo house is located today, correspond to the space that from the earliest days belongs to the Polo family. There are also opposing opinions about its origin, whether it is Italian or Croatian origin, and if we looked at it logically, the assumption is that it is nevertheless a Croatian origin because it is the name of Slavic origin that comes from the waterfowl that was called pol in that place.

This is supported by the polo family crest itself, which contains images of four waterfowl, moreover Marko himself signed with Pol, not the Latinized Polo!

As for his family, Nikola, Marco's father and brother Mate, even before his birth were famous merchants who traded the most in the Middle East, and in 1260 they resided in Constantinople, thus anticipating political changes in the empire when they turned their fortunes into precious stones and left the city, and according to the records in Marco Polo's book they headed to Asia from where they returned as ambassadors to the Pope with a letter begging him to send learned people...

On the other hand, here in China not many people believe the story... and this is why:
  • In Chinese sources there are no references to the presence of the Polos, which would have been expected if Marco had even remotely played the role he reported at court. Even a long guest stay by the three foreign merchants in China should be noted in the chronicles.
  • Marco Polo nowhere mentions that the Chinese drink tea, which at the time must have seemed remarkable to a Westerner.
  • On his alleged travels, he had to cross the Great Wall of China several times. Why doesn't he mention them?
  • He did not notice the old Chinese bad habit of constricting women's feet. Did he only have contacts with Mongols, not with Chinese?
  • Nowhere does he speak of the Chinese characters or script.
But, the government never misses an opportunity for a good exploitation and tourism, so, officially, Marco WAS HERE!

1662960960698.png
1662960987465.png

And about Marco Polo being the Apostle Paul... 13 centuries difference is not easy to be eliminated! That would be quite a far fetched theory!
 
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And was Revelation, the "letter from John" written by Prestor John? Preston John reigned in an area, Argon, which was established by doubting Thomas. Preston John was famous for his "letters" he sent, which probably includes the final book of the Bible.

PART ONE​

Actually Prester John had two domains: one near Asrareth and Argon/Argun reputed to have been founded by Thomas in the far east of Asia; the other one in Africa, in what we call Ethiopia. The bicephalic kingdom vassal of Tartaria in the east, and of "Rome" (meaning Byzantium) in the west is probably the archetype of the bicephalic eagle found in many houses' and states' heraldry. Would this be because of the locations of Prester John's kingdoms instead of any European narrative?

There is indeed, on Ortelius' Tartariae sive Magni Chami Regni, a note in Latin:

"ARGON. Christianorum olim regnum note Presbiteri Ioines in Asia erat, à D. Thoma ibi institutum, vt Romae corresponderet ecclesiae, per Presbyterum Ioem Africanum Romae obediens. Et antequam a Gothanis vinceretur, rivale Romae olim nuncupabatur."

Which I would translate as:

"ARGON. There once existed in Asia a Christian kingdom, known as the realm of Prester John, established there by Saint Thomas so as to remain in communion with the Church through Prester John the African, who was obedient to Rome. Before it was conquered by the Goths, it was regarded as a rival to Rome."

Several things immediately stand out.

First of all, there is mention of an Asian Prester John and an African Prester John. This is highly consistent with Joseph de Guignes's reference to the severing of relations between Africa and the Far East. See @HELLBOY's post in the same thread, about the coats of arms of the kingdom of Preste Juan. The subsequent remark on the similarity of name of Aragon in Spain and Aragon in far east Asia opens yet another door, given the deep connection of Spanish colonial projection and the "legend of Prester John" (see Sergio Corrêa Da Costa's very telling book: Brésil, les Silences de l'Histoire).

The second striking point is the statement that if the African Prester John was afterwards affiliated with Rome, Thomas was originally not (and was actually kind of a rival: see later). Yet it is well known that the Christian kingdom of the African Prester John was Egypt+Ethiopia, and that Ethiopia was aligned with the first Rome or the second one — or both, but not Eastern christianity. This distinction is not explicitly stated here, but it appears to be implied.

Furthermore, the reference to the apocryphal book of Esdras concerning the tribes of Israel combines with this remark regarding allegiance to Rome, and I would be very interested to know in precisely what way.

Finally, there is mention of the invasion of the Goths/Gog+Magog (the Huns + Mongols). In this context, however, I am inclined to think that this refers instead to the invasion of Gog and Magog — that is to say, in this geographical setting, the Mongols, Mongals, Maols, and/or the Huns (they were the same).

It is striking that on Ortelius's map, the kingdom bordering the domain of Prester John is named precisely Asrareth.

Incidentally, the term Argon/Aragon in this cartographic context is in fact the ethnonym Argun, referring to the Scythian peoples inhabiting these Arctic regions.

What is remarkable is that, at a time when cartography was supposedly based primarily upon biblical writings, Ortelius refers instead to an apocryphal text — that is to say, a censored one.

The second point is that the passage he chooses to cite at this particular location relates to eschatology.

On the Charta Rogeriana, Muhammad al-Idrisi mentions the peoples of Gog and Magog beneath the mountains, namely Yājūj wa Mājūj. The location assigned to these peoples happens to coincide with the area where Ortelius refers to the books of Esdras.

[ Tabula Rogeriana (The Book of Roger) was compiled by Muhammad al-Idrisi at the request of Roger II of Sicily between 1138 and 1154.

Completed in 1154, it was one of the most sophisticated geographical works of the medieval world. Combining information gathered from travellers, merchants, sailors, and earlier geographical traditions, it presented a remarkably detailed description of Europe, Africa, and Asia. The accompanying world map, known as the Tabula Rogeriana, remained one of the most accurate cartographic representations available for several centuries.

The work was produced at the cosmopolitan court of Roger II in Palermo, where Latin, Greek, Arab, and Norman intellectual traditions intersected. It stands as a notable example of scientific and cultural collaboration between the Islamic and Christian worlds during the Middle Ages. ]

Within the biblical context, Gog and Magog constitute a prominent element of the Apocalypse. However, my own research has led me to conclude that the narrative concerning Gog and Magog does not correspond to the geography in which they are currently placed. Indeed, all the ancient maps depicting Gog and Magog in the far north-east of Eurasia appear to corroborate the placement of Jerusalem on the Catalan Atlas and on other maps that locate Jerusalem in the East.

If these indications were accurate, this would imply that the biblical narrative did not originally unfold in the region of present-day Palestine, but rather in a territory that now forms the north-eastern part of actual Russia.

What appears evident is that, just as the Scythians (Skhitai according to Greeks = Khitai according to Russo-Sino-Asians: actually in Russian, China is named Khitai) are not situated where post-biblical scholars place them today, but rather where the apocryphal texts appear to locate them, so too the geographical framework of the biblical narrative may have undergone significant alteration.

The presence of this annotation on Ortelius's map is particularly revealing in relation to what I consider to be a deviation from the original biblical narrative. This annotation on Ortelius's map constitutes, in my view, evidence of a geographical displacement of the biblical narrative. If Jerusalem is placed at the centre of the world — as it is on the Catalan Atlas and on T–O type mappaemundi — then the eschatological events are no longer centred upon present-day Palestine, but rather upon the antipodes of that centre, namely the farthest reaches of Asia.

Within this framework, "Palestine" becomes little more than a symbolic location; the true stage of the Apocalypse lies in the extreme north-east of Eurasia, precisely where Ortelius places his reference to Esdras.

The "Land of Yesso" or Iesso that we have examined several times in this forum, the Strait of Anian, and the "Caspian Gates" reinterpreted as Siberian features — all of these elements combine to form a displaced sacred landscape, in which biblical names become superimposed upon geographical discoveries, creating what might be described as a prophetic geography.

According to this interpretation, cartographic traditions do not merely reflect geographical knowledge; they preserve traces of an older spatial conception in which biblical history, eschatology, and the geography of northern Asia were intimately interconnected.
 

PART TWO​

In 1741, Gottfried Hensel's Polyglotta places not only Tartaro-Scythia in the region where Gog and Magog are now located — and where, BTW, the scripts reported there were Tibetan umé letters (a fact I already pointed several times in this forum) — but specifically in the land of the Chukchi, identified here as Chauchi = Iadjudj+Madjudj = Gog + Magog. This author of the Synopsis Universae Philologiae represents a further stage in this development. His linguistic map, which places Tartaro-Scythia in the region inhabited by the Chukchi and associates Gog and Magog with those peoples, provides a philological confirmation of what earlier cartographers had suggested visually.

In this framework, place names such as Chauhi, Iudji, and other variations become evidence that the Lost Tribes of Israel, or the peoples identified with Gog, were indeed located in those regions. What had previously been expressed through cartographic symbolism is thus reinforced through linguistic and ethnographic interpretation.

From this perspective, Hensel's work serves as a bridge between geography and philology: the geographical associations inherited from earlier maps are supported by the apparent resemblance of ethnonyms and toponyms, thereby lending scholarly authority to the identification of north-eastern Eurasian peoples with the biblical traditions surrounding Gog and Magog.

It thus appears to substantiate the notion that the biblical narrative was geographically relocated.

My association between the Scythians, Khitai (Qidan or Catay mistakingly confined to the designation of China), and Gog and Magog is intended to be illuminating.

The Scythians (again, Skuthai/Skhytai in Greek) were, for the ancients, a vast people inhabiting the northern and eastern regions of the known world. Medieval geographers, upon rediscovering these texts, relating to their biblical literature even noticed the features of the Scythians onto newly encountered peoples, such as the Mongols and Tartars.

Later, the eighteenth-century dictionary of Augustin Calmet states this explicitly: "Magog, son of Japheth, is believed to be the ancestor of the Scythians or the Tartars." Calmet also notes that within Tartary there were provinces bearing evocative names: Lug, Mongug, Gangigu, Gigui, Engui, and others. These names, recorded on old maps, may be viewed as phonetic echoes of Gog and Magog.

My reference to the Chukchi = Chauhi = Yājūj/Mājūj follows precisely the same line of reasoning. Seventeenth-century cartographers, such as Jodocus Hondius, unambiguously marked in Siberia the inscriptions "Ung quae Gog" and "Sumongul quae Mogog".

From this perspective, the identification rests not upon a modern reinterpretation, but upon a cartographic tradition that associated the peoples of north-eastern Eurasia with the biblical figures of Gog and Magog.

Marco Polo did not travel to China as a tourist, but within a highly specific diplomatic and religious context (which adds to the hypothesis: if Polo = Paul, then what about Marco = Mark?).

The Polos — Marco Polo, his father Niccolò, and his uncle Maffeo — were Venetian merchants. During an earlier journey, they encountered envoys of Kublai Khan, who entrusted them with a mission: to bring back holy oil from the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and to return with learned Christians to the Khan's court.

Yet — and this is a crucial point for understanding the significance of this region on Ortelius's maps — the rulers of the vast lands of Tartary were frequently depicted as Christians. This is the context from which the kingdom of Prester John emerged.

During the twelfth century, a powerful idea circulated throughout Europe: that of a mighty Christian kingdom ruled by a priest-king descended from the Three Wise Men. It was hoped that this sovereign would come to the aid of the Crusaders in the Holy Land — though the location of that "Holy Land" may itself deserve re-examination in light of Ortelius's map and its annotations.

Around 1165, an apocryphal letter addressed to Manuel I Komnenos claimed to have been written by this "Prester John". The text, which circulated widely throughout Europe, described a fabulous kingdom of immense wealth and power.

Europeans initially located this kingdom in Asia — perhaps in India — as appears, for example, on maps by Martin Waldseemüller. Later, in the sixteenth century, Portuguese explorers in Ethiopia (Abyssinia) identified that Christian kingdom with Prester John, thereby shifting the geography of the account from Asia to Africa.

Yet, when Abraham Ortelius published his map of Tartary — the vast empire of the Great Khan — the notion of a Christian ruler in Asia was already firmly established and had become intertwined with travellers' accounts. This idea was not merely a legend floating in a vacuum. It was grounded in historical realities within Central Asia, particularly in the presence of Christian communities across the region.

The Church of the East, often referred to in Western sources as the Nestorian Church, had sent missionaries along the Silk Road from as early as the seventh century. Their success was considerable. By Marco Polo's time, Christian communities were indeed established throughout Central Asia and as far as China — including regions associated with Asrareth and Bargu.

Some contemporary maps are even more explicit than Ortelius's. For example, a map by Ephraim Pagitt (1635) states in so many words that "Tartary has more Christians than the Latin Church". It also places the seat of the "Nestorian Patriarch" at "Mushall" — identified by various scholars either with Merv or with Mosul — thereby illustrating the importance attributed by cartographers to the Church of the East.

Consequently, when Marco Polo (the diplomatic mission Mark-Paul) entered the domains of the Khan in 1275, it did not arrive as a mere bunch of travellers but as the mission bearer of a religious and strategic offering intended for a Mongol ruler who displayed an interest in Christianity. The religious character of the region was therefore well known in the first and second Rome, and the offering was made with full awareness of the circumstances — particularly given that members of the Khan's family, including his mother according to certain traditions, were associated with Eastern Christianity. I bring more on this Mark-Paul mission further.

From this perspective, the figure of Prester John cannot be dismissed simply as an entirely detached legend. Rather, it appears to have developed from genuine knowledge of Christian communities and Christian influences within Inner Asia.

It was this favourable reception, together with the services he rendered, that enabled Marco Polo to remain in the service of Kublai Khan for seventeen years, travelling extensively throughout the empire on various missions.
 
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