Contact between China and Africa before Vasco da Gama: Archeology, Document and Historiography

摘要

Vasco da Gama's voyage around the Cape of Good Hope to East Africa and further arrival in India in 1498 is considered as a great event in history.Yet contact between China and Africa started as early as in the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D.220).Du Huan of the Tang Dynasty (618-907) left a note about his visit to Africa in the 8th century.Porcelains from Tang to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) were found in Africa.Ibn Battuta visited China in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368).There is a Chinese silk map of Africa in the 14th century.Zheng He's junk visited Africa in the early 15th century.This paper is intended to examine the archeological evidence,related documents and historiography in Chinese on early China-Africa contact thus to probe the early bilateral relations.It will divide into four parts,the study of the period of the pre-Tang Period,Tang Dynasty,Song (960-1279) and Yuan dynasties,and finally early Ming Dynasty,respectively.It demonstrates that China-Africa contact probably started before the birth of Jesus Christ,Africans came to China in ancient times through different ways,and Chinese had sailed to Africa long before Vasco da Gama.