First sighting

AUSTRALIA REDISCOVERED

A question of balance

Geographers speculated about a great southern continent since the time of the ancient Greeks, when it was thought that such a continent must exist to balance the northern land masses.

Australia existed in late medieval European logic and mythology: A great Southland, or Terra Australis, was thought necessary to balance the weight of the northern landmasses of Europe and Asia.

The European exploration of Australia took more than three centuries to complete; thus, what is often considered the oldest continent, geologically, was the last to be discovered and colonized by Europeans.

In 1879 a Chinese stone carving, dating back to the early 1400s, was unearthed in Darwin. This, and a fragment of Chinese porcelain discovered on the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria in 1948, are the only pieces of solid evidence to support the theory that Chinese were the first to visit Australia. The Ming Admiral Cheng Ho made several southern voyages with a huge fleet of junks («джонка» – судно) between 1405 and 1453. His ships explored the ocean around Timor, and accounts of the voyages could be interpreted to mean that they had reached Australia.

Admiral Cheng Ho

First sighting

The first recorded sighting of the Australian continent by Europeans was by the crew of the Dutch ship Duyfken (Little Dove), under the command of Willem Janszoon.