Then at paragraph 3 on page 6 of their report:
Worthy of note is the finding of considerable frequency haplogroup P* (xM 173) in the population of the island of Hvar. According to Wells et al (44—see footnotes) this lineage displays a maximum in central Asia while being rare in Europe, Middle East and East Asia. Its presence in Hvar recapitulates our finding of MtDNA haplogroup F on the island of Hvar and in mainland Croatian population that is virtually absent in Europe but, again, common in populations from central and Eastern Asia (51—see footnotes). There are several possibilities for the occurrence of the ancestral lineage of M 173. One is the well documented alliance of Avars (a Mongol people) and Slavs (Croatians) that followed Avar arrival to the Eastern Adriatic in 6th Century AD. The other is the expansion of the Ottoman Empire from the 16th to 18th Century AD when refugees from the Western Balkans frequently immigrated to the islands. Lastly, the ancient Silk Road linking China with Western Asia and Europe could be a possible path of P (xM 173) lineage too. Any of these migratory patterns could have introduced the mutation to the investigated population.
As may be seen, the distinguished professors do not include a fourth possibility: that the inheritance of Chinese and Asian (Mongol) genes came by sea from sailors on ships sailing from Alexandria to Venice. Looking at a map reveals this is by far the most likely method. The Avars settled near the Drava River on the Hungarian border—why should they then decide to migrate westward across some of the most rugged mountains on the planet to reach Hvar? Why choose the most extreme island, the farthest out in the ocean, on which to settle?
Second, if they had followed this bizarre route, their genes would be seen in the populations between where they settled on the Drava and Hvar; they are not. The same could be said for the Ottoman invasions down the Danube. Why should they choose a remote place out at sea to settle when they had the fertile Danube plain? The amount of Asian DNA, 14 percent, is remarkable; well-documented Danish invasions of Britain reveal a comparable 7 percent. Also, in my view, the fact that both Asian men (Y chromosome) and women (mitochondrial) settled on Hvar means men and women from Asia arrived together. Mongol armies invading from the East would have taken women where they found them. They would not have brought their wives and concubines along. Quite the opposite prevailed on Chinese junks, where female slaves and sailors lived side by side.
There are no Dalmatian accounts of Asian people trekking overland across the Dinaric Alps to Hvar, but there are local accounts (collated by Professor Lovric) that prior to the sixteenth century Ottoman invasions, foreign sailing ships manned by “Oblique-eyed yellow Easterners” visited the coast. Hvar, as may be seen from the map, is smack on the direct route from Alexandria (via Corfu) to Venice. In my submission, the DNA results are part of a logical sequence of events. Zheng He’s squadron arrives in the Mediterranean in late 1433 or early 1434. One or more of his ships berths at Hvar when sailors and slave girls jump ship. The other ships proceed to Venice, where they unload the slaves. Officers then travel on to Florence, where they meet the pope in 1434. The squadron returns via Dalmatia in late 1434, when a Dalmatian fleet joins them for passage back through the Red Sea–Nile canal to China. On arrival in China the Chinese fleet is impounded: Admiral Harvatye Mariakyr takes his seven ships into the Pacific and “discovers” thirty Pacific islands, to which he gives Dalmatian names. He brings his fleet back home in the late 1430s/early 1440s with a Chinese map of the Americas and sails for America in the early 1440s. If this scenario is correct, the DNA of Venetians should reflect that of the people of Hvar, as should the DNA of indigenous Native Americans where Admiral Mariakyr’s fleet visited (and left Glagolitic inscriptions recording their voyages around New England and Nova Scotia).
This DNA research will be pursued, and results will be posted on our website. We hope the Glagolitic manuscripts will also be translated.
Now to return to Zheng He’s squadron leaving Hvar for Venice, a few days voyage to the north. Here the Chinese would have found excellent repair yards, which would have been of the greatest importance to them, for their ships had by now been away from their home bases for nearly three years. The Chinese were lucky—Venice had been building and repairing galleys for hundreds of years.
To develop trade between Alexandria, Cairo, and Venice, Venice built galleys and manned them with skilled seamen. The Arsenal, the greatest medieval dockyard of Europe, was the key to Venetian maritime supremacy. By 1434, Venice could put thirty-five large galleys to sea along with three thousand smaller craft manned by 25,000 sailors. At the beginning of the fifteenth century, the ship workers’ guild had more than 6,000 members out of a total Venetian population of 170,000. The Senate passed stringent laws to control shipbuilding. The number of galleys built for export was restricted. Any foreigner wishing to place an order first had to obtain authorization from the Great Council.
Galleys were built on a “conveyor belt” on which ships were towed past a succession of stations, where they acquired ropes and sails, armaments and dry provisions.8 When Henry III of France visited Venice, the Arsenal’s shipwrights assembled a galley weighing six thousand pounds in the time it took the doge and his royal visitor to eat their way through a state banquet. Galleys were built to standard specifications so that replacement parts could be stored in Venetian yards down the Adriatic and across the Mediterranean.
Financial incentives were given to shipbuilders and owners to keep the Arsenal productive with experienced shipwrights on the job. Bankers were discouraged from charging exorbitant interest. The public bank had authority to grant soft loans: in the event that it was necessary to accelerate construction, costs could be subsidized. Almost every citizen had a stake in maritime commerce with the East—even the galley oarsmen had the right to trade on their personal accounts. A single voyage to Alexandria or Cairo could enrich a vessel’s entire company.
Venice was equally committed to training her naval officers, pilots, and ratings. The admiral and fleet navigator of Venetian armadas were usually graduates of the Venetian naval college at Perast, a port in the Gulf of Kotor in southern Dalmatia near Hvar. The port had an international reputation9: Czar Peter the Great of Russia sent his first officer cadets there. The armadas’ in-shore navigation was handled by professional pilots, trained at Porec on the north Dalmatia coast. The cream of these mariners, the pedotti grandi, would steer an armada into the lagoon at the end of its journey from Alexandria.
For centuries Dalmatia has been renowned for her seafarers. The names of her illustrious officers crop up time and again in tales of epic battles—from Coromandel to the Spanish Main. Venetian galleys were built almost entirely from Dalmatian wood—pine for planks, resin for caulking, oak for rudders, keels, and straits. Roughly half the crew of each galley would be Dalmatian.
Venice brilliantly exploited her maritime assets. With the acquisition of ports on the Dalmatian coast, she gained abundant timber. Centuries of history and tradition had bred skillful and hardy seamen. Journeying north from Alexandria, Zheng He’s fleets would have found numerous ports, first in Crete, then across the Ionian Sea to the Adriatic. It was an easy journey, even in the calms of summer when the Chinese oarsmen—fifteen to an oar—would eat up the miles. The Chinese could have expected to be guided by experienced local pilots.
Cairo’s contact with Europe was through Venice, which had entered a commercial treaty with the Mamluks giving them exclusive trading rights. The two cities were joined by their pursuit of a monopoly on east-west trade.
The link with Cairo opened up additional possibilities of trade with China and new ways of reaching that distant land. A stream of merchants