Only if the Europeans were the pioneers?

It is home to one of the most advanced early civilizations on Earth. This country - China. Occupying a large part of the Asian land, China is one of its side is washed by the Pacific Ocean. It is therefore not surprising that since ancient times, Chinese have mastered the art of navigation. They were able to build ships for sailing the high seas, in the perfection of his time possessed skills to navigate the stars and even invented the compass. On their ships, they went to the shores of Korea, India, to Java, to come to the shore of Africa. Scientists cite evidence that the Chinese were on the coast of Central and South America. But they are also a lot of traveling by land. So, for example, were found the origins of one of the largest rivers of Asia - the Yellow River. Were investigated mountains and highlands in the western limits of their own. Empire. In traveling by land, probably the way the Chinese and the Romans crossed. After all, both empires were aware of each other and exchanged goods. Originated and operated the famous Silk Road. However, more intensive contacts prevented the nations of the earth through which this road ran, as they too were interested in trading profits. One of these people were Arabs, the indigenous inhabitants of the desert, nimble traders. Islam, the beginning of an era which is 622 per year, was so strong religion, that only a few centuries covered a vast territory. And scientists, and merchants now easy to travel freely to explain in Arabic, and everywhere meeting co-religionists. Best this era retelling the tales of Sinbad the Sailor from the Arabian Nights. Scholarships Muslims, too, was very well developed: Arab scholars knew the works of ancient authors, supplemented and corrected by their own observations. Geographer Idrisi, for example, traveled to northern Africa, Asia Minor, visited Europe. He produced a map of the world, which had the shape of a silver disc. INDRIS well-known treatise on geography. True, according to his century with his dominating performances, the Idrisi found many inaccuracies. A is the significance, even today, for historians of geography, because the maps and treatises Idrisi is largely determined by geographical representation of Europeans until the 18 th century. A distinguished traveler Ibn Battuta described the 14 th century, based on his own observations the entire Islamic region from North America to China. For many years he traveled over 120,000 kilometers. But in Europe continued to dominate a vague idea of ??the East, including those of China and India. Although there was, as we said, the famous Silk Road, although the Arab merchants brought to Europe, silk, spices and other goods, the high achievements of Chinese culture did not know. And if there was something known since the ancient Greeks and Romans, it has been forgotten over the past century.