Professor de Mahieu: The Viking/Templar Presence in South America from c 1150 AD.
These abbreviated passages are taken from El Imperio Vikingo de Tihuanacu (America before Columbus), Ediciones de la Casa de Tharsis, Cochabamba, Bolivia, 2013, p.88 to 105, reprinted from the original of 1978.
"Towards the end of the 12th century the Atlantic held no other interest for the Vikings in South America than being a way enabling them to re-establish contact with Europe. The best port for such a voyage would have been in the delta of the Amazon. There is no trace of one having been there unless it was used by the Portuguese colonizers as the foundation for their port at Bélem. Ports generally remain in the same places during the course of history.
"What testifies to the Viking presence in that region are the countless bits and pieces of ceramic disinterred on the great island of Marajó, some with runic symbols or crosses of Malta. The island, as large as Denmark, does not flood and is not suitable as a maritime base, but was useful as a transit stopover.
"On the north-east coast of Brazil between the Amazon and Cape San Roque the Vikings had a chain of ports each 300 to 500 kilometres apart with safe anchorages as in the home fjords and equipped with boat repair yards. The chain continued farther south along the coast to Santa Catarina.
"If one day a Viking boat would put to sea for Europe, it was guaranteed that its destination would be Dieppe in Normandy, opposite from where the ancestors sailed in 987 AD from the Danelaw. Many things would have changed over the intervening two centuries. The Danes had been thrown out by the Anglo-Saxons, but in 1066 the Normans had captured the region under Norman the Conqueror, Duke of Rouen.
"Paradoxically then, the Vikings of Tiahuanacu would find themselves in a known country. Certainly by now the Normans would speak only French but the people would use a patois of Danish and Anglo-Saxon probably not much different from the Schleswig dialect spoken by recent Viking arrivals in Brazil. Both England and Normandy had the same king and so the Viking boat would have headed for the Norman coast closest to the English coast, and a port which would be maintaining links to Denmark with no shortage of interpreters. We know that it arrived for the following reasons.
"The Vikings of coastal South America had no reason to hide their knowledge from their European cousins, and so they allowed the authorities at Dieppe to copy their famed map of the South American coasts. They also spoke of the riches in gold, silver and timber to be found in the immense Viking Empire.
"In the 12th century, the Knights Templar Order was all powerful, having developed surprisingly rapidly. In less than a century it had funded a large number of immense cathdrals and churches. Where was the money coming from next? Roman coins had now been used up, the crusaders brought some silver coins from Palestine where they had more value than gold, but not much. There was no silver mine in operation in Europe. Those in Germany were not yet open, those in Russia as yet unknown. The small quantity of silver that the Templars were managing to mint was a "Secret of the Temple" and came from North America.
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