14 DAY TRIAL // Specialists writing in a recent issue of the journal The Portolan, a publication of the Washington Map Society, argue that a map carved on two halves of ostrich eggshells fused together might just be the oldest depiction of the New World.
Sources say that this ostrich egg globe is believed to date back to the very early 1500s.
What's more, the globe appears to be older than the copper Hunt-Lenox Globe, which many consider to be the oldest globe showing the New World.
Specialists suspect that, rather than being created after it, the ostrich egg globe actually served as a model for the Hunt-Lenox globe.
Since claims that the ostrich egg globe predates the Lenox globe are mainly based on tests showing that the shells used to make it are fairly old, several researchers were quick to argue against this theory.
They said that, just because the eggshells are hundreds of years old, this does not necessarily mean that the map it shows was also created in the very early 1500s.
The ostrich egg globe is believed to have been engraved in Florence, Italy.