🔥 THE SMOKING QUILL | June 3, 2025

Misfiled: How the Philippines Was Erased, Then Found Again — As Zipangu

✍️ Blog Introduction:

They said Zipangu was Japan.
They said the islands of gold were a myth.
They said the map was lost.

They were wrong.

In 2018, map historians Chet Van Duzerand Lauren Beck made a startling announcement: two sheets from the 1525 edition of the Fries Atlas — long thought lost — had been found in a private European collection.

Misfiled.

And what was on one of those sheets?

Not just any islands.
Not just any map.

It was Zipangu.
It was Sabadibae.
It was Magellan's course.

It was… the Philippines.

[View the Map and Article by FREDERIK MULLER]

🗺️ The Map That Proves It All

The 1525 Fries map, based on Ptolemy's Geographiaand post-Magellan knowledge, places:

• Mangi (Southern China) at the northernmost edge

• Zipangu southeast of Mangi, right in the Philippines below the Tropic of Cancer on the same parallel with Cuba

• Porne (Borneo) and Giavi Maioris (Java Major) below it. Yes, we are aware their are scholars who claim the large island in the Philippines is Java Major but they are unable to read a map. It is not a position nor logical.

• Molucci (Moluccas) southeast of it. That's Indonesia. If an academic does not know what archipelago is north of Indonesia, please test them. That is Colonial bias, not a position.

• Other Philippine Isles in the archipelago with Zipangu such as Matan (Mactan alternative historic spelling), Sibet or Sibut (Cebu), Sabadibae (Cebu). We will vet what appears Innagana or similar in examining other Fries maps.

• And a reference to Magellan’s voyage just beneath it all.

Sinus Magnus was understood by Ptolemaic geography as a great eastern gulf — later understood to be the South China Sea. Japan is also not in the South China Sea and this map is not distorted in that sense. There are too many fixed points to claim such.

🏝 Northern Island:

There is an inscription on the giant island that must be Luzon by position between 10-30 N in that area. That is not debatable. However, rather than force such a labeling, let us peruse other Fries maps for his own interpretation.

Notable Text inside the island (enlarged):

“Solol ins. ciruitu mil. 3000”
Translation: “Solo Island circuit 3,000 miles.”

Luzon just so happens to be 3,000 miles of coastland. Wow!!!

Magellan Inscription:

The specific Latin annotation often reads similarly to:

“Insulae in quibus M. Magellanus peritum orbitam terrarum fecit.”
Translation: “Islands in which Magellan performed his expert circumnavigation of the world.”

This sets the time frame in the Age of Exploration with updated data reflected.

How can we interpret this as Zipangu? We don't...

Fries does himself in other maps as well. 

In another chart in which Fries curated around 1520 (prior), his mindset for this area is clearly Zipangu. 

Large Island in the position of Luzon below the Tropic of Cancer labeled "Zipargi".

Zipangu (or Cipangu) is labeled with:

“Insula subdita Luzo”
This translates as: “Island subject to Luzon”, or more precisely, “Island subordinated to Luzon”.

Anyone claiming that island is Japan, is challenged to read basic map coordinates as it is between 10-30 N of the equator. That is the same position as the previous 1525 Map with an island subjct to Luzon nearby clearly still in the Philippines.

Nordenskiöld, Adolf Erik. Facsimile-Atlas to the Early History of Cartography (1889). Plate 38.

Double Affirmation: 

We do not have to rely on just one map, but a second witness exists within the paradigm of Fries from maps he created. In 1535:

Zipagri is placed between 10-30 N again. That is Luzon, and never Japan. This is a mega island and in Japan, that does not begin until 32 and never dips below the Tropic of Cancer where this island exists. This is not remotely a distortion as the resources mentioned by Marco Polo are not mostly native to Japan while 100% are endemic to the Philippines. This is not a debate. There is a side of propaganda and those like us and even some Ryukyuan and Japanese scholars who notice this failure. 

Tabula Superioris Indiae et Tartariae Majoris. 1535. Lorenz Fries and Martin Waldseemüller.

In other words:

The map matches exactly where Magellan went — the Philippines —

and calls it Zipangu. Yes, Magellan went to Zipangu, Philippines.

This wasn’t a Japanese rebrand.
This was truth, recorded before the rewrite.

🔁 What Happened Next?

Like other names — Lequios, Ophir, Chryse, Sabadibae — Zipangu was moved.
Jesuit mapmakers and colonial powers gradually reassigned it north, placing it over Japan where the ancient gold never was. A location which fails the resource test, and not was not the source. In fact, in a letter to the King of Riben (Not Zipangu), the actual name of Japan that leads to the local name of Nippon, the Grand Khan spelled this out as he did not call Nippon Zipangu of Marco Polo because it was not.

And the Fries map that proved otherwise?

“Lost.”
Misfiled.
Hidden away — until 2018.

🧠 What This Proves

1. Magellan went to Zipangu — and it was the Philippines

2. Fries' post-Magellan map confirms Zipangu = Luzon

3. Jesuits and colonial editors later moved the name to Japan

4. The map was literally misfiled for centuries, removing key evidence from public discourse. However, 600 years of maps are ignored in such a view anyway.

5. The modern rediscovery reconnects the Philippines to its true historic identity

🖋️ Smoking Quill Final Word:

The Philippines wasn’t forgotten.
It was filed under “Elsewhere.”
Under “Japan.”
Under “Myth.”
And now... it’s been filed back.

We’ve found the file.
We’ve found the map.
And we’re filing charges — against 500 years of erasure.

The French Fries Revolution Has Begun...