Finnish researchers were poring through a Vatican-owned manuscript written by Emperor Frederick II in the 1240s when they discovered an illustration of the Australasian cockatoo. The presence of such an exotic bird in a European work has caused experts to rethink what they knew of medieval maritime trade routes.It has long been surmised that we really don't know much about early trade routes. An increasing amount of evidence indicates that the cultures of the ancient world knew a lot more about one another than we've previously suspected.
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