In the past, the Dutch were always credited for being the first Europeans to land on Australian shores, when they arrived at the land down under in 1606.

However, a Portuguese prayer book, which is dated between 1580 and 1620, is believed to provide evidence that the Dutch were in fact not the first Europeans on Australian soil.

The prayer book, which was owned by a Portuguese nun named Caterina de Carvalho, seems to depict a Kangaroo in one corner, and an indigenous Australian man in another.

Whether that can be counted as sufficient proof to completely alter the course of history as we know it – we’re not so sure.

A New York gallery, Les Enluminures, has acquired the book, which has been valued at about R150,000. Laura Light, a researcher for Les Enluminures, said:

Surely the fact that this drawing is found in such an unlikely context – a prayer book owned by a Portuguese nun at the end of the sixteenth or early seventeenth centuries – tells us something of interest about the level of contact between these two cultures.

The Portuguese were always coy about their naval routes. As a result, there has been speculation for years that they beat the Dutch to it.

The National Library of Australia’s curator of maps, Martin Woods, said he doubted the sketch was of a kangaroo and it could possibly be a possum or even a deer.

There’s no tail showing which would be the, excuse the language, the major telltale. If you were drawing a kangaroo the first thing you would draw is the tail. It’s drawn inside a D so the tail could be obscured but you could make it wrap around the letter.

[Source : The Guardian]