398 voyages of discovery images, and shrines, combining both Roman Catholic and indigenous beliefs, included the Virgin of Zapopán (c 1531), the Virgin of San Juan de los Lagos (c 1542), the Virgin of Talpa (c 1590), the Lord of the Conquest (or Lord of Miracles, c 1585), the Lord of Villaseca (or the Black Christ, late 1500s), and Our Lady of Atocha and the Christ Child of Atocha (1700s), among many others Understanding the proliferation of popular sacred icons and shrines in postconquest New Spain requires understanding the pantheon of pre-Columbian gods worshiped by Mexico’s indigenous peoples; the Roman Catholic tradition of venerating saints, relics, and icons representing various manifestations of God, Jesus, Mary, and the Holy Trinity, in particular the Virgin of Guadalupe of Extremadura (Spain), the patron saint of the conquistadores; and the social and cultural devastation generated by the conquest and its aftermath of forced labor, compulsory religious conversion, and epidemic diseases, which together created a social environment ripe for the emergence of apocalyptic and messianic beliefs and doctrines Tenacious in their retention of their ancient religious beliefs and practices, which included magic, sorcery, and divine intervention in every aspect of human affairs (commonly denigrated as superstition by Spanish religious authorities), the indigenous peoples of the Basin of Mexico and beyond responded to the destruction of the conquest by reinterpreting their ancient beliefs in the light of the newly imposed religious doctrines of the conquerors The Virgin of Guadalupe represented one such syncretic spiritual creation According to the French historian Jacques Lafaye, in an interpretation that has come to be broadly accepted within the scholarly community, the cult of the dark-skinned Virgin of Tepeyac (Guadalupe) emerged over decades as the synthesis of Indian folk beliefs and learned Spanish-creole writings, the most important of the latter including a book published in 1648 by the creole Miguel Sánchez, and the poems and plays of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz According to Lafaye, to the Indians she represented a transmutation of the Aztec goddess Tonantzín, whose traditional dwelling place was also the hill of Tepeyac Whatever the precise combination of spiritual impulses that together forged the cult of the Virgin of Guadalupe, by the early 1700s the cult was in full flower, her image associated not only with miracles but with a burgeoning sense of national identity among Mexico’s creoles Among the most arresting examples of this fusion can be seen in the campaigns of the hero of Mexican independence Miguel Hidalgo in 1810, whose ragtag army adopted as its emblem a banner bearing the Virgin’s image Transmuted over centuries from an indigenous god into a syncretic Christian cult, the Virgin of Guadalupe remains to this day one of the most distinctive and important symbols of the Mexican nation See also epidemics in the Americas Further reading: Durand, Jorge, and Douglas S Massey Miracles on the Border: Retablos of Mexican Migrants to the United States Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995; Lafaye, Jacques Quetzalcóatl and Guadalupe: The Formation of Mexican National Consciousness, 1531–1813 Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976 Michael J Schroeder voyages of discovery Since ancient times, mariners have traveled large distances, usually in search of opportunities for trade or military expansion The Phoenicians are believed to have sailed from modern-day Lebanon to England for tin, and accounts by the Romans and later the Vikings show the great skills in seamanship The adventurer Thor Heyerdahl showed that it was possible to sail in relatively simple vessels across the Pacific in his epic voyage in the raft Kon-Tiki A later expedition on the Tigris grew from a stone carving of Queen Hatshepsut, who commissioned the first visual record of a voyage of discovery in 1493 b.c.e However the voyages of discovery from the 15th century were a concerted effort by European powers to map as much of the world as possible, as well as expand trade, make Christian converts, and carve out an empire Although the most well documented, the European voyages were not the first with some of these objects in mind In 1421, the great Chinese admiral Zheng He headed one of the largest fleets ever when he set out from China to travel around Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean There is also the possibility that some of his ships reached New Zealand and even the American continent When he returned owing to palace machinations Zheng He was never able to repeat his voyage, and China entered a period of self-isolation, never again sending a large fleet to sea Curiously this change in Chinese policy coincided with a move by European countries to begin journeys of exploration The Portuguese were the first to take up this challenge Under Henry the Navigator (1394–1460), following the Portuguese capture of the Moroccan city