Marco Polo's will helps prove he actually made it to China

Marco Polo.
(Image credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

After 700 years of rumors, it turns out Marco Polo probably wasn't lost after all.

A new study of the explorer's will corroborates the idea that he did in fact make it to China, per Reuters.

Polo's will hadn't been studied in 150 years, and its messy cursive led to confusion. Some historians thought Polo only made it to the Black Sea and heard about China there, but items and requests in his will suggest otherwise.

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Polo listed that his servant, a Tartar person from Mongolia, be set free when he died. And an inventory of what Polo left behind after his death included expensive musk, an item from the Far East. He left it all to the church, his wife, and his daughters — something unusual for the time, as most men gave their possessions to male relatives. Read more about the discovery at Reuters.

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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.