Statue of Corvo

The statue was made of stone and was destroyed in the late 15th or early 16th century, as a result of a failed attempt to transport it to Portugal.

[4] The chronicle relates that King Manuel I sent the draftsman Duarte de Armas to make a sketch of the statue, which has not survived to the present day.

[2] Pêro da Fonseca, a sea captain who was in the islands in 1529, wrote that locals had informed him that an attempt had been made to take an impression of the letters beneath the statue.

[2] Azorean priest Gaspar Frutuoso also mentioned the statue in his Saudades da Terra, repeating de Góis's story without the details of the attempt to copy the inscription.

[6] They state this figure is intended to show the limits beyond which navigation was impossible, but that this depiction gave rise to the idea that there was a statue on Corvo.

[7] Gavin Menzies, in his work of pseudohistory 1421: The Year China Discovered the World, claimed the statue was of Chinese origin, possibly depicting Zhu Di, the "emperor on horseback".