A view of the New World on the ostrich egg globe. (Used with permission of The Portolan, copyright Washington Map Society)

A map etched into the surface of a grapefruit-sized ostrich egg from the early 1500s might be the oldest known globe to show the New World, according to experts.

The globe, which was purchased by an anonymous collector at the London map fair in 2012, might have been the model for what was until now thought to be the oldest map showing the Americas, says an article in The Portolan. The previous record holder is the Hunt-Lenox Globe, made of copper and dated to about 1510. The Hunt-Lenox Globe is currently housed by the New York Public Library. The etchings on both globes are almost identical, including the typos -- "libia interoir" instead of "libia interior" and "hispanis" instead of "hispania," reported Discover Magazine.

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Belgian map collector and expert Stefaan Missinne studied the egg globe for a year and relied on the help of a radiologist to determine the age of the globe, says National Geographic. The globe, which is composed of the bottoms of two ostrich eggs fused together, showed a significant loss of calcium bone density. Missinne also concluded in his article for The Portolan that the dark etchings were made from iron gall ink.

Missinnespeculated that the globe could be connected to Leonardo da Vinci's workshop, since a ship engraved on the Indian Ocean of the map is similar to an etching done by an artist who knew Da Vinci. Missinne notes, however, that there was no reference to new discoveries in Asia and the Americas in Da Vinci's writing. Other scholars have scoffed at the tenuous connection to the famous Renaissance artist and engineer, says the Washington Post.

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