The Piri Reis Map of 1513

Introduction

Introduction The Piri Reis map of 1513 is one of the most beautiful, most interesting, and most mysterious maps to have survived from the Great Age of Discoveries. Yetit is one of the least understood maps of this momentous and remarkable period in the history of cartography and geographical explorations. Many diverse claims have been made regarding this map: that it includes a copy of a map made in 1498by Christopher Columbus, that it is the oldest map of the Americas, and that it is the most accurate map made in the sixteenth century. Some have argued that it shows evidence of the ability of the mapmaker to measure and perform spherical trigonometry calculations centuries ahead of its time, that it provides evidence of a worldwide seafaring civilization i existing tens of thousands of years ago, and that it proves Earth was visited by aliens from other planets. These issues and others will be examined in this book. A detailed examination of the delineations, place-names, inscriptions, and layout of the map will be made. I hope that this analysis will answer some of the questions surrounding this fascinating cartographic artifact and indicate possible directions of more exhaustive future studies. Although some of the cartographic depictions on the map may appear unusual to the modern eye, these depictions are wholly within the general body of cartographical and geographical knowledge of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance. It will also be shown that the Piri Reis map of 1513 may be one of the most important maps of the time to have survived because it probably does contain a copy of a map made by Columbus, or under his supervision, not in 1498, as previously supposed, but two or three years earlier. In relating the delineations and toponyms on the Piri Reis map to other maps of the time, a certain amount of uncertainty and hesitancy must enter into the discussion. Words such as probably, seems likely', apparently', and plausibly must be used because we have inexact and incomplete knowledge of the sources of information used by fifteenth-century and early sixteenth-century cartographers.1 This should not prevent us, however, from inferring likely sources, based on the facts we do have. Previous researchers of this map, such as Paul Kahle and Charles H. Hapgood , have matched almost every bay, promontory, coastal feature, and geographical element in the New World with an existing feature.2 These researchers may not have understood that it was common for cartographers in the sixteenth century to draw coastlines and geographical features on their maps according to what they thought should be the case, not necessarily according to any knowledge of the actual geography. Hence, sixteenth-century maps commonly contain geographical features that do not really exist. It can be, in many cases, an error to seek to equate each and every feature on a fifteenth- or sixteenth-century map with an equivalent real geographical feature. This mistaken premise of the researcher that each feature on an old map corresponds to a real feature is analogous to euhemerism, the theory that myths are based on traditional accounts of real people and events and that myth can be turned into history by deleting the supernaturalelements.Perhaps the best-known example of this tendency in map interpretation is William H. Babcock, who believed that all of the legendary islands depicted in the North Atlantic Ocean on medieval and early Renaissance maps were distorted images of the lands and islands of the Western Hemisphere discovered by preColumbian voyagers. Although it is true that some legendary lands have some 2 t THE PIRI REIS MAP OF 1513 historical basis (e.g., Vinland the Good, Taprobane, and Ophir), it is not necessarily true that all such lands do (e.g., Hyperborea, Valhallah, and Avalon). This inclination to excessively identify hypothetical coastal features with real geographical features will be noticed in some recent interpretations of the Piri Reis map.3 In discussing the details on the Piri Reis map, comparisons will be made to European portolan charts of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and maps of the early sixteenth century depicting portions of the newly discovered Americas.4 In so doing, the close relationship of the Piri Reis map with more typical maps of the period will be established. It is, of course, not to be supposed that the Turkish mapmaker Piri Reis had direct access to all of...