Piri Reis Map Piri Reis Map - First World Map
Considered to be one of the most beautiful, most interesting, most mysterious maps to have survived from the Great Age of Discoveries, it is also one of the least understood maps in the history of explorations.
The Piri Reis Map was discovered in 1929 by Bay Halil Etham, director general of the Topkapki Serai in Istanbul, Â while the palace was being converted to a museum of antiquities. The map itself is actually only one-third of a larger world map, the rest having being lost.
Introduction
The map shows the western coast of Africa, the eastern coast of South America, and the northern coast of Antarctica. The northern coastline of Antarctica is shown in perfect detail. Many different claims have been made about this map, that it is the oldest map of the Americas, that it includes a copy of a map made by Christopher Columbus in 1498, and that it the most accurate map made in the sixteenth century. Others argue that it shows evidence of the mapmaker’s skill and ability to measure and perform spherical trigonometry calculations centuries ahead of its time and that it shows proof of a worldwide seafaring civilization existing tens of thousands of years ago.
The map was made by the famous Ottoman admiral known as Piri Reis. He was born Muhiddin Piri, probably in Gallipoli, about 1465-70. At the young age of twelve, he joined the crew of his uncle, an admiral in the Ottoman navy, and served under his tutelage for fourteen years. Six of those years were spent along the coasts of North America, Italy, Spain, and the islands of the western Mediterranean. Piri engaged in many sea battles under his uncle and eventually captained his own ship during the war with Venice.
After the death of his uncle in 1530, Piri returned to Gallipoli and it is there that he constructed the first of his two world maps. Four years later, he returned once again to the sea for battle. Throughout his naval career, Piri Reis collected charts, made notes of the places he sailed to, and made sketches of the coastlines and islands he visited. In 1528, he made his second world map.
In 1554, when he was in his late eighties, he fell victim to the schemes of the Ottoman court. After his defeat in a sea battle with the Portuguese, it was reported to the sultan by officials in Egypt that Piri Reis had ran from the battle in order to save himself and his great treasure that he had accumulated during his many decades of pirating with his uncle and service in the Turkish navy. The sultan ordered him to be beheaded because he ran away from the battle with the Portuguese, and his treasures were taken to the Topkapki Serai Palace in Istanbul.
The Controversy
What is baffling is not so much how Piri Reis managed to draw such an accurate map of the Antarctic region 300 years before it was discovered – but that the map depicts the coastline under ice! Evidence confirms that the latest date Queen Maud Land could have been charted in an ice-free state is 4000 BC.
Officially, science has been saying that the Antarctic has been covered by ice for at least a million years however, the Piri Reis map shows the northern part of that continent has been mapped before it was covered by ice. That would lead us to believe that it was mapped a million years ago. But that’s impossible since mankind did not yet exist at that time. Research has showed that Antarctica ended its ice free condition about 6000 years ago. Therefore, the question is: Who mapped the Queen Maud Land of Antarctica 6000 years ago? And what civilization had the means or the reason to do so?
Unusual Findings
There are many things that fasinate people about the Piri Reis map. It really makes you wonder just how much more has happened thousands of years ago that we have no knowledge of? Was there a civilization far more intelligent than we could ever imagine? If so, what happened to them? Do we face the same kind of fate? Listed below are some of the things that people have noticed about the Piri Reis Map of 1513:
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The maker of the map knew the accurate circumference of the Earth, within 50 miles.
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The coastline and island that are shown in Antartica must have been navigated before its ice-free period – prior to 4000 B.C.
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The map shows the Earth as seen from space.
REFERENCES:
“The Piri Reis Map” by Gregory C. MacIntosh
www.world-mysteries.com
“The Mysteries of the Piri Reis Map” by Diego Cuoghi
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