ThePiri Reis map is aworld map compiled in 1513 by theOttoman admiral and cartographerPiri Reis. Approximately one third of the map survives, housed in theTopkapı Palace inIstanbul. After the empire's1517 conquest ofEgypt, Piri Reis presented the 1513 world map to Ottoman SultanSelim I (r. 1512–1520). It is unknown how Selim used the map, if at all, as it vanished from history until its rediscovery centuries later. When rediscovered in 1929, the remaining fragment garnered international attention as it includes a partial copy of an otherwise lost map byChristopher Columbus.
The map is aportolan chart withcompass roses and awindrose network for navigation, rather thanlines of longitude and latitude. It contains extensive notes primarily inOttoman Turkish. The depiction of South America is detailed and accurate for its time. The northwestern coast combines features of Central America and Cuba into a single body of land. Scholars attribute the peculiar arrangement of theCaribbean to a now-lost map from Columbus that merged Cuba into the Asian mainland andHispaniola withMarco Polo's description of Japan. This reflects Columbus's erroneous claim that he had found a route to Asia. The southern coast of the Atlantic Ocean is most likely a version ofTerra Australis.
The map is visually distinct from European portolan charts, influenced by theIslamic miniature tradition. It was unusual in the Islamic cartographic tradition for incorporating many non-Muslim sources. Historian Karen Pinto has described the positive portrayal oflegendary creatures from the edge of the known world in the Americas as breaking away from the medieval Islamic idea of an impassable "Encircling Ocean" surrounding theOld World.[1]
There are conflicting interpretations of the map. Scholarly debate exists over the specific sources used in the map's creation and the number of source maps.[2] Many areas on the map have not been conclusively identified with real ormythical places.[3] Some authors have noted visual similarities to parts of the Americas not officially discovered by 1513, but there is no textual or historical evidence that the map represents land south of present-dayCananéia.[4] A disproven 20th-century hypothesis identified the southern landmass with an ice-free Antarctic coast.[5]
Much of Piri Reis's biography is known only from his cartographic works, including his two world maps and theKitab-ı Bahriye (Book of Maritime Matters)[6] completed in 1521.[7] He sailed with his uncleKemal Reis[8] as aBarbary pirate until Kemal Reis received an official position in theOttoman Navy in 1495.[9] In one naval battle, Piri Reis and his uncle captured a Spaniard who had participated in Columbus's voyages,[10] and who likely possessed an early map of the Americas that Piri Reis would use as a source.[11][a] When his uncle died in 1511, Piri Reis temporarily retired toGallipoli and began composing his first world map.[12] The finished manuscript was dated to the month ofMuharram in theIslamic year 919 AH, equivalent to 1513 AD.[13] Piri Reis returned to the navy and played a role in the1517 conquest ofEgypt. After the Ottoman victory,[14] Piri Reis presented the 1513 world map to Ottoman SultanSelim I (r. 1512–1520).[b][15] It is unknown how Selim used the map, if at all, as it vanished from history until its rediscovery centuries later.[16]
Scholars unearthed a fragment of the map in late 1929.[17] During the conversion of theTopkapı Palace into a museum, the Director of National Museums Dr.Halil Edhem Eldem invited German theologianGustav Adolf Deissmann to tour its library.[18][19] Deissmann persuaded theRockefeller Foundation to fund a project to preserve ancient manuscripts from the palace library.[20] Halil Edhem gave Deissmann unprecedented access to the library's collection of non-Islamic items.[c] Deissmann confirmed the collection to have been the vast private library ofMehmed II (r. 1444–1481) and—based on Mehmed II's interest in geography—asked Halil Edhem to search for potentially overlooked maps. Halil Edhem found a disregarded bundle of material containing an unusual parchment map.[21] They showed the parchment to orientalistPaul E. Kahle, who identified it as a creation of Piri Reis citing a source map fromColombus's voyages to the Americas.[22] Kahle, and later scholars analyzing the map, found evidence for an early origin in the voyages of Columbus.[23] The discovery of a surviving piece of an otherwise lost map of Christopher Columbus received international media attention.[21] Turkey's first president,Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, took an interest in the map and initiatedprojects to publish facsimiles and conduct research.[24]
Kept in the Topkapı Palace Museum,[25] the map is the remaining western third of a world map drawn on gazelle-skin parchment approximately 87 cm × 63 cm.[e] The surviving portion shows the Atlantic Ocean with the coasts of Europe, Africa, and South America.[26] The map is aportolan chart withcompass roses from which lines of bearing radiate.[27] Designed for navigation bydead reckoning,[28] portolan charts use awindrose network rather than a longitude and latitude grid.[27] There are extensive notes within the map.[11] Written with theArabic alphabet, the inscriptions are inOttoman Turkish except for thecolophon.[29] The colophon is written in Arabic using a different handwriting from the other inscriptions. It was likely handwritten by Piri Reis, rather than assigned to a calligrapher.[30]
The remaining third of the map focuses on the Atlantic and the Americas.[31] In the top left corner, the Caribbean is arranged unlike modern or contemporary maps.[32] The large island oriented vertically is labeled Hispaniola, and the western coast includes elements of Cuba and Central America.[33][34] Inscriptions on South America and the Southern Continent cite recent Portuguese voyages.[35] The distance between Brazil and Africa is roughly correct,[36] and the Atlantic islands are drawn consistent with European portolan charts.[37]
Many places on the map have been identified asphantom islands or have not been identified conclusively.İle Verde (Green Island) north of Hispaniola could refer to many islands.[38][f] The large island in the Atlantic,İzle de Vaka (Ox island), corresponds to no known real or fictional island.[39] Both an Atlantic island and the mainland of the Americas are referred to as the legendaryAntilia.[40][g]
According to the map'slegend,[41] it was based on:
There is some scholarly debate over the various sources.[44] In the modern sense,mappae mundi refer to medieval Christian schematic maps of the world. In the fifteenth century, the term was also literally used to describeworld maps, and it is possible the source maps fit in that broader definition.[45] TheJaferiyes are seen by scholars as a corruption of the ArabicJughrafiya, most often taken to mean theGeographia of ClaudiusPtolemy.[46] Ptolemy's book was widely printed during the sixteenth century, accompanied by maps fromNicolaus Germanus andMaximus Planudes.[47] TheJaferiyes may also refer to the largely symbolic world maps of medieval Islamic cartography.[46] Descended from classical scholarship,[48] these treatises sometimes used theloanwordjughrafiya in their titles.[31] The Arabic and the four Portuguese source maps have not been conclusively identified but have been associated with several notable maps of the period. Finally, there is debate on the total number of source documents. Some scholars interpret the "20 charts and mappae mundi" in the inscriptions as including the other maps, and others interpret them to mean a total of 30 or 34.[49]
Compared to the Islamic cartography of the era, the map shows an atypical knowledge of foreign discoveries.[51] During theAge of Discovery, European voyages expanded the known world and disrupted the traditional conception of an "inhabited quarter" of the world comparable to the Greekecumene.[52] The attitudes towards the Age of Discovery within the Ottoman Empire ranged from passive indifference to the outright rejection of foreign influence.[53]
Piri Reis synthesizes traditional worldviews with discoveries by undermining their newness, using rhetorical strategies to reframe European discoveries as the rediscovery of ancient knowledge.[54] He invokesDhu al-Qarnayn—believed to be areference to Alexander the Great from the Quran—in his inscriptions regarding Columbus.[15] According to theQuran and Turkish literary tradition, Alexander traveled to every corner of the world, thereby defining its limits.[55] A marginal inscription describes world maps as "charts drawn in the days of Alexander".[41] Another inscription mentions that a "book fell into the hands" of Columbus describing lands "at the end of the Western Sea".[56] In the 1526 version of Piri Reis' atlas, theKitab-ı Bahriye, he explicitly credits European discoveries to lost works created during legendary voyages of Alexander.[h]
Compared to earlier portolan charts, the map shows gradual improvement.[29] Portuguese source maps would have been similar to surviving maps like the 1502Cantino Planisphere.[57] Compared to the planisphere and the earliermap of Juan de la Cosa (1500): the Atlantic Ocean is accurate, South America is highly detailed, and the Caribbean is strangely organized.[58][59] As a part of the expanding cartography of the sixteenth century, the map was soon surpassed.[60][61] Piri Reis's own 1528 map included a more detailed and accurate version of theNew World.[62] Despite recent claims of an anomalous level of accuracy,[i] Gregory McIntosh, in comparing it to several otherportolan-style maps of the era, found that:
The Piri Reis map is not the most accurate map of the sixteenth century, as has been claimed, there being many, many world maps produced in the remaining eighty-seven years of that century that far surpass it in accuracy. TheRibeiro maps of the 1520s and 1530s, theOrtelius map of 1570, and theWright-Molyneux map of 1599 ('the best map of the sixteenth century') are only a few better-known examples.[60]
Piri Reis's inclusion of many foreign accounts was atypical within theOttoman Empire.[63] After theconquest of Constantinople, SultanMehmed II began a project of creating copies of traditional Islamic maps in theBook of Roads and Kingdoms tradition.[k] Piri Reis adapted the elements of iconography from thetraditional maps—which illustrated well-known routes, cities, and peoples—to the portolan portrayals of newly discovered coasts.[64]
Piri Reis provides an unusual etymology of "Ocean" as coming from "Ovo Sano", or "sound egg".[65] The accepted etymology comes from the world-encircling river,Oceanus. Historian Svat Soucek has described the egg etymology as naive.[66] Historian Karen Pinto has proposed that the egg etymology is better understood in the context of traditional attitudes towards the deep seas in Islamic culture.[67] Typical medieval world maps followed a standardized and schematic design, with a disc-shaped "inhabited quarter" of the world separated fromMount Qaf by an impassable Encircling Ocean.[68] Pinto observed that Piri Reis had reconciled the discovery of new land beyond the sea with this existing model, by framing theOld World—ocean included—as a giant lake surrounded by the shores of the New World. TheOttoman miniatures that illuminate the map can be further interpreted in the context of new possibilities and the changing cultural landscape.[69]
The Western fringe of the map is populated by a variety of strange monsters from medievalmappaemundi and bestiaries.[70] Among the mountains in South America, aheadless man is depicted interacting with amonkey. The headless men, known as Blemmyes, were portrayed in medieval maps and books as threatening. In Islamic culture, monkeys were considered ill omens.[71][72] The caption states that despite the monsters' appearance, they "are harmless souls,"[73] which contrasts with previous depictions of both the headless men and the edge of the known world.[64] Pinto characterized the map's monsters as, "a distinct break with earlier, and in fact, co-terminus manuscript traditions, which enforce and reinforce the notion that the Encircling Ocean is full of scary beasts and therefore should not be crossed."[74] In addition to the Blemmye, several other creatures fromNatural History byPliny the Elder inhabit the Americas.[l] The dog-faced man shown dancing with a monkey is one of thecynocephaly; amonoceros andyale are shown on the South American coast; and abonnacon is shown on the Southern Continent.[75] Other creatures likely originate in Arabic and Persianbestiaries.[76] The multi-horned beast on the bottom edge of the map may represent the legendaryshadhavar, said to emit music as wind blows through its hollow horns.[77]
The Caribbean islands and the coastline in the Northwest corner of the map are widely believed to be based on a lost map drawn by Christopher Columbus, or under his supervision. The western coast on the map combines features of Central America and Cuba, reflecting Columbus's claim that Cuba was part of an Asian mainland.[78] During the 1494 exploration of Cuba, Columbus was so adamant that he had found Asia,[m] that he had a notary board each of his ships anchored off the coast. Columbus compelled his men to swear that Cuba was a part of Asia and agree to never contradict this interpretation "under a penalty of 10,000 maravedis and the cutting out of the tongue".[79][n] The mainland in the extreme northwest is labeled with place-names from Columbus's voyages along the coasts of Cuba. For example, a stretch of coast is labelledOrnofay, as recorded by Columbus but depicted on no other maps.[o]
Peculiar features of the Caribbean can be attributed to Columbus. Notably, a massiveHispaniola is oriented north to south.[80] Columbus traveled West with a chart fromPaolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli that—west of theCanary Islands—showed open ocean, mythicalAntilia, andCipangu (Marco Polo's Japan) between Europe and Asia.[81] The general position and shape of Hispaniola are similar to contemporary maps of Cipangu.[80] On 26 December 1492, the day after Columbus landed atLa Navidad on the northern coast of Hispaniola, he wrote in his diary of "Cipango, which [the native people] callCibao" on "the island ofEspañola".[82] The absence of the island's distinctiveGulf of Gonâve is more evidence of a Columbian origin because he did not explore Hispaniola's western shore.[83] According to Gregory McIntosh, the most clearly matching coastlines are around Cabo Falso inPedernales. The island near Cabo Falso is labelled with a Turkish translation ofAlto Velo Island, explored and named by Columbus on hissecond voyage in August 1494.[84] The peninsulas protruding from Puerto Rico are not present in reality but are also depicted on themap of Juan de la Cosa, who sailed with Columbus.[85]İle Bele near Puerto Rico is possiblyVieques, namedGratiosa, or Graceful, by Columbus.[86]
There is disagreement on how much of the map draws from Columbus. Kahle and most later scholars attributed everything north and west of the phantom island Antilia to this source.[87] Soucek expressed doubts about Kahle's claim,[88] which included some of the South American coast.[31] McIntosh found that Cuba, Central America, The Bahamas, and Hispaniola could be clearly attributed to an early map from Columbus,[35] but not theLesser Antilles, especially the Virgin Islands which are duplicated on the map.[89]
The Southern Continent stretching across the Atlantic Ocean is most likelyTerra Australis. Some authors have claimed that it depicts areas of South America not officially discovered in 1513, and a popular but disproven hypothesis alleges it to beAntarctica.[90] Maps of the period generally depicted this theoretical southern continent, in various configurations.[91] This land was posited by Roman geographerPtolemy as a counterbalance to the extensive land areas in the known world.[p]
As explorers charted the Southern Hemisphere, it pushed back the potential bounds of Terra Australis.[92] Discoveries, likeTierra del Fuego andNew Holland,[93] were initially mapped as the northern edge of the unknown southern land. As these areas were mapped,Terra Australis shrank, grew vague, and became a fantastical locale invoked in literature, notablyGulliver's Travels andGabriel de Foigny'sLa Terre Australe Connue.[94] Belief in the Southern Continent was abandoned after thesecond voyage of James Cook in the 1770s showed that if it existed, it was much smaller than imagined previously. The first confirmed landing on Antarctica was only during theFirst Russian Antarctic Expedition in 1820, and the coastline of Queen Maud Land did not see significant exploration before Norwegian expeditions began in 1891.[95]
The southernmost conclusively identified feature on the map is a stretch of Brazilian coastline includingCabo Frio (Kav Friyo on the map), possibly the earliest depiction ofRio de Janeiro, and likely the area aroundCananéia, labeledKatino on the map.[96] Information about this area is attributed to recent Portuguese voyages,[97] and the southernmost point depicted on contemporary Portuguese maps was Cananéia as described by Amerigo Vespucci, at 25 degrees south.[96] Beyond this point, the coast curves sharply east. Some modern writers have interpreted this coastline as the coast of South America, either drawn along the map's edge or distorted to push it East of the line of demarcation. Cartographic historianSvat Soucek noted that the parchment curves by South America, and that "it was not unusual for cartographers to adjust the orientation of a coastline to fit the surface available".[7] Italian art historian and graphic designer Diego Cuoghi said that "Piri Reis often mentions Portuguese maps in his notes, and of course Portuguese would have preferred the coast south of Brazil to bend sharply to the right".[91] This identification relies on perceived visual similarities between the map and modern maps of theRío de la Plata,San Matías Gulf,Valdés Peninsula, andStrait of Magellan's Atlantic opening.[98] Aside from the subjective comparisons, there is no historical evidence that Piri Reis could have known of these places and no textual evidence in the map.[29] In particular, the large snakes like those of theBoidae family mentioned on the map,[99] are not found that far south inPatagonia.[100]
The Antarctic claim originates with Captain Arlington H. Mallery,[101] a civil engineer and amateur archaeologist who was a supporter ofpre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact hypotheses. Mallery used a grid system to reposition the coordinates on the map and claimed the accuracy of these reconstructed maps to be comparable to modern maps.[102][q] Mallery's ideas were exposed to a wider audience when Georgetown University broadcast a discussion between Mallery, director of the Weston Observatory Daniel Lineham, and director of the Georgetown University Observatory Francis Heyden in 1956.[103][104] Inspired by Mallery, historianCharles Hapgood, in his 1966 bookMaps of the Ancient Sea Kings, proposed a theory of global exploration by a pre-classical undiscovered civilization based on his analysis ofRenaissance and late-medieval maps.[105] Hapgood's book was met with skepticism due to its lack of evidence and reliance onpolar shift.[106][r] Hapgood acknowledged that his theory disregarded the text and some of the placement of land masses on the map. For example, he designated an island to be one-half of Cuba—claiming it was "wrongly labeledEspaniola" or Hispaniola—and remarked that, "nothing could better illustrate how ignorant Piri Re'is was of his own map."[107]
Hapgood, and his graduate students who aided with the research, were influential in spreading the idea that the Piri Reis map shows Antarctica as it looked during theNeolithic, without glacial ice.[108] Two letters reproduced in Hapgood's book express optimism about this hypothesis based on the 1949 Norwegian-British-Swedish Seismic Survey ofQueen Maud Land.[s] According to geologist Paul Heinrich, this mistakenly conflates the topography of Antarctica below the ice with a hypothetical ice-free Antarctica. It does not take into accountpost-glacial rebound, where land rises after massive ice sheets melt away. Additionally, the 1949 survey could not measure even one percent of the area drawn in the Piri Reis map. Subsequent studies with access to more data have shown no significant similarities to Antarctica's coast beneath the ice or a projected Antarctic coastline without ice.[109]
Hapgood mistakenly believed that Antarctica had been free of ice in 17,000 BC and partially ice-free as late as 4,000 BC.[110] This erroneous date range could have put the mapping of Antarctica contemporary with many known prehistoric societies. More recent ice core data shows that Antarctica was last free of ice over ten million years ago.[111] Writers likeErich von Daniken,[112]Donald Keyhoe,[108] andGraham Hancock[113] have uncritically repeated Hapgood's claims as proof ofancient astronauts,flying saucers, and a lost civilization comparable toAtlantis, respectively.[5]
In arguing that there was no known way of establishing longitude in Columbus's day and until the mid-eighteenth century (p. 41-2) he overlooks the sailor's skill in estimating longitude by dead-reckoning.;
The gnawing weakness of Hapgood's thesis is the absence of credible supporting evidence. His use of history, archeology, linguistics, and mythology has the character of improvisation. The geological evidence seems inconclusive. That leaves the maps, and he has convinced me of their antiquity only, not of their origin in the last ice age.;
Not only does his thesis involve the gratuitous invention of a late-Pleistocene civilization, but he is forced to invoke catastrophic earth movements in a manner which can only provoke geological amazement and laughter..
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Fringe theories:
