Piri Reis map

The Piri Reis map is a world map compiled in 1513 by the Ottoman admiral and cartographer Piri Reis. Approximately one third of the map survives, housed in the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul. After the empire's 1517 conquest of Egypt, Piri Reis presented the 1513 world map to Ottoman Sultan Selim 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 by Christopher Columbus. The map is a portolan chart with compass roses and a windrose network for navigation, rather than lines of longitude and latitude. It contains extensive notes primarily in Ottoman 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 the Caribbean to a now-lost map from Columbus that merged Cuba into the Asian mainland and Hispaniola with Marco 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 of Terra Australis. The map is visually distinct from European portolan charts, influenced by the Islamic miniature tradition. It was unusual in the Islamic cartographic tradition for incorporating many non-Muslim sources. Historian Karen Pinto has described the positive portrayal of legendary 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 the Old World. 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. Many areas on the map have not been conclusively identified with real or mythical places. 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-day Cananéia. A disproven 20th-century hypothesis identified the southern landmass with an ice-free Antarctic coast.

History

Much of Piri Reis's biography is known only from his cartographic works, including his two world maps and the Kitab-ı Bahriye (Book of the Sea) completed in 1521. He sailed with his uncle Kemal Reis as a Barbary pirate until Kemal Reis received an official position in the Ottoman Navy in 1495. In one naval battle, Piri Reis and his uncle captured a Spaniard who had participated in Columbus's voyages, and who likely possessed an early map of the Americas that Piri Reis would use as a source. When his uncle died, Piri Reis temporarily returned to Gallipoli and began composing his first world map in 1511. The finished manuscript was dated to the month of Muharram in the Islamic year 919 AH, equivalent to 1513 AD. Piri Reis returned to the navy and played a role in the 1517 conquest of Egypt. After the Ottoman victory, Piri Reis presented the 1513 world map to Ottoman Sultan Selim 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. Scholars unearthed a fragment of the map in late 1929. During the conversion of the Topkapı Palace into a museum, the Director of National Museums Dr. Halil Edhem Eldem invited German theologian Gustav Adolf Deissmann to tour its library. Deissmann persuaded the Rockefeller Foundation to fund a project to preserve ancient manuscripts from the palace library. Halil Edhem gave Deissmann unprecedented access to the library's collection of non-Islamic items. Deissmann confirmed the collection to have been the vast private library of Mehmed 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. They showed the parchment to orientalist Paul E. Kahle, who identified it as a creation of Piri Reis citing a source map from Colombus's voyages to the Americas. Kahle, and later scholars analyzing the map, found evidence for an early origin in the voyages of Columbus. The discovery of a surviving piece of an otherwise lost map of Christopher Columbus received international media attention. Turkey's first president, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, took an interest in the map and initiated projects to publish facsimiles and conduct research.

Description

Kept in the Topkapı Palace Museum, the map is the remaining western third of a world map drawn on gazelle-skin parchment approximately 87 cm × 63 cm. The surviving portion shows the Atlantic Ocean with the coasts of Europe, Africa, and South America. The map is a portolan chart with compass roses from which lines of bearing radiate. Designed for navigation by dead reckoning, portolan charts use a windrose network rather than a longitude and latitude grid. There are extensive notes within the map. Written with the Arabic alphabet, the inscriptions are in Ottoman Turkish except for the colophon. 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.

Places The remaining third of the map focuses on the Atlantic and the Americas. In the top left corner, the Caribbean is arranged unlike modern or contemporary maps. The large island oriented vertically is labeled Hispaniola, and the western coast includes elements of Cuba and Central America. Inscriptions on South America and the Southern Continent cite recent Portuguese voyages. The distance between Brazil and Africa is roughly correct, and the Atlantic islands are drawn consistent with European portolan charts. Many places on the map have been identified as phantom islands or have not been identified conclusively. İle Verde (Green Island) north of Hispaniola could refer to many islands. The large island in the Atlantic, İzle de Vaka (Ox island), corresponds to no known real or fictional island. Both an Atlantic island and the mainland of the Americas are referred to as the legendary Antilia.

Sources According to the map's legend, it was based on:

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.