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| Shipping, Exploring and Mapmaking in the Latest Pleistocene |
East Asian Shorelines on the Piri Reis map of AH 919 (AD 1513)
(Article suggested by Mus Mulyadi)
Copyright © 2004, Jean-Pierre Lacroix (Liège, Belgium) and Robert Bywater, (Melbourne, Australia), Ancient Cartography.
Robert Bywater :
rab1@ancientcartography.net
Jean-Pierre Lacroix :
ABSTRACT
The western part of the AH 919 (AD 1513) map is considered by most authors to depict the region of the Caribbean. However, Columbus believed he had been to Asia and Piri Reis wrote that the names in the western area of his AH 919 (AD 1513) map were obtained from Columbus. We considered it was necessary to re-investigate the shorelines depicted in this part of the map. We have used computer superposition to re-investigate the shorelines depicted in the western area of the map. The results suggest that the map depicts shorelines of East and Southeast Asia from the east side of the Kamchatka Peninsula in the north, to northwest Borneo in the south. Interesting results include that the Territory of Antilia is eastern China opposite Taiwan, and Island Antilia is Taiwan but showing bays of Puerto Rico; the authors suggest that the large western island is an erroneous depiction of southern Japan. Based on the superpositions and other supporting geological information, the authors suggest that the western source map used by Piri Reis (whether of Turkish origin or from Columbus) depicted shorelines which were charted prior to the Islamic and Christian eras. INTRODUCTION
The Piri Reis AH 919 (AD 1513) map fragment (41, 51) was found during renovations of the Topkapi Palace Museum in 1929 (16, 20, 21, 28, 35, 44). The western region is thought to represent the Caribbean (16, 21, 28, 44). Hapgood (16) using a separate Grid "B" for this area identified the western continent as Central America in the vicinity of the Yucatan Peninsula and the coasts further south were suggested to be those of both Central and South America even though some locations were identified twice. The large western island he identified as Cuba.
The identifications made by others (21, 28, 44) are usually based upon inscriptions written by Piri Reis and attributed by him to Qulumbu(Columbus). These suggest that the northwestern coasts are the shorelines of Cuba (in continuity with the coasts of Panama further south) and the large western island is Hispaniola (20, 21, 28, 35, 44, 45). Columbus however believed he had been to Asia (21, 28, 37). In this paper we investigate Asia as a possible origin for the mainland depicted in the western area of the map. The results presented in this paper are essentially similar to those we have reported elsewhere (5).
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The map at the top is my own interpretation. I think it is highly important that we have a detailed map of Sundaland and East Asia from this period, and the book Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings already supposes some of the other maps are indicating a Pleistocene Sundaland above water (Other maps show a postPleisocene Indonesia) The original would have been a Portolan or "Ports of Call" map and the area from Borneo to Japan heavily travelled by merchant ships. We know that something similar was going on in South India at the same time from other sources. At the same time, I would not doubt that the Admiral had access to older maps of the Caribbean and South America which he also compiled with the East Asian maps, following on Columbus' maps and observations. And the three marks near "Antilla" I take to be a reference to maps of three original islands which were combined to make the map on the chart: It is already known that there is a confusion between Atlantis and Antillia, and Cipangu (Japan) on different charts. Here I suggest that part of the problem is a mistaken combination of Antillia and Antipodes. It is also noteworthy that while Atlantis was a free island surrounded by the sea, the reconstruction used by Lacroix and Bywater calls both Taiwan and Japan peninsulas still attached to the mainland. Certainly there is a general confusion and an oversimplification going on at the time Piri Reis was compiling the old maps. He did do a quite remarkable job of preserving irreplaceable documents. And the missing sections of he map were very likely the same as the Old World mapof Ptolemy, because Pri Re'is mentioned him as a source also.
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| World Map of Ptolemy, ca 100 AD. From Wikipedia. |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy's_world_map