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The maps have been, They are being and will bea key piece in the history of mankind. The cartographers carry thousands of years profileing the land From our planet, a silhouette that has gone changing over the centuries and with Europe and Asia as the undisputed protagonists in cartography. However, from the 16th century, the obsession changed to the west: now we wanted to map America. 500 years before, Nordic explorers have already stepped on the American continent, reaching the coasts of what is now Canada and part of the United States and shaking your vision on a map. This Viking document perfectly reflects that ‘perfection’ of the European silhouette and the sketch, or La Mancha, which was the American continent. And, among all the incipient maps of America, the most intriguing may be that of Piri Reis. The reason is that It is very precise for its time And the author said he was based on lost maps, supposedly, drawn by Christopher Columbus. The mysterious Piri Reis map In the Era of the discoveriesExplorers such as Columbus, Magallanes or Vasco da Gama found their best ally on the maps. They helped cross the oceans, but as they did, they were capturing their vision of the ‘New World’ in maps to help in the planning of future expeditions. The map of Juan de la Costa of 1500 is considered the first that includes a representation of America. It has important accurate, but it is the only one made by a witness of the first two trips of Columbus and the terrestrial profile, unequivocally and despite errors, it is America. A few years later, in 1507, the Enigmatic map of Waldseemüllerin which the name “America” ​​was used for the first time. Again, there were errors in the profile of the Eastern coast of South America, but these two explorers were not the only ones who mapped the continent at this time. In 1513, the Ottoman Piri Reis not only mapped the same territory, but did it with a past accuracy and detailing territories that should not be there (because they had not been discovered). In this mapwe find the following: The east coast of South America to Argentine Patagonia. The Falkland Islands. Antarctica Here are several details that surprise and invite you to lift an eyebrow. Piri Reis was a admiral and cartographer who, from a young age, participated in several battles in the Mediterranean, cartographing the territory and its islands. However, in 1501, only nine years after the discovery of America, his uncle and captain Kemal Reis of the Ottoman fleet captured several Spanish ships near the Spanish coast. Questioning the crew and looting the ships, discovered that one of them had been in the New World during Columbus’s journey and had a map drawn by himself that represented the American profile. As he was not a cartographer, he took it to Piri to study it. Thus, the cartographer got to work and, having as a source That Map of Columbusother Portuguese maps and several cards, began in 1511 to design its map. He did it on gazelle skin and surprises that Piri, really, did not travel to the New World, but that he drew everything based on the sources that had gone to an expedition. As well as knowledge of Ptolemaic Mapamundis. The most controversial of the matter? To start, the Falklands. As many times throughout our history, the discovery of the islands has several boyfriends. Numerous maps after 1520 suggest that the Falklands were first sighted by Magallanes, but Portugal also wants merit and attributes it to Américo Vespucio’s trip of 1504. In the map of Waldseemüller the islands are already intuited, but it is in the Piri Reis that are represented in a much more faithful way to reality. Identified as ‘Il de Sare’, the islands have compared with the Malvinas, located east of the Magallanes Strait. The Horn of Argentina is more stretched than it should, also the Caribbean, but surprises how well represented the entire eastern area of ​​the continent is. Creatures … strange On the other hand, and the strangest thing is Antarctica. The first thing is that it is represented without ice, something impossible, since it has been covered by that white mantle. The second is that, officially, it was discovered in 1820. Apart from this, the cartographer made some descriptions of some of the areas and represented both animals and mythological creatures, something normal at the time. Chiripa and controversy For years, Piri Reis’s map was in the shadow. However, in 1929, a group of scholars had the commission of organizing the archives of the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. The idea was to turn the palace into a museum, so you had to clean the basements and classify everything found. On a wall of the Ottoman Empire section, hidden and forgotten, the director of the national museums, Halid Edhem, found the map. Due to the mentions of Fuentes such as Cristóbal Columbus as it represented unknown details for the Ottomans of the early 16th century, the map was studied almost from the first moment. It is a Turkish national pride since 1933, but there is a problem: although it has extremely well represented areas, others, such as Stretched Caribbean Islands or the Union of Argentina with Antarcticaadded to the intrigue to know how an Ottoman who did not travel to a new world that, when the map was made, was in an extremely early phase of exploration, have raised controversy over the years. The most accepted theory about the map profile. There are those who say that Argentina’s horn is an error of the maps of the time, but also that having run out of space to draw would have motivated that elongated form Theories have been generated on the existence of ancient civilizations with advanced cartography abilities -controlled and without foundation. This may be because, although Piri cited reliable sources, he also referred to the “former kings of the sea.” … Read more