Message #19990

[Bianca]

                                                  S O U T H   A M E R I C A



The delineation of the coast of Brazil on the Piri Reis map is much more accurate than that of the Caribbean. The relationship and distance between South America and the west African coast, for example, is much more correct than on most European maps of the time - and the place names along the coast, clearly transliterated from Italian and Spanish names, are taken from accounts of the voyages of Amerigo Vespucci and others.


The most striking topographical detail, and the one that has caused the most discussion, is the chain of mountains running through South America - the mountains which Hapgood identified as the Andes. The rivers which issue from their base are obviously meant to be the Amazon, the Orinoco and the Rio Plata, and the animal with two horns standing on the mountains is Hapgood's "llama". Interestingly, though, the Piri Reis map is not the only early map -

                                                         
                                                                 NICOLO DE CANERIO MAP

 nor the first - to show mountains in the interior of South America. The Nicolo de Canerio map, now in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, and the Waldseemuller chart both show the east coast of South America, though
schematically drawn, and a chain of mountains adorned with trees. The de Canerio map was drawn between 1502 and 1504 - long before the eastern coast of South America had been explored. As there is a striking similarity between this map and the Piri Reis map, it is therefore possible that one of Piri Reis'source maps was based on that of de Canerio rather than on one produced by an ancient civilization. Other maps showing the east coast of South


MARTIN WALDSEEMULLER MAP

America may also have been available in some form to Piri Reis -such as the maps of Martin Waldseemuller (1507), Glareanus (1510) and Johannes de Stobnicza (1512). All of these are related to each other and, almost without question, ultimately derive from a de Canerio-derived map.

                       
                         JOHANNES DE STOBNICZA MAP
The map by Johannes de Stobnicza, in particular, could - have been available to Piri Reis, for it was printed in Cracow, Poland, in an edition of Ptolemy, in 1512, the year before the Piri Reis map was drawn. Thus it could have been one of the maps "drawn in the time of Alexander the Great" which Piri Reis refers to—especially considering the confusion that existed between the two Ptolemies.