Admiral Piri Reis
Before returning to the mystery of Oak Island again, I thought it appropriate to take a look at the person and works of the medieval Turkish Admiral Piri Reis since, as you will see in the session transcribed below, he seems to have had some possible indirect connection with the Rosicrucians and therefore to the enclave of alchemists in the Pyrenees.
Session 31 October 1998
A: Have you overlooked North America? Check Atlas indices for names to pique interest.
Q: What names?
A: Oh now, we cannot tell you that!
Q: The reason I have been focusing on Europe is because you said that this thing we were supposed to find was in the Rhineland...
A: But there are always connections, both hither and yon. Tricky those Rosicrucians, tricky. And what of Piri Reis?
Q: Well, I was already lost in a sea of puzzle pieces. Nothing like making it harder!
A: Or easier. Template... Templar... Temporary. Temperature... prime numbers, prime rib... Primary.
Quoting from Piri Reis’ biography on Wikpedia:
Ahmed Muhiddin Piri (c. 1465 – 1553), better known as
Piri Reis (Turkish:
Pîrî Reis or
Hacı Ahmet Muhittin Pîrî Bey), was an Ottoman admiral, navigator, geographer and cartographer. He was born either in
Gelibolu (Gallipoli) on the European part of the Ottoman Empire (in present-day Turkish Thrace). He is primarily known today for his maps and charts collected in his
Kitab-ı Bahriye (
Book of Navigation), a book that contains detailed information on early navigational techniques as well as relatively accurate charts for their time. He gained fame as a cartographer when a small part of his first world map, prepared in 1513, was discovered in 1929 at the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. His world map is the oldest known Turkish atlas showing the New World, and one of the oldest maps of America still existing anywhere (the oldest known surviving map of America is the map drawn by
Juan de la Cosa in 1500).
Piri began engaging in government-supported privateering (a common practice in the Mediterranean Sea among both the Muslim and Christian states of the 15th and 16th centuries) when he was young, following his uncle
Kemal Reis, a well-known corsair and seafarer of the time, who later became a famous admiral of the Ottoman Navy. It is known that
Kemal Reis ventured into the Canaries in 1501.
In 1528, Piri Reis drew a second world map, of which a small fragment (showing Greenland and North America from Labrador and Newfoundland in the north to Florida, Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica and parts of Central America in the south) still survives. According to his imprinting text, he had drawn his maps using about 20 foreign charts and
mappae mundi (Arab, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Indian and Greek) including one by
Christopher Columbus.
Although he was not an explorer and never sailed to the Atlantic, he compiled over twenty maps of Arab, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Indian and older Greek origins into a comprehensive representation of the known world of his era. This work included the recently explored shores of both the African and American continents; on his first World Map of 1513, he imprinted the description "these lands and islands are drawn from the map of Columbus." In his text, he also wrote that he used the "maps drawn in the time of Alexander the Great" as a source, but most likely he had mistakenly confused the 2nd-century Greek geographer Ptolemy with Alexander’s general of the same name (of four and a half centuries before), since his map is similar with the
Jan of Stobnica famous reproduction map of Ptolemy, printed in 1512.
He was executed in 1553 in Cairo, having been found guilty of lifting the siege of Hormuz Island and abandoning the fleet, even though his reason for doing so was the lack of maintenance of his ships.
Piri Reis was among the most important scientists of his time who was involved with sailing. It is clear that he knew Greek, Italian, Spanish, and even Portuguese besides his native language. While drawing his world map, he would therefore have benefited from the resources written in these languages. Piri Reis was the author of the
Kitāb-ı Baḥrīye, or "
Book of the Sea", one of the most famous cartographical works of the period. The work was first published in 1521, and it was revised in 1524-1525 with additional information and better-crafted charts. The revised edition had a total of 434 pages containing 290 maps. The book gave seafarers information on the Mediterranean coast, islands, crossings, straits, and gulfs and described the important ports and cities; where to take refuge in the event of a storm and how to approach the ports, and precise routes to the ports. As well as techniques of navigation and navigation-related information on astronomy, it also contained information about the local people of each country and city and the curious aspects of their culture.
The
Kitab-ı Bahriye has two main sections, with the first section dedicated to information about the types of storms; techniques of using a compass; portolan charts with detailed information on ports and coastlines; methods of finding direction using the stars; and characteristics of the major oceans and the lands around them. Special emphasis is given to the discoveries in the New World by Christopher Columbus and those of Vasco da Gama and the other Portuguese seamen on their way to India and the rest of Asia.
The second section is entirely composed of portolan charts and cruise guides. Each topic contains the map of an island or coastline. In the first book (1521), this section has a total of 132 portolan charts, while the second book (1525) has a total of 210 portolan charts. The second section starts with the description of the Dardanelles Strait and continues with the islands and coastlines of the Aegean Sea, Ionian Sea, Adriatic Sea, Tyrrhenian Sea, Ligurian Sea, the French Riviera, the Balearic Islands, the coasts of Spain, the Straits of Gibraltar, the
Canary Islands, the coasts of North Africa, Egypt and the River Nile, the Levant and the coastline of Anatolia (Turkey). This section also includes descriptions and drawings of the famous monuments and buildings in every city, as well as biographic information about Piri Reis who also explains the reasons why he preferred to collect these charts in a book instead of drawing a single map, which would not be able to contain so much information and detail.
The Piri Reis Map
The image of the Piri Rei's map shown above was scanned from the frontpiece of a first edition of Hapgood's Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings. It is included here for non-profit archival and research purposes only.
I. There is a kind of red dye called vakami, that you do not observe at first, because it is at a distance . . . the mountains contain rich ores. . . . There some of the sheep have silken wool.
II. This country is inhabited. The entire population goes naked.
III. This region is known as the vilayet of Antilia. It is on the side where the sun sets. They say that there are four kinds of parrots, white, red, green and black. The people eat the flesh of parrots and their headdress is made entirely of parrots' feathers. There is a stone here. It resembles black touchstone. The people use it instead of the ax. That it is very hard . . . [illegible]. JPe saw that stone.
[NOTE: Piri Reis writes in the "Babriye": "In the enemy ships which we captured in the Mediterranean, we found a headdress made of these parrot feathers, and also a stone resembling touchstone."]
IV. This map was drawn by
Piri Ibn Haji Mehmed, known as the nephew of Kemal Reis, in Gallipoli, in the month of muharrem of the year 919 (that is, between the 9th of March and the 7th of April of the year 1513).
V. This section tells how these shores and also these islands were found.
These coasts are named the shores of Antilia. They were discovered in the year 896 of the Arab calendar. But it is reported thus, that a Genoese infidel, his name was Colombo, be it was who discovered these places. For instance, a book fell into the hands of the said Colombo, and be found it said in this book that at the end of the Western Sea [Atlantic] that is, on its western side, there were coasts and islands and all kinds of metals and also precious stones. The above-mentioned, having studied this book thoroughly, explained these matters one by one to the great of Genoa and said: "Come, give me two ships, let me go and find these places." They said: "O unprofitable man, can an end or a limit be found to the Western Sea? Its vapour is full of darkness." The above-mentioned Colombo saw that no help was forthcoming from the Genoese, he sped forth, went to the Bey of Spain [king], and told his tale in detail. They too answered like the Genoese. In brief Colombo petitioned these people for a long time, finally the Bey of Spain gave him two ships, saw that they were well equipped, and said:
"O Colombo, if it happens as you say, let us make you kapudan [admiral] to that country." Having said which, he sent the said Colombo to the Western Sea. The late Gazi Kemal had a Spanish slave. The above-mentioned slave said to Kemal Reis, he had been three times to that land with Colombo. He said: "First we reached the Strait of Gibraltar, then from there straight south and west between the two . . . [illegible]. Having advanced straight four thousand miles, we saw an island facing us, but gradually the waves of the sea became foamless, that is, the sea was becalmed and the North Star--the seamen on their compasses still say star--little by little was veiled and became invisible, and be also said that the stars in that region are not arranged as here. They are seen in a different arrangement. They anchored at the island which they had seen earlier across the way, the population of the island came, shot arrows at them and did not allow them to land and ask for information. The males and the females shot hand arrows. The tips of these arrows were made of fishbones, and the whole population went naked and also very . . . [illegible]. Seeing that they could not land on that island; they crossed to the other side of the island, they saw a boat. On seeing them; the boat fled and they [the people in the boat] dashed out on land. They [the Spaniards] took the boat. They saw that inside of it there was human flesh. It happened that these people were of that nation which went from island to island hunting men and eating them. They said Colombo saw yet another island, they neared it, they saw that on that island there were great snakes. They avoided landing on this island and remained there seventeen days. The people of this island saw that no harm came to them from this boat, they caught fish and brought it to them in their small ship's boat [filika]. These [Spaniards] were pleased and gave them glass beads. It appears that he [Columbus] had read-in the book that in that region glass beads were valued. Seeing the beads they brought still more fish. These [Spaniards] always gave them glass beads. One day they saw gold around the arm of a woman, they took the gold and gave her beads. They said to them, to bring more gold, we will give you more beads, [they said]. They went and brought them much gold. It appears that in their mountains there were gold mines. One day, also, they saw pearls in the hands of one person. They saw that when; they gave beads, many more pearls were brought to them. Pearls were found on the shore of this island, in a spot one or two fathoms deep. And also loading their ship with many logwood trees and taking two natives along, they carried them within that year to the Bey of Spain. But the said Colombo, not knowing the language of these people, they traded by signs, and after this trip the Bey of Spain sent priests and barley, taught the natives how to sow and reap and converted them to his own religion. They had no religion of any sort. They walked naked and lay there like animals. Now these regions have been opened to all and have become famous. The names which mark the places on the said islands and coasts were given by Colombo, that these places may be known by them. And also Colombo was a great astronomer. The coasts and island on this map are taken from Colombo's map.
VI. This section shows in what way this map was drawn.
In this century there is no map like this map in anyone's possession. The--hand of this poor man has drawn it and now it is constructed. From about twenty charts and
Mappae Mundi--these are charts drawn in the days of Alexander, Lord of the Two Horns, which show the inhabited quarter of the world; the Arabs name these charts Jaferiye--from eight Jaferiyes of that kind and one Arabic map of Hind, and from the maps just drawn by four Portuguese which show the countries of Hind, Sind and China geometrically drawn, and also from a map drawn by Colombo in the western region I have extracted it. By reducing all these maps to one scale this final form was arrived at. So that the present map is as correct and reliable for the Seven Seas as the map of these our countries is considered correct and reliable by seamen.
VII. It is related by the Portuguese infidel that in this spot night and day are at their shortest of two hours, at their longest of twenty two hours. But the day is very warm and in the night there is much dew.
VIII. On the way to the vilayet of Hind a Portuguese ship encountered a contrary wind [blowing] from the shore. The wind from the shore . . . [illegible] it [the ship]. After being driven by a storm in a southern direction they saw a shore opposite them they advanced towards it [illegible]. They saw that these places are good anchorages. They threw anchor and went to the shore in boats. They saw people walking, all of them naked. But they shot arrows, their tips made of fishbone. They stayed there eight days. They traded with these people by signs. That barge saw these lands and wrote about them which. . . . The said barge without going to Hind, returned to Portugal, where, upon arrival it gave information. . . . They described these shores in detail. . . . They have discovered them.
IX. And in this country it seems that there are white-haired monsters in this shape, and also six-horned oxen. The Portuguese infidels have written it in their maps. . . .
X. This country is a waste. Everything is in ruin and it is said that large snakes are found here. For this reason the Portuguese infidels did not land on these shores and these are also said to be very hot.
XI. And these four ships are Portuguese ships. Their shape is written down. They travelled from the western land to the point of Abyssinia [Habesh] in order to reach India. They said towards Shuluk. The distance across this gulf is 4200 miles.
XII. .... On this shore a tower
.... is however
.... in this climate gold
.... taking a rope
.... is said they measured
[NOTE: The fact that half of each of these lines is missing is the clearest proof of the map's having been torn in two.]
XIII. And a Genoese kuke [a type of ship] coming from Flanders was caught in a storm. Impelled by the storm it came upon these islands, and in this manner these islands became known.
XIV. It is said that in ancient times a priest by the name of Sanvolrandan (
Santo Brandan) travelled on the Seven Seas, so they say. The above-mentioned landed on this fish. They thought it dry land and lit a fire upon this fish, when the fish's back began to burn it plunged into the sea, they reembarked in their boats and fled to the ship. This event is not mentioned by the Portuguese infidels.
It is taken from the ancient Mappae Mundi.
XV. To these small islands they have given the name of Undizi Vergine. That is to say the Eleven Virgins.
XVI. And this island they call the Island of Antilia. There are many monsters and parrots and much logwood. It is not inhabited.
XVII. This barge was driven upon these shores by a storm and remained where it fell. . . . Its name was Nicola di Giuvan. On his map it is written that these rivers which can be seen have for the most part gold [in their beds]. When the water had gone they collected much gold [dust] from the sand. On their map. . . .
XVIII. This is the barge from Portugal which encountered a storm and came (to this land). The details are written on the edge of this map. [NOTE: see VIII.]
XIX. The Portuguese infidels do not go west of here. All that side belongs entirely to Spain. They have made an agreement that [a line] two thousand miles to the western side of the Strait of Gibraltar should be taken as a boundary. The Portuguese do not cross to that side but the Hind side and the southern side belong to the Portuguese.
XX. And this caravel having encountered a storm was driven upon this island. Its name was Nicola Giuvan. And on this island there are many oxen with one horn. For this reason they call this island Isle de Vacca, which means, Ox Island.
XXI. The admiral of this caravel is named Messir Anton the Genoese, but be grew up in Portugal. One day the above-mentioned caravel encountered a storm, it was driven upon this island. He found much ginger here and has written about these islands.
XXII. This sea is called the Western Sea, but the Frank sailors call it the Mare d'Espagna. Which means the Sea of Spain. Up to now it was known by these names, but Colombo, who opened up this sea and made these islands known, and also the Portuguese, infidels who have opened up the region of Hind have agreed together to give this sea a new name. They have given it the name of Ovo Sano [Oceano] that is to say, sound egg. Before this it was thought that the sea had no end or limit, that at its other end was darkness. Now they have seen that this sea is girded by a coast, because it is like a lake, they have called it Ovo Sano.
XXIII. In this spot there are oxen with one horn, and also monsters in this shape.
XXIV. These monsters are seven spans long. Between their eyes there is a distance of one span. But they are harmless souls.
A commentary on the Piri Reis map by J.B. Hare
Most theories about ancient unknown civilizations are based on absolutely no physical evidence, usually just hearsay and speculation. What really would shake the basis of our knowledge of history would be
an actual artifact. This probably wouldn't be something spectacular like finding a sunken city in the Atlantic, or armour-piercing bullets embedded in a dinosaur skeleton.
It would probably be something that only an expert in the field would recognize as anomalous.
More likely, this artifact would be a document or tradition from the past which reveals a deep understanding of some scientific fact recently discovered. This could be a description of the structure and function of DNA, knowledge of astronomy or physics which is only known to modern science . . . or accurate maps of the earth drawn long before the "Age of Exploration".
The Piri Reis map appears to be just that artifact.
The Piri Re'is Map is only
one of several anomalous maps drawn in the 15th Century and earlier which appear to represent better information about the shape of the continents than should have been known at the time. Furthermore, this information appears to have been obtained at some distant time in the past.
Piri Re'is, Ptolomy (2nd Century A.D.), as well as
Mercator [
MJF: a great friend of John Dee] and
Oronteus Finaeus, well-known 15th Century map-makers, included the traditional southern continent in their world maps, as did others. Antarctica was not discovered until the 19th Century, and it was largely unexplored until the middle of the 20th. This is just the start. Anomalous maps also show the Behring Strait as linking Asia and America, river deltas which appear much shorter than they do today, islands in the Aegean which haven't been above water since the sea-level rise at the end of the ice-age and huge glaciers covering Britain and Scandinavia. Long dismissed as attempts by cartographers to fill in empty spaces, some of the details of the old maps look very startling when correlated with modern (very mainstream) knowledge of the changes in the Earths' geography in the geologic past, particularly during the Ice Ages.
The Piri Re'is map is most interesting because of the attribution of the source of its information, and the extraordinary detail of the coastal outlines.
The Piri Re'is map was found in 1929 in the Imperial Palace in Constantinople. It is painted on parchment and dated 919 A.H. (in the Islamic calendar), which corresponds to
1513 AD. It is signed by an admiral of the Turkish Navy named Piri Ibn Haji Memmed, also known as Piri Re'is. According to Piri Re'is, the map had been assembled from a set of 20 maps drawn in the time of Alexander the Great.
This map and others were analyzed by
Charles H. Hapgood and his graduate students. Hapgood was an historian and geographer at the University of New Hampshire, in his book
Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings (1966). Only the conclusions of this book are sensational; for the most part it is a technical monograph on the history and geography of the anomalous maps, employing spherical trigonometry to associate map features with actual geographic locations. This book has recently been republished, and we highly recommend it.
The conclusion that Hapgood reached was that
a civilization with high seafaring and mapping skills surveyed the entire earth in the ancient past. They left maps which have been copied by hand through many generations. The Piri Re'is map is a patchwork which has gaps (most notably the Drake Passage between South America and Antarctica) which can be explained as non-overlapping areas between the source maps. Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings and Hapgood's other book The Earth's Shifting Crust, in which he advanced a theory of polar shifts, are controversial, and earned him the scorn of official academia.
More evidence has appeared in recent years. Hapgood may yet be vindicated (at least his guess as to the signficance of the anomalous maps). The Piri Re'is map is one of the cornerstones of the growing body of evidence for
an unknown Ice Age civilization. Along with this we can include the book
Hamlet's Mill, by De Santillana and von Dechend (1969), and the works of
Graham Hancock.
One striking thing about this map is the level of detail of the coasts and interiors in South America. Although the scale is somewhat off, a long, high mountain range is shown as the source of the rivers flowing to the coast of South America.
However, the best-known feature in the Piri Re'is map (and other pre-modern maps) is the Antarctic coastline. In Hapgood and others' opinions,
this represents the outline of the coast of Antarctica without glaciers.
Our modern knowledge of the coastline under the ice was obtained using seismic sounding data from Antarctic expeditions in the 1940s and 50s. Sonar is one way to map the coast under the Antarctic glaciers. The other way would be to have surveyed them when they were ice-free. According to Hapgood, who based the claim on 1949 core samples from the Ross Sea, the last time the particular area shown in the Piri Re'is map was free of ice was more than 6000 years ago. More recent studies show that this may be off by a couple of orders of magnitude. In any case,
this geography should have been unknown to the ancients. If this is correct, there are some big mysteries to explain.
A number of writers have rushed in and attempted to do just this. One school of thought about the Piri Re'is map is the 'Atlantis in Antarctica' thesis. The chief proponents of this are
Rand and Rose Flem-Ath in their book
When the Sky Fell, though there are others. The Flem-Aths buy into both Hapgoods' Sea Kings and Polar shift thesis. In the latter, Hapgood claimed that the inclination of the Earth's axis of rotation shifted suddenly in the year
9,500 B.C. causing Antarctica to move hundreds of miles to the south. This transformed its climate from semi-temperate to freezing. In contrast to the
Sea Kings hypothesis, there is no evidence that a rapid polar shift actually occurred at this time and much negative evidence that it didn't.
There is no scientific explanation for a mechanism which could cause such a global transformation in a matter of hours without completely destroying the crust of the planet. A planetary collision would be required, of the sort that has not occurred since the early period of planetary formation [
MJF: How about a comet strike in Canada]. If such a collision occurred in 9,500 B.C., it is fairly certain that all life on Earth would have been wiped out, which is obviously not the case. While it is not impossible that some instability in the planet could cause the Earth's axis to change its inclination, this would not occur overnight
[MJF: Why not?]. Additionally, a polar shift would probably leave an obvious mark in the geomagnetic strata found in sea floor cores, which is not the case.
Much has been made of Einstein's endorsement of Hapgood's polar shift theory. This proves nothing, since Einstein was not a geologist. Furthermore, although Einstein's theories have stood up to rigorous experimental and observational evidence, it's important to note that he was a human being and wasn't
always right. Part of Einstein's greatness was his ability to admit his errors.
In any case, the Flem-Aths propose that this shift destroyed a hypothetical Antarctic civilization, located somewhere in the present-day Ross penninsula. They attempt (with mixed success) to relate this to
Plato's Atlantis. Unfortunately, proving this would involve doing archaeology under an ice sheet thousands of meters thick [
MJF: Perhaps they are, given news stories coming out of Antractica in recent times.]. This is an excellent example of 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof'.
One subconscious influence on this may be fantasy writer
H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos, which places the abode of the Ancient Gods, R'lyeh, in Antarctica. Lovecraft's mythos is completly fictional, even if it has resemblances to actual mythologies [MJF: See the recent transcript for the
session dated 18 September 2021 for more on Lovecraft].
While features suggestive of advanced geographical knowledge are shown in the map itself, the
annotations and illustrations paint a different picture. Skeptics will note that the Piri Re'is map of the Antarctic coast, of which so much has been made, is notated as follows:
This country is a waste. Everything is in ruin and it is said that large snakes are found here. For this reason the Portuguese infidels did not land on these shores and these are also said to be very hot.
There are also pictures of some mythical animals in the same vicinity, of which the text reads:
This doesn't invalidate the startling landforms, but does indicate that whoever wrote these notes (presumably Piri Reis) never actually visited Antarctica. Non-skeptics might argue that when the source map was surveyed there could have been 1) large snakes, 2) unknown varieties of land mammals, as well as a 3) "very hot" climate in Antarctica, but there is no physical evidence that this has ever been the case. This also does not explain the other fanciful illustrations and notations on the map, including a sketch of a red-haired headless man (with his face on his chest) in the Andes area*. This takes us out of the realm of the possible into the fantastic, a line which Hapgood was careful not to cross, at least in Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings.
-- J.B. Hare
Text on this page is © Copyright 2001, J.B. Hare.
*There are though American Indian accounts of giant red-haired men in the Americas (e.g. the Lovelock Caves in Nevada), so this sketch may not be as fantastic as Hare believes. Similarly, Dutch sailors who visited Easter Island in the early 18th century encountered 11ft tall blond and red haired giants (Page 33 anyone!) who the C’s have confirmed were also present on Tenerife in the Canary Islands prior to its conquest by the Spanish.
The Official View in Wikipedia
Quoting directly from Wikipedia:
The
Piri Reis map was compiled in 1513 but most studies have identified the more probable date of completion as 1521. Only approximately
one third of the world map survives today. What survives is the extant western third of the original map that was drawn on gazelle skin parchment.
There are thirty legends around the world map, twenty-nine in Turkish and one in Arabic (see above for their translation).
The map shows the western coasts of Europe and North Africa and the coast of Brazil with reasonable accuracy. Various Atlantic islands, including the Azores and Canary Island, are depicted, as is the mythical island of Antilla and possibly Japan.
The map's historical importance lies in its demonstration of the extent of exploration of the New World by approximately 1510, and in its claim to have used a map made by Christopher Columbus, otherwise lost, as a source. Piri also stated that he had used ten Arab sources and four Indian maps sourced from the Portuguese.
The Piri Reis map is kept in the Library of the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, Turkey but is not usually on display to the public.
The Map’s Discovery
The discovery of the map at the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul in 1929 by the German theologian
Gustav Adolf Deissmann (1866–1937) caused an international sensation, as it represented the only then known copy of a world map of Christopher Columbus (1451–1506) and was the only 16th-century map that showed
South America in its proper longitudinal position in relation to Africa. Geographers had spent several centuries unsuccessfully searching for a "lost map of Columbus" that was supposedly drawn while he was in the West Indies.
The accuracy of the Piri Reis map is mixed. The Iberian Peninsula and the coast of Africa, well known to cartographers of the time, are depicted accurately. Island groups in the eastern Atlantic are accurately placed but not drawn to proper scale. The northern portion of the South American coast is also rendered fairly accurately and positioned correctly across from Africa. Much of the Caribbean also is mapped fairly accurately, perhaps reflecting Christopher Columbus's recent maps of the region. However, the area representing North America bears little resemblance to the actual coastline except for
one projection which might portray Newfoundland. An island nearby labelled "Antilia" might be
Nova Scotia since a note there refers to the legendary voyages of
Saint Brendan. Arguably, much of the area to the north of the Caribbean may be based on maps of the Asian coast, reflecting contemporary confusion about exactly what had been discovered to date.
Although there are frequent claims of the Piri Reis map's extreme accuracy, McIntosh, in comparing it to several other portolan-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. The Ribeiro maps of the 1520s and 1530s, the Ortelius map of 1570, and the Wright-Molyneux map of 1599 ('the best map of the sixteenth century') are only a few better-known examples.
However, Piri Reis map was compiled in 1513 and
predates all the maps listed above.
MJF: Wikpedia then does a hit piece on the Antarctic coast part of the map, which is clearly intended as a damage limitation exercise:
The Antarctic Coast
There are two major discrepancies from known coastlines: the North American coast mentioned above, and the southern portion of the South American coast. On the Piri Reis map, the latter is shown bending off sharply to the east starting around present-day Rio de Janeiro. Another interpretation of this territory has been to identify this section with the
Queen Maud Land coast of Antarctica. This claim is generally traced to Arlington H. Mallery, a civil engineer and amateur archaeologist who was a supporter of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact hypotheses. Though his assertions were not well received by scholars, they were revived in Charles Hapgood’s 1966 book
Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings. This book proposed a theory of global exploration by a pre-classical undiscovered civilisation based on his analysis of this and other ancient and late-medieval maps. More
notoriously, these claims were repeated in Erich von Daniken's
Chariots of the Gods? (which attributed the knowledge of the coast to extraterrestrials) and
Gavin Menzies's
1421: The Year China Discovered the World (which attributed it to supposed Chinese voyages), both of which were roundly denounced by mainstream scholars.
An analysis of these claims was published by
Gregory McIntosh, a historian of cartography, who examined the map in depth in his book
The Piri Reis Map of 1513 (Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 2000).
He was able to find sources for much of the map in Columbus's writings. Certain peculiarities (such as the appearance of the Virgin Islands in two locations) he attributed to the use of multiple maps as sources; others (such as the errors in North American geography) he traced to the continued confusion of the area with East Asia. As far as the accuracy of depiction of the supposed Antarctic coast is concerned, there are two conspicuous errors. First, it is shown hundreds of kilometres north of its proper location; second, the Drake’s Passage is completely missing, with the Antarctic Peninsula presumably conflated with the Western Patagonian coast. The identification of this area of the map with the frigid Antarctic coast is also difficult to reconcile with the notes on the map which describe the region as having a warm climate.
Maps of the period generally depicted a large continent named
Terra Australis Incognita of highly variable shape and extent. This land was posited by Ptolemy as a counterbalance to the extensive continental areas in the northern hemisphere; due to a lack of exploration and various misunderstandings, its existence was not fully abandoned until circumnavigation of the area during the second 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 the First Russian Antarctic Expedition in 1820, and the coastline of Queen Maud Land did not see significant exploration before Norwegian expeditions began in 1891. In 1513, Cape Horn had not yet been discovered, and indeed
Ferdinand Magellan's voyage of circumnavigation was not to set sail for another six years. It is unclear whether the mapmaker saw South America itself as part of the unknown southern lands (as shown in the
Miller Atlas), or whether (as Dutch thought) he drew what was then known of the coast with substantial distortion.
Dutch holds that there is no reason to believe that the map is the product of genuine knowledge of the Antarctic coast.
Well Wikipedia’s view of Antarctica, as shown on the Piri Reis Map, seems to be ‘all is good here, nothing odd to see, just move along folks’. Unfortunately for Dutch, Professor Hapgood showed the Piri Reis map to the US Air Force and they subsequently confirmed that the map was a reasonably good interpretation of an Antarctica free of ice, which they had been able to map themselves using ground penetrating sonar and radar. Moreover, the C’s commented on the origins of the map in the Session dated 5 December 1998 and, although dismissing Erich von Daniken’s attribution of the map to aliens, they confirmed that the map’s origins dated back to 14,000 BC, when Antarctica was last ice free:
Q: (L) In that sense... (A) Okay, this brings us to the question about the Piri Reis map. We wanted to know the origin of this map?
A: Complex, but the origin would date back to 14,000 B.C.
Q: (A) Atlantis?
A: Close.
Q: (L) Was this map drawn when Antarctica was NOT covered by ice?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Was Antarctica not covered by ice because the poles were in a different location?
A: No.
Q: (L) Was it not covered by ice because the entire planet was not covered by ice?
A: No.
Q: (L) Was it not covered by ice because it was in a different location itself?
A: No.
Q: (L) Why was it not covered by ice? (A) Because the climate was warmer.
A: Technologically achieved.
[…]
Q: (L) So, instead of using the areas that were NOT covered by ice, why, in particular, was Antarctica...
A: What?!?
Q: (L) What I am getting at is: why go to all the trouble to thaw out a whole big island if it might have been easier to have been somewhere else?
A: Well, first of all, we thought this was Ark's turn. But, since you have asked, is it not obvious by now? Magnetic power grid physics. EM utilization. Crystals, and the like. Seeking paths to the interior? The "Poles" know best!
Q: Speaking of these tall guys, William Wallace's life was sort of symbolic, in my mind, and he was supposed to have been over 6 and a half feet tall. During the time that all that mess was going on over in Scotland with Wallace and the Bruce, the Templars were being dissolved in France...
A: Dissolved?!? We think not! They merely went "underground."
Q: Is that literally or figuratively?
A: Why not both?
Q: Well, there are Templar organizations that some Mason's claim to be in contact with.
A: And where do you suppose these are?
Q: Underground?
A: Bingo!
[…]
Q: Okay. This one book I just read, the guys came across the Mandeans who talked about a star called "Merica," and from this, these geniuses deduced that the Templars sailed to America! What DID happen to the Templar fleet?
A: Sail to underworld.
Hence, the importance of the Piri Reis Map would seem to be that it displayed an ice-free Antarctica hundreds of years before that continent was officially discovered and mapped by Europeans. The C’s also confirmed that Antarctica was kept ice free through technological means, i.e., by using magnetic power grid physics, electromagnetic field utilisation and crystals – this last reference perhaps being to the great sunken crystal pyramid located under the sea off Florida. The C’s have confirmed elsewhere that there is another such pyramid in Antarctica and one at the North Pole as well. Could this possibly explain their references to “Seeking paths to the interior?”and “ The "Poles" know best!”. One group that we do know sought a path to the interior were the Nazis, since the C’s have confirmed that a large group of Nazis did go down to Antarctica towards the end of WW2, being the last group of Aryans to have done so. The C’s confirmed that first group of Aryans to have gone to the Earth’s interior did so in 12,000 BC, which would be around 2,000 years after the original map the Piri Reis Map was based on was created and 1,200 years before the deluge or final cataclysm that destroyed Atlantis:
Session 4th May 1996
Q: (L) Do these people being bred and raised in these underground cities have souls?
A: Yes, most.
Q: (TK) Are they just like us only raised differently?
A: More complicated than that.
Q: (L) How long have they been doing this?
A: 14,000 years, approximately.
Q: (L) If they have been doing it that long, obviously the ones they have taken at the beginning have croaked and are of no use to replace anybody on the earth unless they have been replacing people from time to time for various reasons...
A: No, their technology makes yours look like Neanderthal by comparison! Hibernation tubes... One heartbeat per hour, for example.
Q: (TH) That means that for every year we live, they would live 4200 years... (L) Does any of this have anything to do with that crazy pit at Oak Island?
A: In an offhand way.
However, this leaves open the possibility that other groups had taken the same path prior to the Nazis in 1945. One such group may have been the Knights Templar in 1307-08, since the C’s confirmed in the 5th December 1998 session passage quoted above that the Templars had gone underground both literally and figuratively. Moreover, could “
Sail to underworld” have meant Antarctica perhaps, as it would have been the bottom of the world (underworld) from the Templars’ perspective? Alternatively, they may have sailed to the North Pole and found a similar entrance to the interior of the Earth there – Ultima Thule – a place the Nazis seemed obsessed with finding, as they viewed it as the original home of the Aryan race. John Dee’s hunt for the Northwest Passage may also have hidden a similar desire to find Ultima Thule.
I know some historians have doubted whether the Templar fleet’s boats were sturdy enough for deep oceanic voyages, since the ships were primarily built for carrying cargo around the Mediterranean. However, the C’s seem to have endorsed the idea that Templars like Sir Henry Sinclair could have reached North-West America. Indeed, there certainly seems to be evidence for the Templars having been in Newport, Rhode Island, Westford, Massachusetts and even on Oak Island - see
Evidence the Knights Templar got to America!. Indeed, the Lagina brothers on their TV show ‘
The Curse of Oak Island’ have found a Templar lead metal cross and various markings on stones that are suggestive of a Templar presence on the Island in the distant past. However, could the Templars have made it to Antarctica a much longer, arduous and more involved voyage? If so, did they have access to ancient maps that showed Antarctica like those Piri Reis used to create his own map?
Given that the Templars along with the Venetians took part in the sack of Constantinople (now Istanbul) in 1204 AD, which marked the culmination of the Fourth Crusade, and thereby gained access to the Imperial Library that may have housed works that had been taken from the Great Library of Alexandria prior to its destruction by fire, I think this is entirely possible. This means the Templars may have known of and reached North America over a century before Columbus (who may have been a Templar himself through his links to the Portuguese Knights of Christ). Indeed Piri Reis points out in his book
Kitab-ı Bahriye (
Book of Navigation - see above) that Columbus had access to a book that made him aware of the existence of America even before he set sail on his voyage of discovery in 1492:
Indeed, in the passage I quoted at the start of this article, where the C’s first referred to Piri Reis, they may have been trying to draw Laura’s attention to the link between Columbus and the Templars where they said: “Or easier. Template... Templar... Temporary. Temperature... prime numbers, prime rib... Primary.“
However, we have no knowledge of what particular book Piri Reis is referring to. Could this book have been one that was obtained by the Templars during the looting of Constantinople I wonder? If so, could the book itself have drawn on older documentary sources found in the Library of Alexandria, including perhaps maps of the Americas and Antractica?
Alternatively, one might ask whether Columbus could have been a Rosicrucian agent. In a book by Ruggero Marino called Christopher Columbus the Last Templar, Marino proposed that Columbus shared the Templar dream of Christians, Muslims, and Jews living in peace in a New Jerusalem, and his voyage across the Atlantic was both to find a new passage to Asia and to find the place where the New Jerusalem could be built. Marino reveals in his book that Columbus studied ancient texts and maps from the Vatican Library, access to which was granted by Pope Innocent VIII - who Marino shows to be Columbus’s true father. Innocent VIII (whose own father was Jewish and grandmother was Muslim) was the perfect individual to further the Templars’ plan to create a universal religion combining the spiritual wisdom of the three faiths. Marino shows that Pope Innocent’s “disappearance” and the story that Columbus merely stumbled onto the New World were part of a calculated political and theological cover-up. While King Ferdinand (the model for Machiavelli’s The Prince) and Queen Isabella of Spain are heralded with funding Columbus’s “discovery” of America, Marino claims that it was Innocent VIII who was the main sponsor and master-mind of the expedition. This theory may seem farfetched until one considers that both Athanasius Kircher, Nicola Poussin’s Jesuit tutor, and Sir Francis Bacon (a Rosicrucian Grand Master who may have had a hand in drafting the Rosicrucian Manifestos) shared a similar utopian dream of universal brotherhood – Bacon was also the sponsor of the ‘New Atlantis’ meme that would inspire the Masonic founding fathers of the United States to seek to create a New Jerusalem in America. Marino’s book details a murderous power struggle involving secret societies, popes, and kings going on behind the “discovery” of America. I have not read this book but, if anyone reading this has, please feel free to elaborate further on Marino’s theories, as set out in his book. I note, however, that some of the reviews of his book on Amazon are not that complimentary, with many suggesting that Marino’s evidence for his theories is quite scanty and less than overwhelming. However, if Columbus, as a Templar or Rosicrucian, had access to the Vatican Library’s resources, especially to books and records that are normally kept secret from mainstream scholars, this would make perfect sense. We should also remember that the C’s have said that the burning of the Library of Alexandria was organised by the ‘Sword Keepers of the Lock’, who were the Illuminati, otherwise known as the Rosicrucians. That ‘Lock’ may be some sort of time lock but it could also represent a knowledge lock, which prevents us from discovering mankind’s true history and particularly knowledge of the advanced scientific society that was once Atlantis.
See
Christopher Columbus, the Last Templar
Continued in Part 2
