The better I get to know people, the more I love. Secrets of the Piri Reis map (11 photos)

The Mystery of the Piri Reis Map

The image of America on the Piri Reis map is one of the few that have survived to this day. Historians found it in 1929 in a pile of cobblestones near the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. Now the map is kept in the library of this palace and it is extremely rarely put on public display. Map of Piri Reis, dated 1513, drawn on the skin of a gazelle by an admiral of the Turkish fleet ottoman empire Piri Reis.

The map has a grid of intersecting lines - the so-called "loxodrome", which was used to plot the course, they were a characteristic feature of medieval nautical charts. A careful study of the map showed that it was originally a map of the world, which was then torn apart.

The sailing map, as it would be called now, was a typical document of the 14th-16th centuries. Such maps were created for sailors sailing from port to port. They were not suitable for long-distance ocean travel, as they did not take into account the sphericity of the Earth. Undoubtedly ancient image America is of considerable interest to historians, and not only.

In his 1966 book Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings, University of New Hampshire historian and geographer Charles Hapgood suggests that the land area at the bottom of the map south of South America unquestionably marks Antarctica (and this long before discovery of the mainland!). The map shows the coastline of Antarctica in detail and provides what Hapgood says is an accurate depiction of Queen Maud Land without glaciers. He believes this indicates that it was mapped in prehistoric times, before the continent was frozen over.

But how could a Stone Age man see and map Antarctica? Hapgood had no doubt that there had once been a now forgotten prehistoric civilization whose inhabitants traveled across the oceanic expanses. They swam from pole to pole, so even in the distant past they were able to map the entire surface of the Earth. According to Hapgood's theory, these civilizations have left us maps that are more than a thousand years old. Their copies were used by navigators of such cultures as the Minoan and Phoenician. Hapgood attributed the Piri Reis map to this kind of ancient maps.

Later, Erich von Däniken argued that the ice-free Antarctica depicted on the Piri Reis map confirmed his theory of ancient astronauts, and stated that its first version was created by representatives of an extraterrestrial civilization. In his 1995 book Footprints of the Gods, Graham Hancock also points out that in time immemorial there were now unknown, highly advanced ancient civilizations. Their deep knowledge of astronomy, architecture, navigation and mathematics was passed down to the ancient cultures of the Olmecs, Aztecs, Mayans and Egyptians.

He also claimed that the creators of the Piri Reis map used copies of ancient superculture maps as sources. Both Hapgood and Hancock noted that the image of Antarctica presented on the Piri Reis map is extremely detailed: mountains, rivers and lakes are plotted on it. When it was created, ancient observations from a satellite over Egypt could be taken as a basis.

Many of the scientists and archaeologists are skeptical of Hapgood's theory. Mainly because no sources have survived to this day that would testify to the existence ancient civilization, which would have the resources, technology, and even more so the need to explore Antarctica. What could be their reasons? Even assuming that such a highly developed prehistoric culture existed, the question remains whether the Piri Reis map actually shows Antarctica without ice cover?

For the most part, supporters of the theory of an ancient maritime civilization complain about the lost geographical knowledge, the existence of which confirms the accuracy with which the map was made, especially in the part depicting Antarctica. But is the Piri Reis map really that accurate? The absence of the Drake Passage between South America and Antarctica indicates that if the map actually depicts the South American continent, then it is connected to Antarctica by a landmass of almost 932 miles. And this is a glaring mistake for such an accurate map.

Studying the rest of the map, which depicts Europe and Africa, you can see quite detailed images for those times. But the sizes of the peninsulas and bays are increased, which, apparently, is connected with the navigation of that time, which was carried out according to coastal landmarks. South America seems too narrow, although Brazil is shown quite accurately. At the same time, North America is depicted indistinctly and rather casually, as if drawn from words, and not on the basis of geographical knowledge.

These data make it possible to assert that in ancient times they did not conduct large-scale studies, based on which it would be possible to create an accurate map. It should be noted that there are ancient maps made more carefully than the Piri Reis map. So, on the map of 1500 by Juan de la Cosa and Alberto Canti, the position of the islands of Cuba, Jamaica and Puerto Rico is shown more accurately. The only detail that can serve as confirmation of the authenticity of the Piri Reis map is that it supposedly depicts Greenland before the glaciation.

But even with a cursory examination, in the upper right corner of the map, the western part of France, located at 50 ° north latitude, is distinguishable. Therefore, if France is shown on the map as the northernmost country, Greenland should not be on it, and since there are no islands that even remotely resemble Greenland, it is very difficult to say whether these data are evidence of this version.

To confirm the theory that the Piri Reis map depicts Antarctica without ice, Charles Hapgood used acoustic research data that were obtained during the Antarctic expeditions of the 40-50s of the XX century. However, Hapgood's hypothesis, which once seemed quite probable to scientists, today raises serious doubts. An insurmountable controversy has emerged regarding the unfrozen Antarctica depicted on the Piri Reis map.

After the mainland finally thawed, its coastline had to change. It could not match the modern outlines of Antarctica. Over time Earth's crust the continent was to sink hundreds of meters under the weight of millions of tons of ice lying above it, and the coastline below it would change completely. If we compare Antarctica on the Piri Reis map with a relatively recent topographic map of the subglacial surface of the continent, it becomes clear that there is nothing in common between their coastlines. In addition, modern geographical studies indicate that Antarctica was freed from ice not in 4000 BC. e., as Hapgood stated. Recently received data on the period of existence of unfrozen Antarctica showed that it was more than 14 million years ago.

But, perhaps, the most convincing evidence refuting the prehistoric origin of the map is contained in the notes of Piri Reis himself. At the beginning of the 16th century, when he drew his map, the Portuguese were already making voyages across the Atlantic Ocean. They mentioned parts of South America they had discovered. The text of one of the inscriptions on the map speaks of an attack by the indigenous population of a Portuguese ship that landed on the coast of the southern mainland. Another inscription speaks of the incredible heat. These data are quite suitable for describing South America. But the hot weather and naked inhabitants in Antarctica are simply an invention.

It has not yet been possible to find out what sources were used to create the Piri Reis map, but it can be assumed that among them were the works of the Greek astronomer and geographer Ptolemy (2nd century AD), various Portuguese maps and maps of Christopher Columbus. It should be noted that Reis himself admitted that he copied the maps of Columbus. In addition, many features of the Piri Reis map, in particular geographical names and elements of the West Indies, suggest that he used at least one map of Columbus to create his own.

Reis map and modern map, comparison

Other evidence that Reis used maps medieval Europe, is a ship depicted in the upper part and a fish carrying two people on its back. Below the illustration was a quote from a medieval legend about the life of the Irish Saint Brandon. Apparently, Piri Reis transferred it from one of the source maps. This fact suggests that at least one map of medieval Europe was used.

Greg McIntosh in 2000 in the book Piri Reis Map 1513 noted that if you carefully look at the maps of those times, it becomes clear that there is nothing on the Piri Reis map that would not have been known in 1513. He also claims that the lands on the Piri Reis map thought to be Antarctica are in fact the hypothetical Great Southern Continent that cartographers have been mapping since the time of Ptolemy.

It was generally accepted that a continent must exist in the southern hemisphere to maintain the mass balance of the Earth in opposition to the northern hemisphere. McIntosh also notes that on the Piri Reis map, all coasts south of 25° are inaccurate and misplaced, and Antarctica in the north goes as far as 40° south latitude, although in fact it never went beyond 70°. A careful study of the Piri Reis map shows that it most likely does not depict Antarctica. Because the bears of the southern continent are already very similar to the American ones, perhaps the map shows a part of South America, fitted in size to the shape of parchment.

Another feature of South America on the Piri Reis map is the image of the Andes ranges and the rivers - Amazon, Orinoco and La Plata, originating on the slopes of the mountains and flowing east to the sea. At that time, Europeans did not know about the Andes, how could they be on the map? However, the Reis map is not the only one showing mountain ranges deep in the South American continent. The map of Nicolò de Canerio (1502-1504), kept in the National Library of Paris, also contains an image of the eastern coast of South America with the tops of mountain ranges. This data indicates that the Canerio map was most likely another source for Piri Reis.

One more question remains unclear. If the Piri Reis map is based on the information of ancient navigators, the Andes could be depicted here, but the Pacific Ocean is unlikely. A more plausible explanation is that the mountains depicted in the center of South America on the Piri Reis map are actually located on the east coast of the continent, but drawn in the wrong place and at the wrong scale.

Most scholars today believe that the Piri Reis map is more accurate than one would expect from medieval 16th-century navigational charts, which were based on geographic knowledge and assumptions of the era. There is no reason to believe that Piri Reis relied on the work of some hypothetical supercultures when creating his map. Of course, he could use ancient sources that have not survived to this day, but the map itself is of great value as an amazingly beautiful and important source of the Middle Ages.

The Mystery of the Piri Reis Map

Vadim Karelin

Tourists crossing the Dardanelles in the Canakkale region are usually so carried away by stories about the armies of Xerxes and who crossed the Dardanelles many centuries ago that they completely ignore the modest bust installed on the European side of the strait next to the crossing. Few people know that the modest signature "Piri Reis" below the bust links this place to one of history's most intriguing mysteries.

In 1929, a map dated 1513 was discovered in one of the ancient palaces of Constantinople. The map, perhaps, would not have aroused much interest if it were not for the image of the Americas on it (one of the earliest in history) and the signature of the Turkish admiral Piri Reis. Then, in the 1920s, in the wake of the national upsurge, it was especially important for the Turks to emphasize the role of the Turkish cartographer in creating one of the earliest maps of America. The map began to be closely studied, as well as the history of its creation. And here is what has been revealed.

In 1513, the admiral of the Turkish fleet, Piri Reis, completed work on big map world for its geographical "Bahriye". He himself did not travel much, but when compiling a map, he used about 20 cartographic sources. Of these, eight maps belonged to the time of Ptolemy, some belonged to Alexander the Great, and one, as Piri Reis writes in his book The Seven Seas, "was recently compiled by an infidel named Colombo." And then the admiral says:

“An infidel named Colombo, a Genoese, discovered these lands. One fell into the hands of the named Colombo, in which he read that on the edge of the Western Sea, far in the West, there are shores and islands. All kinds of metals and precious stones were found there. The aforementioned Colombo studied this book for a long time ... Colombo also learned about the passion of the natives for glass jewelry from this book and took them with him to exchange them for gold.

Let's leave aside Columbus and his mysterious book for now, although a direct indication that he knew where he was sailing is already amazing. Unfortunately, neither this book nor the map of Columbus has come down to us. But several sheets of the map from the Bahriye atlas miraculously survived and were published in 1811 in. But then they were not given much importance. It wasn't until 1956, when a Turkish naval officer donated the maps to the US Naval Hydrographic Office, that US military cartographers conducted a study to confirm or disprove the seemingly impossible: the map showed the coastline of Antarctica - 300 years before it was discovered!

A report was soon received: “The claim that the lower part of the map shows the Princess Martha Coast [part of] Maud Land in Antarctica, as well as the Palmer Peninsula, is justified. We found this explanation to be the most logical and possibly correct. The geographic details depicted at the bottom of the map are in perfect agreement with the seismic data taken through the ice cap by the Swedish-British Antarctic Expedition in 1949. This means that the coastline was mapped before it was covered in ice. The ice in this area is approximately 1.5 km thick. We have no idea how these data could be obtained with the assumed level of geographical knowledge in 1513.

So the Piri Reis map began to reveal its secrets. Here are just a few of them.

The map accurately shows the coastline of Antarctica

But a map drawn in polar equal area projection must have a center. In the case of the American map, it was Cairo, where an American military base was located during the war years. And from this, as shown by the Chicago scientist Charles Hapgood, who thoroughly studied the Piri Reis map, it directly follows that the center of the ancient map, which became the prototype of the admiral's map, was located exactly there, in Cairo, or its environs. That is, the ancient cartographers were the Egyptians who lived in Memphis, or their more ancient ancestors, who made this place a reference point.

Mathematical apparatus of cartographers

But whoever they were, they skillfully mastered their craft. As soon as the researchers began to study the fragments of the map of the Turkish admiral that have come down to us, they faced the question of the authorship of its primary source. The Piri Reis map is the so-called portolan, a sea chart that allows you to build "lines between ports", that is, sail between port cities. In the 15th-16th centuries, such maps were much more perfect than land maps, but, as noted by one of the leaders in this field, A.E. Nordenskiöld, they didn't develop. That is, the maps of the 15th century were of the same quality as the maps of the 14th century. This, from his point of view, indicates that the skill of cartographers was not acquired, but borrowed, that is, in other words, they simply redrawn older maps, which is natural in itself.

But what does not fit in the head is the accuracy of the constructions and the mathematical apparatus, without which these constructions simply cannot be performed. Let me give you just a few facts.

It is known that in order to build a geographical map, that is, to display a sphere on a plane, it is necessary to know the dimensions of this sphere, that is, the Earth. Circle the globe Eratosthenes was able to measure even in ancient times, but he did it with a big error. Until the 15th century, no one specified these data. However, a thorough study of the coordinates of objects on the Piri map indicates that the dimensions of the Earth were taken into account without error, that is, the compilers of the map had more accurate information about our planet (not to mention the fact that they represented it as a ball).

Researchers of the Turkish map also convincingly showed that the compilers of the mysterious ancient source were trigonometric (the Reuss map was drawn using planar geometry, where latitudes and longitudes are at right angles. But it was copied from a map with spherical trigonometry! Ancient cartographers not only knew that the Earth there is a ball, but they also calculated the length of the equator with an accuracy of about 100 km!) And cartographic projections that were not known to either Eratosthenes or even Ptolemy, and they theoretically could use the ancient maps stored in the Library of Alexandria. That is, the original source of the map is definitely more ancient.

Both Americas are shown on the map

The Piri Reis map is one of the first to show the Americas. It was compiled 21 years after the voyage of Columbus and the "official" discovery of America. And it marks not only the exact coastline, but also the rivers, and even the Andes. And despite the fact that Columbus himself did not map America, having sailed only to the Caribbean!

The mouths of some rivers, in particular the Orinoco, are shown on the Piri Reis map with an "error": river deltas are not indicated. However, this speaks rather not of an error, but of an expansion of the deltas that occurred over time, as was the case with the Euphrates in Mesopotamia in the last 3500 years.

Columbus knew where he was going

Piri Reis claimed that Columbus knew where he was sailing, thanks to a book that fell into his hands. The fact that Columbus's wife was the daughter of the Grand Master of the Order, which had already changed its name by that time, which had significant archives of ancient books and maps, indicates a possible way to acquire a mysterious book (today much has been written about the Templar fleet and the high probability of their regular sailings in America).

There are many facts indirectly confirming that Columbus owned one of the maps that served as the source for the Piri Reis map. For example, Columbus did not stop ships at night, as was customary because of the fear of running into reefs in unknown waters, but went under full sail, as if he knew for sure that there would be no obstacles. When a riot began on the ships due to the fact that the promised land was still not shown, he managed to convince the sailors to endure another 1000 miles and was not mistaken - exactly after 1000 miles the long-awaited shore appeared. Columbus carried a supply of glass jewelry with him, hoping to exchange them for gold y, as recommended in his book. Finally, each ship carried a sealed packet with instructions on what to do if the ships lost sight of each other during a storm. In a word, the discoverer of America knew well that he was not the first.

The Piri Reis map is not the only one

And the map of the Turkish admiral, the source for which was, among other things, the maps of Columbus, is not the only one of its kind. If one sets out, as Charles Hapgood did, to compare images on several maps compiled before its "official" discovery, then there will be no doubt about the existence of their common source. Hapgood scrupulously compared the maps of Piri, Arantheus Finaus, Hadji Ahmed and Mercator, created at different times and independently of each other, and determined that they all used the same unknown source, which made it possible to depict the polar continent with the greatest certainty long before its discovery.

Most likely, we will no longer know for sure who and when created this primary source. But its existence, convincingly proved by the researchers of the map of the Turkish admiral, indicates the existence of a certain ancient civilization with level scientific knowledge, comparable to the modern one, at least in the area (the Piri map, as already mentioned, made it possible to clarify some modern maps).

And this casts doubt on the hypothesis of a gradual linear progress of mankind in general and science in particular. One gets the feeling that the greatest knowledge about nature, as if obeying an unknown law, at a certain stage becomes available to mankind, in order to be lost later and ... be reborn again when the time comes. And who knows how many discoveries the next find will contain?

All this has reasonable explanation, which has been hidden by many "scientists" and all politicians for many, many years. The essence of this explanation is as follows: our planet was colonized by people of a highly developed civilization of the white race about 600 thousand years ago. So, we are all descendants of "aliens" ... And Antarctica was covered with ice about 13 thousand years ago after a terrible planetary catastrophe caused by the fall of fragments of the moon Fatta, destroyed during the Great War ... All this and much more can be read in remarkable book by Academician N.V. Levashova".

The map accurately shows the coastline of Antarctica

Antarctica as a continent was discovered in 1818, but many cartographers, including Gerard Mercator, still believed in the existence of a continent in the extreme south and plotted its supposed outlines on their maps. The Piri Reis map, as already mentioned, displays the coastline of Antarctica with high accuracy - 300 years before its discovery!

But this is not the biggest mystery, especially since several ancient maps are known, including the Mercator map, which, as it turned out, depicts, and very accurately, Antarctica. Previously, they simply did not pay attention to it, because " appearance» The continent on the map can be highly distorted depending on the map projections used: it is not so easy to project the surface of the globe onto a plane. The fact that many ancient maps accurately reproduce not only Antarctica, but also other continents became known after calculations made in the middle of the last century, taking into account various projections used by old cartographers.

But the fact that the Piri Reis map shows the coast of Antarctica, not yet covered with ice, is difficult to comprehend! After all, the modern appearance of the coastline of the southern continent is given by a powerful ice cover that goes far beyond the boundaries of real land. It turns out that Piri Reis used the sources that were compiled by people who saw Antarctica before the glaciation? But this cannot be, since these people should have lived millions of years ago!

The only explanation accepted by modern scientists for this fact is the theory of the periodic change of the Earth's poles, according to which the last such change could occur about 6,000 years ago, and it was then that Antarctica began to be covered with ice again. That is, we are talking about navigators who lived 6000 years ago and compiled maps, according to which (as in the map of Piri Reis) modern ones were clarified? Incredible…

On July 6, 1960, the USAF responded to Professor Charles Hapgood of Keene College on his request for an assessment of the ancient Piri Reis map:

Theme: Map of Admiral Piri Reis

To: Professor Charles Hapgood

Keene College

Keene, New Hampshire

Dear Professor Hapgood,

Your request for an assessment of the unusual features of the 1513 Piri Reis map has been reviewed by this organization. The claim that the bottom of the map shows the Princess Martha Coast [part of] Dronning Maud Land in Antarctica, as well as the Palmer Peninsula, is justified. We found this explanation to be the most logical and possibly correct. The geographic detail at the bottom of the map is in good agreement with the seismological profile of the top of the ice cap taken by the 1949 Swedish-British expedition. This means that the coastline was mapped before it was covered in ice. The ice in this area is approximately 1.5 kilometers thick. We have no idea how these data could be obtained with the assumed level of geographical knowledge in 1513.

Harold Ohlmeyer, Lieutenant Colonel, US Air Force Captain.

Mainstream science has been saying all this time that the Antarctic ice cap is a million years old. The map shows the northern part of this continent without ice cover. Then the map must be at least a million years old, which is impossible, because humanity did not yet exist.

Further, more accurate studies revealed the date of the end of the last ice-free period: 6000 years ago. There is disagreement on the date of the beginning of this period: from 13,000 to 9,000 years ago. Main question: who mapped Queen Maud Land 6,000 years ago? What the unknown civilization had similar technology?

According to traditional ideas, the first civilization was formed 5000 years ago in Mesopotamia, and Indian and Chinese soon followed. Accordingly, none of these civilizations could do this. But who lived 6,000 years ago and had technology that is only available today?

In the Middle Ages, special sea charts (“portolani”) appeared, on which all sea routes, coasts, bays, straits, etc. were accurately marked. Most of them described the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas, as well as some others. One of these maps was drawn by Piri Reis. But on some of them, unknown lands were visible, which the sailors kept in the strictest confidence. It is believed that among these selected sailors was Columbus.

To draw the map, Reis used several sources collected during his travels. He put notes on the map, by which we can understand what kind of work he did. He writes that he is not responsible for intelligence and cartography data, but only for combining all sources. He states that one of the source maps was drawn by sailors contemporary to Reis, while others were drawn in the 4th century BC. or even earlier.

Dr. Charles Hapgood, in the preface of his book Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings (Turnstone books, London, 1979), writes:

It seems that information was transmitted very carefully between people. The origin of the cards is unknown; perhaps they were made by the Minoans or the Phoenicians, who for thousands of years were the best sailors of antiquity. We have evidence that they collected and studied the great Library of Alexandria in Egypt, and their knowledge was useful to the geographers of that time.

It is possible that Piri Reis received some maps from the Library of Alexandria, a well-known and important source of knowledge from ancient times. In accordance with the reconstruction of Hapgood, copies of these documents and some other sources were moved to other cultural centers, incl. and to Constantinople. Then, in 1204 (the year of the 4th crusade), when the Venetians entered the city, these cards began to circulate among European sailors.

Hapgood continues:

Most of these charts were for the Mediterranean and Black Seas. But maps of other regions have also been preserved: the Americas, the Arctic and Antarctic. It became clear that the ancients could swim from pole to pole. Incredible as it may seem, the evidence confirms that some ancient explorers explored Antarctica before the ice covered it, and that they had an accurate navigational instrument for determining longitude, better than that of ancient, medieval, and modern explorers. up to the second half of the 18th century. […]

This evidence of ancient technology will support and complement many other hypotheses about lost civilizations. Scientists have so far been able to disprove most of these hypotheses by calling them myths, but this evidence cannot be refuted. It also requires revisiting all previous statements from a broader perspective.”

The map is tied to Cairo

Interestingly, the Piri Reis map also gives an answer to the question of where these ancient sailors lived. (Or not navigators, if they used other means of transportation?) The fact is that a professional cartographer, studying an ancient map and comparing it with modern ones, can determine what kind of projection the map creator used. And when the Piri Reis map was compared with the modern one, compiled in a polar equal-area projection, they found their almost complete similarity. In particular, the map of the Turkish admiral of the 16th century literally repeats the map compiled by the US Air Force during the Great Patriotic War.

But a map drawn in polar equal area projection must have a center. In the case of the American map, it was Cairo, where an American military base was located during the war years. And from this, as the Chicago scientist Charles Hapgood, who thoroughly studied the Piri Reis map, showed, it directly follows that the center of the ancient map, which became the prototype of the admiral's map, was right there, in Cairo, or its environs. That is, the ancient cartographers were the Egyptians who lived in Memphis, or their more ancient ancestors, who made this place a reference point.

This spring marks the 500th anniversary of the Piri Reis map, which was painted on the skin of a gazelle in the 16th century. Its compiler, Piri Ibn Hadji Mehmed, went down in history as Piri Reis (Admiral Piri), as he commanded the ships of the Turkish fleet. It depicts America for the first time in the history of the Old World, just 21 years after Columbus's first voyage. For some, however, this is not enough - they claim that the map is incredibly accurate for those years and that it depicts the outlines of Antarctica hidden under the ice!

The map drawn by the admiral in the month of Muharrem 919 (between March 9 and April 7, 1513 of our calendar) was accidentally found in 1929 among the manuscripts of the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. Part of the map showing northern countries and Greenland, lost; apparently, the same thing happened with its eastern part (a small piece remained of Africa and Europe). Fortunately, the author's own handwritten explanation remained on the surviving part:

"In our century, no one else has such a map ... It was compiled by me from 20 maps and a map of the universe, starting with those drawn under the ruler Alexander the Two-horned [Macedonian], and show the inhabited part of the world. The Arabs call such maps" Jaferiyeh." I took eight of these maps and also a Hindu map in Arabic, as well as maps recently drawn by four Portuguese, which geometrically accurately show the countries of Hind, Sind and China. Also from the map of Colombo [Christopher Columbus] I took the inscriptions Western countries and, having reduced all the maps to the same scale, came to the final result.

In 1956, an amateur archaeologist, retired Captain Arlington Humphrey Mallery was the first to claim that the map depicted the coast of Antarctica long before the discovery of the continent by Russian sailors. Several US Navy Hydrographic Bureau officers supported the hypothesis. Then Mallery said that the map does not show the current Antarctica, bound by ice, but a continent without ice cover. Charles Hapgood added to this that the map was drawn in azimuthal projection centered on Egypt near Cairo (where the pyramid of Cheops stands). Fantasies about Egyptians and space aliens were not slow to blossom.

“The Piri Reis map is based on aerial photographs taken from a very high altitude,” Erich von Däniken wrote in the book “Chariots of the Gods,” also known as “Memories of the Future.” “How can this be explained? Only by the presence spaceship hanging high above Cairo with its cameras pointing down."

In the 60s, when Mallery, Hapgood and Daniken shocked scientists, Antarctica had not yet been properly explored. More detailed studies have shown that the accuracy of the coincidence of its coastline with the Piri Reis map is exaggerated. Three lovers of hypotheses did not take into account: the continent is under the pressure of billions of tons of ice, and if you remove it, tectonic plate rise to tens, if not hundreds of meters. All the outlines of the coast will immediately change, and the mainland would have a completely different coast. In addition, the last time Antarctica lost its ice cap was more than 14 million years ago - too long even for paleocontacts. What kind of alien of sound mind will give earthlings a map that has not been true for a long time?!

Imaginary "Antarctica" with a certain six-horned animal.

A lot was said about the "azimuth projection from space", but as soon as the Piri Reis map was properly superimposed on the globe, it turned out that Cairo had nothing to do with it - the center of the projection falls somewhere in the area of ​​the Cape Verde Islands. And to be even more precise, we have to admit that the admiral did not draw a classic map, but a portolan, where the main thing is compass measurements and the distances between the places marked on it. The fact that the result turned out to be similar to the azimuth projection, scientists consider a coincidence: portolans were drawn without correction for the spherical shape of the Earth.

What is drawn instead of Antarctica? It's just a distorted outline of South America. We do not see the Drake Strait and the Strait of Magellan. The inscriptions made by the admiral on Turkish in Arabic letters, show: we are talking about a country where there is no ice at all.

"In this country, apparently, there are white-haired monsters, as well as six-horned cattle. The Portuguese pagans wrote it down in their maps. This country is a desert. Everything is in ruins, and they say that large snakes were found there. Therefore, the Portuguese pagans did not land on these shores, where, as is also said, it is very hot."

"Antarctica" is just South America drawn with errors.

Map of the world from "Bahriye" (1520).

Seven years later, Piri Reis corrected his mistakes. In the atlas "Bahriye" ("Book of the Seas"), South America almost does not differ from modern maps. The Strait of Magellan was promptly mapped. The hypothetical "Southern Continent" is also there, but it is merged with Australia. This proves once again that accurate maps The admiral did not have Antarctica, and his map does not go beyond the knowledge and hypotheses of the beginning of the 16th century.

Lit.: Fanthorpe, Lionel & Patricia. The worla greatest unsolved mysteries. Toronto, 1997, p. 1-6; Afetinan, A. The Oldest Map of America, Drawn by Piri Reis. Ankara, 1954; Hapgood, Charles. Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings: Evidence of Advanced Civilization in the Ice Age. NY, 1966 (Russian translation in the collection "Book of Secrets-5", M., 1994, pp. 3-132); Van de Waal, E. Manuscript Maps in the Topkapi Saray Library, Istanbul // Imago Mundi, Vol. 23, No. 1, 1969, p. 81-95; Davies, Paul. The Piri-Reis map: fact and fiction // Flying Saucer Review, 1972, Vol. 18, no. 2; Hess, Andrew. Piri Reis and the Ottoman Response to the Voyages of Discovery // Terrae Incognitae, Vol. 6, No. 1, 1974, p. 19-37; Heinrich, Paul. Fingerprints of the Gods [Electronic resource]. Access mode: http://www.intersurf.com/~chalcedony/FOG9.html; Steven Dutch [Electronic resource]. Access mode: https://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/pseudosc/piriries.htm; Bad Archeology [Electronic resource]. Access mode: http://www.badarchaeology.com/?page_id=969; Piri Reis map // Wikipedia [Electronic resource]. Access mode: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piri_Reis_map; Piri Reis. Kitab-i-Bahriye Archeology [Electronic resource]. Access mode: http://books.tr200.ru/v.php?id=2511117; Lobanov V., Chernikov D. The riddle of the Piri Reis maps // Tekhnika-molodezhi, 1961, No. 2, pp. 37-40; Tompkins P. Piri Reis and his modern interpreters // Tekhnika-molodezhi, 1968, No. 4, pp. 34-36; Eremin G., Grigoriev V. Piri Reis, Orontsy Finey and Co. // Technique-Youth, 1968, No. 5, pp. 28-30; Kamaletdinov Ahmed. Strokes to the portrait of Piri Reis - the great navigator and cartographer // Golden Spring, May-June 2008, pp. 12-15; Krupko Viktor. Why were they silent about the Piri Reis maps? // Anomaly (M.), July-September 1992; Ilyin Vadim. Riddles of the Ancients geographical maps// UFO (St. Petersburg), 2005, No. 6, p. 6.

In 1929, a map dated 1513 was discovered in one of the ancient palaces of Constantinople.
The map is a compilation work, in the preparation of which about 20 cartographic sources were used, including very ancient ones. Piri Reis directly indicates that the oldest maps of the populated world he used date back to the era of Alexander the Great, perhaps the author used some materials from the deceased Library of Alexandria. On the other hand, in the descriptions relating to the recently discovered South American lands, there are references to the evidence of Portuguese navigators - contemporaries of Piri Reis. There are also references to the use of a certain "Card of Columbus"; apparently, this is not a map made by Columbus himself or his associates, but an older map used by Columbus. Unfortunately, neither the book nor the map of Columbus has come down to us. But several sheets of the map from the Bahriye atlas miraculously survived and were published in Europe in 1811. But then they were not given much importance.

The Piri Reis map is currently in the Topkapı Palace Library in Istanbul, Turkey, but is not normally on display for the public.

What is the mystery of the Piri Reis map? Here are just some versions, as an answer to this question.

The first version is mysterious. The map accurately shows the coastline of Antarctica.
In 1953, an unidentified Turkish naval officer sent a copy of the Piri Reis map to the US Navy Hydrographic Bureau. There, the map fell into the hands of a cartographer by the name of Walters (M. I. Walters), who was required to establish the historical or practical value of the discovered artifact. To evaluate the map, Walters, as chief engineer of the bureau, sought the help of retired Captain Arlington Mallery (Arlington Humphrey Mallery), an expert on ancient maps who had previously worked with Walters. Mallery, having spent a lot of time, discovered which way map projection used on the map. To check the accuracy of the map, he made a grid and superimposed the Piri Reis map on the map of the world: the map was absolutely accurate. After his work, he stated that the only way to create a map of such accuracy is aerial photography. Also, to build a map of Piri Reis, you must have knowledge of spherical trigonometry, which was developed and described only in the 18th century.

The authenticity of the Piri Reis map was not in doubt. Graphological examination of marginal notes confirmed that they were made by the admiral's hand. The most mysterious is precisely the fact that the coast depicted on the map, according to Professor C. Hapgood, exactly corresponds to the coast of the subglacial part of the mainland, the shape of which became known only in the 1950s, after large-scale seismographic studies were carried out (a joint British-Swedish research expedition carried out an intensive seismic reconnaissance of the southernmost continent through the thickness of the ice cover). This judgment is supported by the conclusions of the US military, who studied the subglacial relief of Antarctica in the late 1950s, who, to Professor Hapgood's request regarding the correspondence between the image on the Piri Reis map and the real coast of the mainland, gave the following answer:
July 6, 1960
Subject: Admiral Piri Reis Map
To: Professor Charles H. Hapgood
Keene City College, Keene, New Hampshire
Dear Professor Hapgood,
Your request for an assessment of some of the unusual details on the 1513 Piri Reis map has been considered. The claim that the bottom of the map shows the Princess Martha Coast, Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica, and the Palmer Peninsula is reasonable. We believe that this conclusion is the most logical and, in all likelihood, the correct interpretation of the map.
At the bottom of the map, the geographic features show a very marked resemblance to seismic scan data from the Swedish-British Antarctic Expedition in 1959. geological relief under the glacier there. This indicates that the coast was mapped before it was covered with ice on top. The glacier in this region today is about a mile thick.
We have no idea how the data on this map can correlate with the estimated level of geographical knowledge in 1513.
- Harold Z. Ohlmeyer, Lieutenant Colonel, Commander, 8th Reconnaissance Squadron, USAF

The greatest number of disputes is caused by the presence in the lower part of the Piri Reis map of land, which is identified by the aforementioned Mullery and Hapgood with the coast of Antarctica, officially discovered only in 1820. However, there is no information about any detailed studies of Antarctica and South America in the XIV-XV centuries, the results of which could form the basis of the map. At the same time, the hypothetical coast of Antarctica on the map is connected to the coast of South America, that is, there is no Drake Strait (which in reality has a width of almost a thousand kilometers).

The version is described in detail.
At present, all the arguments both in favor of the opinion about the image of Antarctica on the Piri Reis map and against it are equally insufficiently convincing, primarily due to the great antiquity of this work and the lack of documentary evidence in sufficient quantities. All arguments and disputes are based only on common sense and assumptions.

The opinion that the map depicts Antarctica may be erroneous. This is confirmed by many inconsistencies with the modern geography of the area, which can be mistaken for inaccuracies in the map, in particular, in the part where South America is depicted: duplication of rivers, the absence of the Drake Passage between the southern tip of South America and the "non-freezing" (according to the image) Antarctica.
The “correspondence” itself raises additional questions.
First, the glacier constantly descends into the ocean and, by its movement, inevitably changes the relief of the mainland, leveling it and carrying detrital material into the ocean. Therefore, the modern under-ice relief should already be very different from the real ancient relief of the mainland before its glaciation.
Secondly, it is known that the mass of the ice sheet creates an additional load on the “light” continental crust, due to which it “sinks” deeper in the mantle substance than it should in the absence of this load. According to modern estimates, the continental plate of Antarctica is "drowned" down to depths of up to half a kilometer. Consequently, during the period when there was no ice in Antarctica, the coastline ran elsewhere, and part of the modern shelf was land. It is extremely doubtful that the coastline in this case corresponded to the modern subglacial relief.

An interesting fact is that the Chicago scientist Charles Hapgood, who thoroughly studied the Piri Reis map, is convinced that the center of the ancient map, which became the prototype of the admiral's map, was in Cairo, or its environs. That is, the ancient cartographers were the Egyptians who lived in Memphis, or their more ancient ancestors, who made this place a reference point.
Hapgood offers several possible explanations for the connection on the Piri Reis map of the coast of Antarctica and South America:
- In the southern part of the South American mainland, the Piri Reis map shows signs of duplication of the same area. It is possible that when the map was created by Piri Reis himself or, perhaps, by the author of one of the source maps, fragments of ancient maps depicting the same area were misunderstood as neighboring ones, as a result, a section of the South American coast up to 1500–2000 km long was duplicated. Thus, South America was "stretched" to the south just the width of the Drake Passage, or even more.
- The coasts could indeed be united by a glacier if the source from which this part of the map is copied falls during the cooling period, while the coast of Antarctica is depicted according to the map of the warm period.

Version two. On the map is the eastern coast of South America.

The Piri Reis map is one of the first to supposedly show the Americas.
It was compiled 21 years after the voyage of Columbus and the "official" discovery of America. And it marks not only the exact coastline, but also the rivers, and even the Andes. And this despite the fact that Columbus himself did not map America, having sailed only to the Caribbean!
The map of Piri Reis depicts, moreover, according to a number of researchers, quite accurately, real-life, but unknown at the time of its creation, geographical objects. In particular, the Andes are depicted in the depths of the South American continent, before the discovery of which there were several decades left, the islands shown off the coast of South America are well identified with the Falklands, also discovered only in the second half of the 16th century. The mouths of some rivers, in particular the Orinoco, are shown on the Piri Reis map with an "error": river deltas are not indicated. Perhaps this is not an error, but an expansion of the deltas over time, as happened with the Tigris and Euphrates in Mesopotamia in the last 3500 years.

The results of a close study of the depicted coast speak in favor of an alternative theory, according to which the “additional” land is just a part of the South American coast, probably studied by Portuguese navigators, but in the image it is highly distorted (curved to the right).

There are various comparative analysis matching the coastline of South America!

Piri Reis claimed that Columbus knew where he was sailing, thanks to a book that fell into his hands. The fact that Columbus's wife was the daughter of the Grand Master of the Order of the Templars, which had already changed its name by that time, had significant archives of ancient books and maps, indicates a possible way to acquire the mysterious book. There are many facts indirectly confirming that Columbus owned one of the maps that served as the source for the Piri Reis map. For example, Columbus did not stop the ships at night, as was customary because of the fear of running into reefs in unknown waters, but went under full sail, as if he knew for sure that there would be no obstacles. When a riot began on the ships due to the fact that the promised land was still not shown, he managed to convince the sailors to endure another 1000 miles and was not mistaken - exactly 1000 miles later the long-awaited shore appeared. Columbus carried a supply of glass ornaments with him, hoping to exchange them for gold from the Indians, as recommended in his book. Finally, each ship carried a sealed packet with instructions on what to do if the ships lost sight of each other during a storm. In a word, the discoverer of America knew well that he was not the first.
Version sources: https:// ru. wikipedia.org/wiki/Map_Piri Reis. http:// www. wikiwand.com/en/Map_Piri Reis

Version three. Map of the coastline of Central America.
If we take a closer look at the lands discovered by Columbus in his travels, we will see that the first three travels brought only the discovery of the islands. And only the fourth showed the coastline of Columbus, along which he followed for about 2000 kilometers.


Travel routes of Christopher Columbus

The fourth voyage, even, according to Columbus himself, was the most difficult of all he had seen. Constant storms and currents battered the flotilla, people were exhausted and angry at fate. However, despite all these difficulties, the mapping of the coastline was still carried out, and the data were entered in Columbus's personal diary, of which there are no traces, except for a copy of the ship's log, edited by Bartolomeo las Casas. However, not everything was recorded in the ship's log.
Consider carefully the coastline traced by Columbus on his last voyage.

Let's turn our attention to the east coast of Central America, including Panama, Honduras and Yucatan. A more detailed study turns out that this coast is the very unknown part of the H. Columbus map, which he used when compiling his own Piri Reis map. In this case, the gaps in the last journey of Columbus himself are also clarified. It turns out that the Genoese explored part of the coast of Yucatan, then, as is known from official chronicles, he rounded Honduras and, following along Panama, turned to Jamaica, where he ran aground the remaining ships that had become unusable. Here he wrote several letters. One of them was intended for Nicholas de Ovando, the governor of Fr. Espanyol asking for help. The rest carried information about open lands and were intended for the monarchs of Spain. The letters were sent with two confidants who, with the help of the Indians, having covered about two hundred kilometers water spaces on pirogues, two weeks later, they successfully reached the shores of Hispaniola. And only a year later, Ovando, under pressure from the public, deigned to agree to organize a rescue mission. The further fate of Columbus is known to us. However, it is not clear how the map compiled by the Genoese fell into the hands of Reiss? There are many options here. Columbus himself, enraged at the treachery of the Spanish monarch, could also convey it. The map, along with a cargo of valuable documents and jewelry, heading to Rome on two papal galleys in 1505, could have been captured by the militants of Kemal Reis, or the corsairs of Barbarossa. But, one way or another, she still ended up in the hands of a no less skilled navigator and cartographer than Columbus himself.

Reis himself wrote in his notes that he scaled all the pieces of maps used, bringing them to a single size. However, one small but very important inconsistency remains. On the map of Piri Reis, the coast of Central America, represented by Columbus, is located at the longitude of modern South America! And the size of the coast is commensurate only with a large mainland than Panama, Honduras and Yucatan combined! It is possible that Piri Reis used data on South America, superimposing a map of Central America from Columbus on its location, using distorted evidence (fortunately, it is not surprising to confuse these outlines, given their comparability at that time).
Only one Columbus until the “last” considered the lands he discovered - India, depicting the fauna corresponding to the place on his map. But Piri Reis, without suspecting anything, took and exactly copied all the features of the Genoese map when compiling his own ???

Version four. India.
Eratosthenes, the first of the scientists of antiquity, using the gnomon and applying the similarity of triangles, calculated the circumference of our planet and its radius. There is also a map of the world belonging to his hand. Eratosthenes in his "Geography" determined the circumference of the spherical Earth at 252 thousand stadia, i.e., 39,590 km, which differs from the true circumference of the globe along the equator by only 410 km. It is difficult to determine how close these estimates are to reality, since it is not known which stage Eratosthenes used...
Map of Eratosthenes. Eratosthenes partially drew the data for compiling the map from the already known voyage of Nearchus along the coast of Southeast Asia, as well as the voyages of Pytheas and Hanno.


Concepts of the world from Eratosthenes

It is on the map of Eratosthenes that India is shown turned counterclockwise so that the Great Ganges flows straight into the Pacific Ocean! At this point, it can be assumed that Piri Reis painted India and China in the western part, using information from the Library of Alexandria from Eratosthenes and not thinking about any New World! Indeed, when drawing together-overlaying the contours of the mainland taken from the western part of the map of the Turkish admiral on the map of modern Southeast Asia, an interesting coincidence of the outlines of the coastal contour is obtained. But naturally, all with the same inevitable loss of individual islands and with the distortion of a significant part of the mainland itself, which is fully explained by the inaccuracy of the drawing and the incompleteness of knowledge about the lands in the Middle Ages. The issue with the island on the map of Piri Reis also becomes clear. According to the maps of P. Toscanelli and his follower M. Beheim, it is very likely that this island is nothing more than Sipangu - Japan. The concept of Sipangu came to us from the descriptions of the travels of Marco Polo, who explored Central Asia in the 13th century, being in the service of Khan Kublai for a long time. It was Sipangu, the island of fabulous wealth, that H. Columbus was looking for when discovering new lands, since he was completely sure that he was located near the regions of Asia described by Mark Polo.

Combination of the coastline of the Piri Reis map with the area of ​​the modern coast of Indochina (by Varyag)

Well, finally, the mystery of the Piri Reis map, which has tormented everyone for so long, is resolved !? However, it is too early to draw conclusions!

There is a question with a coordinate binding?
Looking at the map of Piri Reis, it is striking that the parallels are not indicated on it latitudes and longitude. We see rumba!

We will consider this issue in the next section. To be continued...