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The Piri Reis map is a world map compiled in 1513 by the Ottoman admiral and cartographer Piri Reis. Approximately one third of the map survives, housed in the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul. When rediscovered in 1929, the remaining fragment garnered international attention as it includes a partial copy of an otherwise lost map by Christopher Columbus. The map is a portolan chart with compass roses and a windrose network for navigation, rather than lines of longitude and latitude. It contains extensive notes primarily in Ottoman Turkish. The depiction of South America is detailed and accurate for its time. Scholars attribute the peculiar arrangement of the Caribbean to a now-lost map from Columbus that depicted Cuba as part of the Asian mainland and Hispaniola according to Marco Polo's description of Japan. The southern coast of the Atlantic Ocean is widely accepted to be a version of Terra Australis. The map is visually distinct from European portolan charts, populated by Islamic miniatures. The map was unusual in the Islamic cartographic tradition for incorporating many non-Muslim sources. Historian Karen Pinto has described the combination of legendary creatures from the edge of the known world with positive portrayals as challenging the medieval Islamic idea of an "inhabited quarter" of the world surrounded by an impassable Encircling Ocean. There are conflicting interpretations of the map. Scholarly debate exists over the specific sources used in the map's creation and the number of source maps. Many areas on the map have not been conclusively identified with real or mythical places. Some authors have noted visual similarities to parts of the Americas not officially discovered by 1513, but there is no textual or historical evidence that the map represents land south of present-day Cananéia. A disproven 20th-century hypothesis identified the southern landmass with an ice-free Antarctic coast. History Much of Piri Reis's biography is known only from his cartographic works, including his two world maps and the Kitab-ı Bahriye (Book of Maritime Matters) completed in 1521. He sailed with his uncle Kemal Reis as a Barbary pirate until Kemal Reis received an official position in the Ottoman Navy in 1494. In one naval battle, Piri Reis and his uncle captured a Spaniard who had participated in Columbus's voyages, and who likely possessed an early map of the Americas that Piri Reis would use as a source. When his uncle died in 1511, Piri Reis temporarily retired to Gallipoli and began composing his first world map. The finished manuscript was dated to the month of Muharram in the Islamic year 919 AH, equivalent to 1513 AD. Piri Reis returned to the navy and played a role in the 1517 conquest of Egypt. After the Ottoman victory, Piri Reis presented the 1513 world map to Ottoman Sultan Selim I (r. 1512–1520). It is unknown how Selim used the map, if at all, as it would vanish from history until its rediscovery centuries later. Scholars unearthed a fragment of the map in late 1929. During the conversion of the Topkapı Palace into a museum, the Director of National Museums Dr. Halil Edhem Eldem invited German theologian Gustav Adolf Deissmann to tour its library. Deissmann persuaded the Rockefeller Foundation to fund a project to preserve ancient manuscripts from the library. Halil Edhem gave Deissmann unprecedented access to the library's collection of non-Islamic items. Deissmann confirmed the collection to have been the vast private library of Mehmed II (r. 1444–1481) and—based on Mehmed II's interest in geography—asked Halil Edhem to search for potentially overlooked maps. Halil Edhem located a disregarded bundle of material containing an unusual parchment map. They showed the parchment to the orientalist Paul E. Kahle, who identified the map as a creation of Piri Reis citing a source map from Colombus's voyages to the Americas. Kahle, and later scholars analyzing the map, found the evidence supports an early origin in the voyages of Columbus. The discovery of the only surviving piece of an otherwise lost map of Christopher Columbus received international media attention. Turkey's first president, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, took an interest in the map and initiated projects to publish copies and to conduct further research. Description Kept in the Topkapı Palace Museum, the map is the remaining western third of a world map drawn on gazelle-skin parchment approximately 87 cm × 63 cm. The surviving portion shows the Atlantic Ocean with the coasts of Europe, Africa, and South America. The map is a portolan chart, as shown by the compass roses from which lines of bearing radiate. Designed for navigation, portolan charts use a windrose network rather than a longitude and latitude grid. There are extensive notes within the map. Written with the Arabic alphabet, the inscriptions are in Ottoman Turkish except for the colophon. Places The remaining third of the map focuses on the Atlantic and the Americas. In the top left corner, the Caribbean is arranged unlike modern or contemporary maps. The large island oriented vertically is labeled Hispaniola, and the western coast includes elements of Cuba and Central America. Inscriptions on South America and the Southern Continent cite recent Portuguese voyages. The distance between Brazil and Africa is roughly correct, and the Atlantic islands are drawn consistent with European portolan charts. Many places on the map have been identified as phantom islands or have not been identified conclusively. İle Verde (Green Island) north of Hispaniola could refer to many islands. The large island in the Atlantic, İzle de Vaka (Ox island), corresponds to no known real or fictional island. Both an Atlantic island and the mainland of the Americas are referred to as the legendary Antilia. Sources According to the map's legend, it was based on: Twenty charts and Mappae Mundi Eight Jaferiyes (Geographia or Jughrafiya) An Arabic map of India Four newly drawn Portuguese maps of Asia A map by Christopher Columbus of the West Indies There is some scholarly debate over the various sources. In the modern sense, mappae mundi refer to medieval Christian schematic maps of the world. In the fifteenth century, the term was also literally used to describe world maps, and it is possible the source maps fit in that broader definition. The Jaferiyes are seen by scholars as a corruption of the Arabic Jughrafiya, most often taken to mean the Geographia of Claudius Ptolemy. They may also refer to the largely symbolic world maps of medieval Islamic cartography. Descended from classical scholarship, these treatises sometimes used the loanword jughrafiya in their titles. The Arabic and the four Portuguese source maps have not been conclusively identified but have been associated with several notable maps of the period. Finally, there is debate on the total number of source documents. Some scholars interpret the "20 charts and mappae mundi" in the inscriptions as in.... Discover the Reily Garrett popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Reily Garrett books.