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According to its Turkish cartographer Piri Reis, the north-western region of his1513 world map was based on a chart from Columbus. Although commonly considered to represent Caribbean shorelines, we proposed, in a paper published in 2004 in the Journal of Spatial Science (1), that this part of the map was earlier derived from ancient charts drawn by sea mariners from the far east. The text of a similar account delivered to a meeting in 2004 held in Istanbul by SHODB (Turkish Department of Navigation, Hydrography and Oceanography) to celebrate the life of Piri Reis is available as a pdf file (621KB) from our web site (2).
Using computer-assisted superpositions (over plate-carrée map projections) we showed that the western mainland (named “Antilia” on the map) is probably the shorelines of East Asia from Kamchatka (around the 60 degree north parallel) to the western shorelines of Borneo (with an omission of the shorelines of Indo China) when sea level was lowered by around 90m. The latter corresponds to a period when there was a rapid rise in sea level known as the “Melt Water Pulse 1A”, circa 12, 300 BCE. A corollary of our identification is that the original mapmakers could also draw maps similar to those using plate-carrée projections.
The identified islands in the north-western area of the map however appear to originate from a later period, probably in the Holocene. The map is the only map in which both the mainland and an island are both named “Antilia”. We concluded that the island of “Antilia” is Taiwan but it depicts some shorelines from Puerto Rico, circa 5000 BCE. The name “Antilia” is written on the mainland near where Taiwan around 12, 300 BCE, was a peninsula (rather than an island).
Along the 12,300 BCE mainland's shoreline, adjacent to the Taiwanese peninsula proper, is depicted the finger shaped peninsula of Baja California (also when sea level was lower). Baja California, like Taiwan, is located on the Tropic of Cancer. We concluded that Baja California was added to the east coast of China as the Taiwanese Peninsula. This, although erroneous, supports the proposal that ancient sea mariners not only visited but also probably charted parts of the west coast of North America.
As the shorelines of 12, 300 BCE are now submerged by around 90m it is not surprising that archaeological supporting evidence is lacking. However, on the basis of a report that indicated a gouge used for boat-making was found at the archaeological site (dated circa 11, 000 BCE) of Kakoinihara, on the island of Kyushu (an island located opposite the Korean peninsula on the Piri Reis map), we speculated as to whether the original cartographers were incipient Jomon from Japan.
1. R., Bywater & J.-P., Lacroix, Ancient East Asian Shorelines in the Northwestern Region of the Piri Reis Chart of 1513 Journal of Spatial Science 49 (1). 13- 23, 2004.
2. http://www.ancientcartography.net/PiriReis/PiriReis.pdf
Jean-Pierre Lacroix
[email protected]
Robert Bywater
[email protected]
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