The Piri Reis map is a world map created in 1513 by the Ottoman admiral and mapmaker Piri Reis. About one-third of the map remains today and is kept in the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul. After the Ottoman Empire conquered Egypt in 1517, Piri Reis gave the 1513 map to Sultan Selim I, who ruled from 1512 to 1520. It is not known how Sultan Selim used the map, if he did at all. The map was lost for many years until it was discovered again in 1929. When found, the remaining piece caught international attention because it includes a partial copy of a map that was otherwise lost, made by Christopher Columbus.

The map is a type of navigation map with compass roses and a windrose network to help with sailing, rather than using lines of longitude and latitude. It has many notes written mostly in Ottoman Turkish. The map shows South America in a detailed and accurate way for its time. The northwestern coast combines parts of Central America and Cuba into one landmass. Scholars believe this unusual arrangement of the Caribbean islands comes from a lost map by Columbus, which merged Cuba with the Asian mainland and linked Hispaniola with Marco Polo’s description of Japan. This reflects Columbus’s mistaken belief that he had found a route to Asia. The southern coast of the Atlantic Ocean is likely a version of a mythical land called Terra Australis.

The map looks different from European navigation maps and is influenced by the Islamic miniature art style. It was unusual for Islamic maps to include many sources from non-Muslim traditions. Historian Karen Pinto noted that the map’s depiction of mythical creatures in the Americas breaks away from the medieval Islamic idea of an impassable "Encircling Ocean" that surrounded the Old World.

There are different opinions about the map. Scholars debate which maps were used to create it and how many sources were involved. Some areas on the map have not been clearly linked to real or mythical places. Some authors have pointed out visual similarities to parts of the Americas that were not officially discovered by 1513. However, there is no written or historical proof that the map shows land south of present-day Cananéia. A 20th-century idea that the southern landmass was an ice-free Antarctic coast has been proven incorrect.

History

Piri Reis is best known through his maps and writings, such as 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 pirate from North Africa until 1495, when Kemal Reis joined the Ottoman Navy. During a naval battle, Piri Reis and his uncle captured a Spanish sailor who had sailed with Christopher Columbus. This sailor likely had a map of the Americas, which Piri Reis later used as a reference. After Kemal Reis died in 1511, Piri Reis retired to Gallipoli and began creating his first world map. The completed map was dated to the month of Muharram in the Islamic year 919 AH, which is equivalent to 1513 AD. Piri Reis returned to the navy and helped during the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517. After the victory, he gave the 1513 map to Sultan Selim I, who ruled from 1512 to 1520. It is unknown whether Selim used the map, as it disappeared from history until it was found again centuries later.

In late 1929, scholars discovered a piece of the map during work at the Topkapı Palace. Dr. Halil Edhem Eldem, the Director of National Museums, invited German scholar Gustav Adolf Deissmann to examine the palace’s library. Deissmann convinced the Rockefeller Foundation to fund the preservation of ancient manuscripts. Halil Edhem allowed Deissmann to study non-Islamic items in the library, which were later identified as the private collection of Sultan Mehmed II, who was interested in geography. Deissmann asked Halil Edhem to search for maps, and he found a bundle of materials containing a parchment map. The map was shown to Paul E. Kahle, an expert in oriental studies, who identified it as a work by Piri Reis. Kahle and later scholars found evidence that the map used a source from Columbus’s voyages to the Americas. The discovery of a surviving piece of a map linked to Columbus received international attention. Turkey’s first president, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, became interested in the map and supported efforts to publish copies and study it further.

Description

The map is kept in the Topkapı Palace Museum. It is the remaining western third of a world map made on gazelle-skin parchment, measuring about 87 cm × 63 cm. The visible part shows the Atlantic Ocean and the coasts of Europe, Africa, and South America. The map is a type of navigation map called a portolan chart. It has compass roses, from which lines showing directions spread out. Portolan charts help sailors navigate by estimating position, not using longitude and latitude lines. The map has many written notes. These notes are written in the Arabic alphabet and in Ottoman Turkish, except for the colophon. The colophon is written in Arabic and uses a different handwriting style than the other notes. It was likely written by Piri Reis himself, not by a professional calligrapher.

The remaining part of the map shows the Atlantic Ocean and the Americas. In the top left corner, the Caribbean is drawn differently from modern maps. A large vertical island labeled Hispaniola is shown, and the western coast includes parts of Cuba and Central America. Notes on South America and the Southern Continent mention recent Portuguese voyages. The distance between Brazil and Africa is roughly accurate, and the Atlantic islands match European portolan charts.

Many places on the map have been identified as phantom islands or remain unconfirmed. İle Verde (Green Island) north of Hispaniola could refer to several islands. A large Atlantic island called İzle de Vaka (Ox Island) does not match any known real or fictional island. Both an Atlantic island and the Americas’ mainland are labeled as the legendary Antilia.

According to the map’s legend, it was based on several sources. Scholars debate the exact origins of these sources. In modern terms, "mappae mundi" refers to medieval Christian world maps. In the 15th century, the term also described actual world maps, which may include the maps used as sources. The term "Jaferiyes" is thought by scholars to be a variation of the Arabic word "Jughrafiya," which usually refers to Claudius Ptolemy’s Geographia. Ptolemy’s work was widely printed in the 16th century, along with maps by Nicolaus Germanus and Maximus Planudes. "Jaferiyes" may also refer to symbolic world maps from medieval Islamic cartography, which sometimes used the word "jughrafiya" in their titles. The Arabic and four Portuguese source maps have not been definitively identified but are linked to famous maps from the same period. Scholars also disagree about how many source maps were used. Some believe the mention of "20 charts and mappae mundi" includes other maps, while others think it refers to 30 or 34 maps in total.

Analysis

Compared to Islamic maps from the same time, this map shows unusual knowledge of places discovered by other cultures. During the Age of Discovery, European explorers traveled far and learned about new lands, changing old ideas about the parts of the world that were known, similar to the Greek concept of the "inhabited world." People in the Ottoman Empire had different views about the Age of Discovery, ranging from not caring much to strongly opposing foreign influence.

Piri Reis combined old beliefs with new discoveries by making the new knowledge seem less surprising. He used writing techniques to describe European explorations as rediscoveries of ancient knowledge. He referenced Dhu al-Qarnayn, a figure believed to be Alexander the Great in the Quran, in writings about Christopher Columbus. According to the Quran and Turkish traditions, Alexander the Great traveled to all parts of the world, defining its edges. One note on the map calls world maps "charts made during Alexander’s time." Another note says Columbus received a book describing lands "at the end of the Western Sea." In the 1526 version of Piri Reis’s atlas, the Kitab-ı Bahriye, he clearly said European discoveries were based on lost works from Alexander’s legendary journeys.

Compared to older maps called portolan charts, this map shows slow progress. Portuguese maps from that time, like the 1502 Cantino Planisphere, were similar. Compared to the Cantino Planisphere and an earlier map by Juan de la Cosa (1500), this map accurately shows the Atlantic Ocean and South America but has strange details about the Caribbean. As part of growing mapmaking in the 1500s, this map was soon improved upon. Piri Reis’s 1528 map had a more detailed and accurate version of the New World. Although some say this map had unusual accuracy, Gregory McIntosh compared it to other maps from the same time and found:

The Piri Reis map is not the most accurate map of the 1500s, as some have claimed. Many other world maps made in the remaining 87 years of that century were far more accurate. Examples include the Ribeiro maps from the 1520s and 1530s, the Ortelius map of 1570, and the Wright-Molyneux map of 1599 ("the best map of the 1500s").

Iconography

Piri Reis’s use of many foreign sources was unusual in the Ottoman Empire. After the fall of Constantinople, Sultan Mehmed II started a project to copy traditional Islamic maps from the Book of Roads and Kingdoms. Piri Reis used symbols and images from these traditional maps—such as well-known routes, cities, and people—in his detailed maps of newly discovered coastlines.

Piri Reis gave a different explanation for the word "Ocean," saying it came from the Latin phrase "Ovo Sano," meaning "sound egg." However, the widely accepted explanation is that "Ocean" comes from the ancient Greek word "Oceanus," referring to a river that surrounded the world. Historian Svat Soucek called the "sound egg" idea simple. Historian Karen Pinto suggested that this explanation makes sense when considering how Islamic culture viewed the deep seas. Most medieval maps had a standard design, showing a round "inhabited world" separated from Mount Qaf by an unpassable Encircling Ocean. Pinto noted that Piri Reis updated this model by showing the Old World—including the ocean—as a large lake surrounded by the shores of the New World. The Ottoman miniatures on the map reflect these new ideas and changes in culture.

The western edge of the map shows strange creatures from medieval maps and books. Among the mountains in South America, a headless man is shown interacting with a monkey. Headless men, called Blemmyes, were often shown in medieval maps as dangerous. In Islamic culture, monkeys were seen as bad omens. The map’s caption says these creatures are "harmless souls," which is different from earlier maps that showed them as threats. Pinto explained that this map breaks from older traditions, which warned that the Encircling Ocean was full of dangerous creatures and should not be crossed. Other creatures on the map, like a dog-faced man, a one-horned creature, and a horned beast, come from ancient texts like Natural History by Pliny the Elder and Arabic and Persian bestiaries. A multi-horned creature on the map’s bottom edge might represent the shadhavar, a mythical beast said to make music when wind passes through its hollow horns.

Caribbean

The Caribbean islands and the coastline in the northwest corner of the map are thought to be based on a lost map made by Christopher Columbus or with his guidance. The western coast on the map shows a mix of features from Central America and Cuba, which supports Columbus's belief that Cuba was part of Asia. In 1494, during his exploration of Cuba, Columbus strongly insisted that he had reached Asia. He had a group of officials on each of his ships anchored off the coast to confirm this. Columbus made his crew swear that Cuba was part of Asia and promised they would never say otherwise, with a penalty of 10,000 maravedis and the punishment of having their tongues cut out. The mainland in the far northwest is labeled with names from Columbus's voyages along Cuba's coasts. For example, a section of the coast is labeled "Ornofay," as recorded by Columbus, but this name appears on no other maps.

Some unique features of the Caribbean are linked to Columbus. For example, the island of Hispaniola on the map is shown stretching from north to south. Columbus used a map created by Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli, which showed open ocean, a mythical land called Antilia, and a place called Cipangu (Japan, as described by Marco Polo) between Europe and Asia. The shape and position of Hispaniola on the map are similar to how Cipangu appeared on other maps of the time. On December 26, 1492, the day after Columbus landed at La Navidad on Hispaniola’s northern coast, he wrote in his diary about "Cipango, which the native people call Cibao" on the island of Española. The lack of the Gulf of Gonâve on the map is another clue pointing to Columbus’s influence, as he did not explore the western side of Hispaniola. According to Gregory McIntosh, the coastlines near Cabo Falso in Pedernales match most closely with Columbus’s maps. The island near Cabo Falso is labeled with a Turkish name for Alto Velo Island, which Columbus explored and named during his second voyage in August 1494. The peninsulas shown extending from Puerto Rico are not real but also appear on the map made by Juan de la Cosa, who sailed with Columbus. İle Bele near Puerto Rico may be Vieques, which Columbus named "Gratiosa," meaning "graceful."

Scholars disagree about how much of the map was influenced by Columbus. Kahle and many later researchers believe that everything north and west of the mythical island Antilia comes from Columbus’s maps. However, Soucek questioned this claim, which included parts of South America. McIntosh found that Cuba, Central America, the Bahamas, and Hispaniola clearly match an early map from Columbus, but the Lesser Antilles, especially the Virgin Islands, are not clearly connected to his maps.

Southern Continent

The Southern Continent, which stretches across the Atlantic Ocean, is most likely Terra Australis. Some writers have suggested it shows parts of South America that were not officially discovered in 1513, and a popular but incorrect idea claimed it was Antarctica. Maps from that time often showed this imagined southern land in different shapes. The Roman geographer Ptolemy first proposed this land as a balance to the large land areas already known.

As explorers studied the Southern Hemisphere, the possible size of Terra Australis changed. Places like Tierra del Fuego and New Holland were first mapped as the northern edge of this unknown land. As these areas were explored, Terra Australis became smaller, less clear, and appeared in stories and books, such as Gulliver's Travels and La Terre Australe Connue. Belief in the Southern Continent faded after James Cook’s second voyage in the 1770s showed it was much smaller than previously thought. The first confirmed landing on Antarctica happened during the First Russian Antarctic Expedition in 1820, and the coast of Queen Maud Land was not widely explored until Norwegian expeditions began in 1891.

The southernmost clearly shown feature on the map is a part of Brazil’s coastline, including Cabo Frio (called Kav Friyo on the map), possibly the earliest drawing of Rio de Janeiro, and likely the area around Cananéia, labeled Katino. This information came from recent Portuguese voyages, and the farthest south shown on Portuguese maps was Cananéia, as described by Amerigo Vespucci, at 25 degrees south. Beyond this point, the coast turns sharply east. Some modern writers think this coastline matches South America, either drawn along the map’s edge or adjusted to move east of the line of demarcation. A map expert named Svat Soucek noted that the map’s parchment curves near South America, and it was common for mapmakers to change a coastline’s direction to fit the space available. An Italian expert, Diego Cuoghi, explained that Piri Reis often referenced Portuguese maps, and Portuguese mapmakers likely wanted the coast south of Brazil to turn sharply to the right. This identification depends on how the map’s shapes look similar to modern maps of the Río de la Plata, San Matías Gulf, Valdés Peninsula, and the Atlantic opening of the Strait of Magellan. However, there is no proof Piri Reis knew these places, and no text on the map supports this. For example, the large snakes shown on the map, like those in the Boidae family, are not found that far south in Patagonia.

The idea that the map shows Antarctica began with Captain Arlington H. Mallery, a civil engineer and amateur archaeologist who believed in theories about ancient people traveling across oceans before Columbus. Mallery used a grid system to reposition the map’s coordinates and claimed the reconstructed maps were as accurate as modern ones. Mallery’s ideas became widely known in 1956 when Georgetown University broadcast a discussion between him and other experts. Inspired by Mallery, historian Charles Hapgood wrote a 1966 book, Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings, suggesting that an unknown ancient civilization explored the world, based on Renaissance and medieval maps. Hapgood’s book was criticized for lacking evidence and relying on the idea of Earth’s poles shifting. Hapgood admitted his theory ignored some text and landmass placements on the map, such as labeling an island as half of Cuba instead of Hispaniola, and noted that this showed how little Piri Reis understood his own map.

Hapgood and his students helped spread the idea that the Piri Reis map shows Antarctica as it looked during the Neolithic period, without glaciers. Two letters in Hapgood’s book expressed hope this was true, based on a 1949 survey of Queen Maud Land. However, a geologist named Paul Heinrich pointed out that this mistake confused Antarctica’s ice-covered landscape with a hypothetical ice-free version, ignoring how land rises after glaciers melt. The 1949 survey could not measure even 1% of the area shown on the Piri Reis map. Later studies with more data found no clear similarities between the map and Antarctica’s ice-free coast or its current coastline.

Hapgood wrongly believed Antarctica was ice-free 17,000 years ago and partially ice-free as recently as 4,000 years ago. This timeline could have placed Antarctica’s mapping near the time of many ancient societies. However, recent ice core data shows Antarctica was last ice-free over ten million years ago. Writers like Erich von Daniken, Donald Keyhoe, and Graham Hancock repeated Hapgood’s claims without proof, using them to support ideas about ancient astronauts, flying saucers, and a lost civilization like Atlantis.