NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Old maps
From: George Huxtable
Date: 2009 May 8, 15:47 +0100
From: George Huxtable
Date: 2009 May 8, 15:47 +0100
Marcel Tschudin was writing about the map by Turkish Admiral Piri Re'is, which has an accepted date of 1513, though I don't know on what basis that dating was made. Its most convincing feature (perhaps its only convincing feature) is the way it shows the bulge of Brazil. But if that date is correct, that coast had already been noted, around 1500, by Vespucci and Cabral, and the map could represent real knowledge of its time. It appears to be an authentic and interesting document, which has been considerably tarnished, through no fault of its own, by fantasies built upon it, by those such as Hapgood, the book from the 1960's referred to by Marcil Tschudin (which I haven't read), and by "1421- the year China discovered the world", a bag of hokum by Gavin Menzies, (which I have). Marcel mentions longitude. Vespucci tried to determine longitude (by an eclipse?), but got things hopelessly wrong, because predictions of the Moon weren't up to it. Longitudes had to be deduced from dead-reckoning of the number of Westerly days sailing. Latitudes should have been easy, though Columbus made a hash, even of those. George. contact George Huxtable, at george@hux.me.uk or at +44 1865 820222 (from UK, 01865 820222) or at 1 Sandy Lane, Southmoor, Abingdon, Oxon OX13 5HX, UK. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Navigation List archive: www.fer3.com/arc To post, email NavList@fer3.com To , email NavList-@fer3.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
