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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Old maps
From: Wolfgang K�berer
Date: 2009 May 8, 17:33 +0200
From: Wolfgang K�berer
Date: 2009 May 8, 17:33 +0200
There is an excellent book about the Piri Reis Map by Gregory McIntosh, The Piri Reis map of 1513, Athens, Georgia 2000, dealing with just about every aspect of the map. It is still available (ca. USD 40). On the web you will also find the older book by A. Afetinan: http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/mapas_pirireis/esp_mapaspirireis09.htm which is not nearly as exhaustive. The person who first idetified the map, Paul Kahle, has also published a few works trying to prove that one could "reconstruct" the Columbus map through it; this theory hasn't received a lot of acclaim, though. The claim that Vespucci first determined longitude by means of the moon has been thoroughly demolished by Hermann Wagner (Die Legende der L�ngenbestimmung Vespuccis nach Mondabst�nden, in: Nachrichten der K�niglichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu G�ttingen, Math.-phys. Klasse 1917, 264 - 298), but an italian jesuit (and astronomer) still maintains that Vespucci was the first person using lunar distances for finding longitude (Stein, J.W., Esame critico alla scoperta di Vespucci circa la determinazione delle longitudini in mare mediante le distanze lunari, in: Memorie della Societ� Astronomica Italiana, Vol. 21 (1950), 345 - 353). The interesting thing is that there is a consensus that Johann Werner first proposed this method in 1514, i.e. years after Vespucci's alleged first use of the method. Dr. Wolfgang K�berer Wolfsgangstr. 92 D-60322 Frankfurt am Main Tel: + 49 69 95520851 Fax: + 49 69 558400 e-mail: koeberer@navigationsgeschichte.de -----Urspr�ngliche Nachricht----- Von: NavList@fer3.com [mailto:NavList@fer3.com] Im Auftrag von George Huxtable Gesendet: Freitag, 8. Mai 2009 16:47 An: NavList@fer3.com Betreff: [NavList 8195] Re: Old maps 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---