Enigma of the Piri Reis Map

Islam and the culture of the Middle East are inextricably entwined and in the minds of many Westerners inseparable.  It is a sad reflection then that the reputation of both Islam and Middle Eastern culture has been reduced to the visage of the fundamentalist terrorist and their actions.   

The history and culture of the Middle East extends over millennia and includes many tribal traditions and faiths as well as the ancient history of Judaism, the early stirrings of Christianity and a thousand years of Islam. 

I am neither an historian nor anthropologist.  I have never been to the Middle East nor had many contacts with people from that region.  Like everyone else I only know what I can see on the news, read in the newspaper or learn from books and documentaries. 

From these sources I understand that the growth of Islam brought with it the development of a culturally rich society that expressed itself in impressive architecture, art and science. 

 

“A century after the death of Muhammad, an Islamic empire extended from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to Central Asia in the east. The subsequent empires of the Umayyads, Abbasids, the Fatimids, the Mughals, the Safavids, and Ottomans were among the largest and most powerful in the world. The Islamic civilization gave rise to many centers of culture and science and produced notable scientists, astronomers, mathematicians, doctors, nurses and philosophers during the Golden Age of Islam. Technology flourished; there was much investment in economic infrastructure, such as irrigation systems and canals; and especially, the importance of reading the Qur’an produced a comparatively high level of literacy in the general populace.”                               

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_history

Today we have many impressive artefacts of antiquity from that time. There are still in existence a variety of  ancient maps created by the Islamic mariners that document in great detail the regions of exploration and conquest. Many of these ancient maps are accredited to Piri Reis including the enigmatic map that shows the coast line of Antarctica.   Enigmatic because no human has ever seen this coast line which has been hidden by millions of years of ice.  With out the use of modern satellite technology it is impossible to map the hidden Antarctic coast line and yet this ancient map does just that.

 

 

 

 

 

The following is an article from an excellent web site called 

 

WORLD-MYSTERIES.COM

url:   http://www.world-mysteries.com/new_sar_1.shtml

 

In 1929, a group of historians found an amazing map drawn on a gazelle skin.

Research showed that it was a genuine document drawn in 1513 by Piri Reis, a famous admiral of the Turkish fleet in the sixteenth century.  

His passion was cartography. His high rank within the Turkish navy allowed him to have a privileged access to the Imperial Library of Constantinople.

The Turkish admiral admits in a series of notes on the map that he compiled and copied the data from a large number of source maps, some of which dated back to
the fourth century BC or earlier.  

The Controversy 

The Piri Reis map shows the western coast of Africa, the eastern coast of South America, and the northern coast of Antarctica. The northern coastline of Antarctica is perfectly detailed. The most puzzling however is not so much how Piri Reis managed to draw such an accurate map of the Antarctic region 300 years before it was discovered, but that the map shows the coastline under the ice. Geological evidence confirms that the latest date Queen Maud Land could have been charted in an ice-free state is 4000 BC. 

The official science has been saying all along that the ice-cap which covers the Antarctic is million years old.
The Piri Reis map shows that the northern part of that continent has been mapped before the ice did cover it. That should make think it has been mapped million years ago, but that’s impossible since mankind did not exist at that time.

Further and more accurate studies have proven that the last period of ice-free condition in the Antarctic ended about 6000 years ago. There are still doubts about the beginning of this ice-free period, which has been put by different researchers everything between year 13000 and 9000 BC.
The question is: Who mapped the Queen Maud Land of Antarctic 6000 years ago? Which unknown civilization had the technology or the need to do that?

It is well-known that the first civilization, according to the traditional history, developed in the mid-east around year 3000 BC, soon to be followed within a millennium by the Indus valley and the Chinese ones. So, accordingly, none of the known civilizations could have done such a job. Who was here 4000 years BC, being able to do things that NOW are possible with the modern technologies?

Thoughts on 9/11 28 April 2009

When I first realised the date of September 11 and the number for emergency services was the same 911, I was cynical and thought this was a sadistic choice, mocking the many who would die in the attack and those left grieving. However, perhaps this is not the case. Since September 11th, 2001 I have tried to imagine what it was like to be one of the terrorists. Since I am a middle aged white woman, of no faith and living in Britain; and they were young, middle Eastern men, committed to Islam, my understanding is going to be limited.

First of all I imagine a group of handsome young men, healthy, intelligent and normal. They enjoy life, they have friends and family, jobs, careers and even children. They are worldly. They have lived in the middle east and in the West, America, Europe, England. They were brought up in the Islamic faith and probably were read the Koran while sitting on the laps of their fathers and Uncles, attended Mosque for prayers when they could just barely walk and learned to love the teachings of Islam and respect the traditions and values of their families. As they grew older they would have learned there are millions that follow Islam and billions that didn’t and tolerance for those of other faiths from the pages of the Koran and the teachings of wise Immans. In adolescence their sense of self would have been inflamed by strong patriotic and cultural values as they learned about dubiously moral America and its apparent aggressive attempts to obtain much needed oil supplies from the middle east. Somewhere along the line they succumbed to influence, an influence that told them that the long held interpretation and peaceful traditions of their Islamic family were wrong, that violence was not only permissible but would be rewarded.

However, a life time of teaching can not be so easily over thrown. As the young men sat around discussing how they would carry out the terrorist act, what would happen and what there role was, they knew beyond word of a doubt this was their death sentence. Whether they would die as martyrs or be shot as terrorists, they would surely die once the planes hit. Contemplating the end of their own lives they must have turned to that faith and those teaching they learned at the knee of their parents and sustained the beating heart of their family. Surely in that moment they knew, as sure as they were born, that the Koran has never supported the violence they were about to perpetrate. It is an offence against God and akin to spitting on the blessed text of the Koran, thrusting a knife into the beating heart of their family and turning your back on the community which succoured you at it’s breast.

Did these would be murderers of innocent Americans and of ancient Islam have a conscience? I think yes, and I think possibly that is why they chose the date of 911, a date that would stand out in history and the most important date of their lives, the date they would die. I suspect as they reflected on their own deaths they thought of the carnage they would reek, how the country and the world would respond to it. I think the existence of the emergency services and its ability to help the many victims of such a disaster was so much in the minds of these terrorists that they chose the date of 911 to do the act. In other words, they could not escape the terrible truth that everything they had been taught to believe in and value contradicted what they were about to do. I think the choice of this date was out of a sense of guilt and regret for what they were about to do, betray Islam in the taking of innocent life.