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•The Piri Reis Map of 1513 is the first surviving map that shows the Americas (the Vinland map may be older but only shows a part of North America). The Piri Reis map shows North America, South America, Greenland and Antarctica which had not yet been discovered in 1513 ???.
•The map was made by a Turkish Admiral Piri Ibn Haji Mehmed. Reis means admiral. Piri Reis did not long bath in the light of this famous work but was beheaded in 1554 for an unsuccessful foray into the Persian Gulf.
•The map became lost and was only rediscovered in 1929 by a group of historians working in the harem section of the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul found the map in a pile of rubble.
•Because of the details on this map, many claims have been made for this map. Some even believe that it is so perfect that it could only have been made from very high altitude photographs. Some of this claims can be found at the following web site: http://www.prep.mcneese.edu/engr/engr321/preis/piri_r~1.htm
•The Piri Reis map is not made like modern maps with horizontal and vertical grid for location purposes but with an older method perfected by Dulcert Portolano which instead had a series of circles with lines radiating from them. Maps made by this method are thus termed "portolan" maps. Their purpose was to guide navigators from port to port and not for the modern idea of find position.
•The Piri Reis map also has a number of notes written on the map. These notes cover everything. A translation of these notes are supplied in the above web site