Alistair & Diglore
Alistair Alistair
Diglore Diglore
Alistair Alistair
I’ve been thinking about the Piri Reis map and its claim to show Antarctica before it was known. Do you think there was some forgotten maritime knowledge at play, or is it simply an over‑interpretation?
Diglore Diglore
Diglore<|message|>The map is a curious artifact, but the evidence that it sketches a frozen continent is flimsy at best. Piri Reis drew on earlier nautical charts and the hydrographic data available to the Ottoman navy; those sources didn’t include a landmass south of the Antarctic Peninsula. Cartographers of the early sixteenth century were more concerned with coastal outlines than with speculative southern ice, so any “Antarctica” look‑alike is likely a modern projection or a reading too eager. In short, no forgotten maritime knowledge proves the map shows Antarctica – it’s more a testament to the limits of early mapping than to some lost seafaring tradition.
Alistair Alistair
That sounds entirely plausible. In those days the world was still a vast, uncharted expanse, and the idea of a frozen southern continent would have seemed as fanciful as a lost kingdom. It’s a reminder that even the most meticulous cartographers had to rely on the data that survived them, and that history often judges us on the limits of our own knowledge.