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Life And Work of the Turkish Admiral:
Piri Reis
THE OLDEST MAP OF AMERICA, DRAWN
BY P1RI REIS
by Prof. Dr. Afetinan Translated by: Dr.
Lenian Yolac
TURK TARIH KURUMU BASIMEVI -- ANKARA 1954
LIFE AND WORKS OF THE TURKISH ADMIRAL
PIRI REIS
INTRODUCTION
Let us take a trip into some periods of the
past. The first stop on this trip will be Turkey thirty
years ago. The first quarter of the present century shows
Turkey at the end of the War of Independence, and the Republic
established by Kemal Ataturk (1923). The
Turkish Republic, now thirty years old, was founded on
the remains of another Turkish state, the Ottoman Empire
(1299-1923).
For the second stop let us take the year 1929. Let
us go into the Palace of Topkapi of the Ottoman Sultans,
situated on one of the most beautiful spots of Istanbul
called Sarayburnu. The palace, which consists of various
buildings, each surrounded by vast gardens, testifies to
the different characteristics of the Ottoman period. The
Turkish Republican Government decided to turn this palace
into a museum.
Discovery of the map of America
In the process of classifying the numerous articles in the
buildings, Mr. Halil Edhem, Director of the National Museums,
discovered a map* (9 Nov.1929) till then unknown in the world
of science. Upon hearing of this discovery of the oldest
map of America Ataturk showed great interest in the matter.
He asked for the map to be brought to Ankara, studied it
and ordered it to be published as it stood and to be submitted
to scholarly research.
To study this map for the first time with Ataturk was
an immense thrill. It had been drawn hundreds of years
ago on a roe-skin, with various coloured illustrations
and writings on it. As I held it in my hands, I felt as
if I were living in the long forgotten past. My emotions
are twenty-four years old now, but let us, with the same
national and scholarly pride, take a glimpse into the period
when this map was drawn and into the history of the man
who had drawn it.
This is one of the oldest and yet most perfect maps of America,
drawn by a Turkish admiral. Now, if you do not mind being
centuries old for a few minutes, come with mc to the XVI
th century. In this third stop our journey suddenly covers
a vast ground.
The Sea-Power of the Ottoman-Turkish
Empire in the
XV th and XVI th centuries
 In
the XVth century, particularly after the conquest of Istanbul,
the Ottoman state grew into an Empire. To secure Turkish
domination over the Black Sea and the Mediterranean she
had to possess naval strength, which she did. To get the
upper hand on the Mediterranean, the Turkish forces had
to fight against the Venetians, the Genoese, their usual
ally the Knights of St. John, and the Spanish. They finally
succeeded in acquiring territorial sovereignty as far as
Vienna in west, to the Caucasus, Iran and Iraq in the east,
and south and the as a result of adding Syria, Egypt, Tunis,
Algiers, the Hejaz and Arabia to the former conquests,
formed close contacts on various seas. The Black Sea and
the Mediterranean, including the Adriatic shores, came
under the domain of the Turkish banner. The fleet carried
it across to the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and the Amman
Seas up to the Indian Ocean. The great Turkish admiral,
Pin Reis, whose life will be our topic of discussion now,
was one of those great Turkish admirals like Burak Reis,
Kemal Reis, Muslahiddin Reis, Barbaros Hayrettin, Turgut',
and Kilic Ah, who, at the end of the XVth and during the
XVI th centuries, won splendid victories for the Turkish
fleet, and thus established Turkish power and preserved
it over the seas.
* Map, or chart, "portulano" in contemporary phraseology,
a term used for all such charts showing
the position of ports and based on the idea of the earth
being flat.
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