The map is drawn on camel skin, with illustrations in nine different colours. It is 86 cm long, 61 cm wide at the upper edge, and 41 cm wide at the lower edge. Close examination shows that the right-hand section of the map has been torn away, although the discrepancy in width between the upper and lower edges is due to the natural shape of the skin. The surviving half of the map shows the east and west coasts of the Atlantic Ocean. The coastlines of North and South America, the Antilles, northwest Africa, Spain and France correspond closely to modern maps. The map is a typical nautical chart, with compass roses and lines showing direction in place of lines of latitude and longitude. It is decorated with mythical and realistic pictures, including a number of ships.

As well as placed names, the chart is annotated with dates of discovery, legends about the places shown, and explanations of how the map was compiled. The beautifully executed decoration confirms that the map was drawn as a gift for the Ottoman sultan. There are five compass roses on the map, three small and two large.

The lines of writing on the northwest section of South America read, "The humble Piri, son of Haci Mehmed, and renowned as the nephew of Kemal Reis, composed this map in the town of Gallipoli in the holy month of Muharrem 919 [1513]. May God absolve them both."

Piri Reis reveals the sources which he used for his map with the honesty of a scholar, as we see in the notes over South America: "This section states the way in which this map was drawn. I have used twenty maps and mappae mundi dating from the time of Alexander the Great showing the lands inhabited by men. The Arab people refer to those maps as caferiye.

As well as eight caferiye of that kind, I have made use of one Arabic map of India and four modern Portuguese maps, some of which delineate the lands of Sind, India and China according to geometrical methods, and one map drawn by Columbus in the western lands. By reducing all these maps to one scale this form was arrived at. So that the present map is as correct and reliable for the seven seas as the map of our countries is considered correct and reliable by seamen." Above this is an account of the discovery of the American continent, ending with a further acknowledgement of the fact that his map was based on that of Christopher Columbus: "Whatever shores and islands are shown on the map in question have been taken from the map of Christopher Columbus." This is one of the most fascinating aspects of the map, since although Christopher Columbus is known to have made maps of the coasts during his four voyages to America between 1492 and 1504, none of them have survived. They live on only in the map drawn by Piri Reis.

The world map drawn by Juan de la Cosa, who accompanied Columbus as guide on his second voyage, dated 1500, that of Contari dated 1506, and of Martin Waldseemuller dated 1507 are the earliest maps of America, and Waldseemuller's is the first to show the American continent as separate from Asia. However, Piri Reis's map is more accurate than any of these.
The perfection of Piri Reis's projection is the map's most outstanding feature. A study by Prof. C.Hapgood in 1965 has demonstrated an extraordinary correlation between Piri Reis's map and a map based on aerial photographs taking Cairo as the central point. Erich Von Däniken, in his book Chariots of the Gods, makes the sensational claim that the map must have been drawn from photographs taken from spacecraft.

The depiction of mountains in Antactica poses a particular enigma since the mountains are invisible under layers of ice, and their existence only became apparent after scientists conducted experiments using soundwaves in 1951.

In short, the map of Piri Reis is the most accurate of all those made in the wake of Columbus's discovery of America, and the closest to modern maps.
During the unsuccessful search for the missing section of Piri Reis's world map, Director of Topkapi Palace Museum, Tahsin Öz, came across a second map measuring 69 by 70 centimetres. Drawn on gazelle skin in eight colours, this is a typical nautical chart and similar in style to the first, although more meticulously executed. Again this is only a fragment of the original map. The ornately decorated border remains along the north and west edges, and the annotation along the other edges is broken off where the other sections have been removed. The remaining section shows the northern Atlantic and the coasts of North and Central America, and bears four large ornate and two smaller compass roses. The two scales are in miles, and below them is an explanatory note to the effect that each division represents ten miles.

Beneath the vertical scale are four lines telling us the date of the map: 'The humble Piri Reis, son of Haci Mehmed and nephew of the late Captain Gazi Kemal of Gelibolu, completed this in the year 935 [1528]. This is his work.' This signature inscription is in Arabic, but all the other annotations on the map are in Turkish.
It has been claimed that this is a world map like the first, but in my opinion this cannot be the case, since the scale is too large. Almost certainly the missing sections extended to Antarctica in the south and to Istanbul in the east. It appears that Piri Reis wished to show the Ottoman capital in relation to the New World on a large scale map. Another objective was perhaps to present Sultan Süleyman with a map updated in the light of new discoveries. Alternatively it may have been that the Ottoman palace commissioned him to draw this map. The fact that some of the imaginary islands which appear on the first map are not shown here, that the coast of America is more accurately delineated, and that the mythical illustrations and legends included on the first map are now absent demonstrate that over the intervening fifteen years Piri Reis had kept up with the findings of explorers. The Tropic of Cancer is drawn (with a very small degree of error), so we may deduce that the Equator and the Tropic of Capricorn were shown on the missing sections. He also avoids the practice on portolan charts of exaggerating the scale of harbours so as to provide additional detail for sailors. Evidently he was concerned to produce a map which was more accurate and up to date than the earlier one.
Piri Reis's Book of Navigation is a subject of equal fascination, but one of such broad scope that it must be reserved for a future article.

* Kemal Özdemir is a researcher and author