THERE WAS A RIVER
THERE WAS A RIVER BUT WHEN AND WHERE?
נָהָר--פְּלָגָיו, יְשַׂמְּחוּ עִיר-אֱלֹהִים; קְדֹשׁ, מִשְׁכְּנֵי עֶלְיוֹן.
“There is a river, the streams whereof make glad the city of God, The holiest dwelling-place of the Most High.” Ps 46:4
“Arab writers often confused Claudius Ptolemy, the geographer of the 2nd century C.E., with Ptolemy I, one of Alexander’s generals and the first Ptolemaic ruler of Egypt, who reigned from 323 to 285 B.C.E…
“Piri Reis has undoubtedly made the same error, resulting in his believing the charts and maps were from the time of Ptolemy I instead of Claudius Ptolemy,” - Gregory C. McIntosh
hreran mid hondum
hrimcealde sæ
wadan wræclastas.
. Wyrd bið ful aræd!
Swa cwæð eardstapa,
earfeþa gemyndig,
wraþra wælsleahta,
winemæga hryre…
along the waterways
(along) the ice-cold sea,
tread the paths of exile
Events always go as they must!
So spoke the wanderer,
mindful of hardships…
JAPANESE MYTHOLOGY & FOLKLORE
[Extracted from Just another WordPress.com site]
Rivers of death in Japanese myth and folklore and in other parts of the world
The Nagatoro Funadama Festival held annually on the Arakawa River in the Chichibu area of Japan in Saitama prefecture is but one example among many, of ancient river or water expulsion practices still practised today in Japan. The Nagatoro Fireworks festival is held right beside the river, preceded by sending off a boat lit up with lights. The festival takes place during the Bon period, to honor the spirits of the dead that visit the realm of the living during this period. After dark, boats decorated with paper lanterns and about 1,000 individual lanterns are floated on the waters of the Arakawa River to pray for the repose of drowned persons, creating an otherworldly atmosphere. Click here to watch a video clip of the event or read more about the Festival for the Dead here.
In folklore, there is a famous River of the Dead called Sai-no-kawara, for which there are actual varying physical locations in Japan, the most famous one being perhaps Kusatsu’s Sainokawara Park. And according to tradition, here it is Jizo is the most beloved and well-known of folk deities, who is the guide for the lost souls of children on the Sai-no-kawara riverbank, and who saves them from either the Oni (ogre demon) or Shozuka-no-baba (see photo of her enshrined) who is the hell’s hag receiving the souls of the dead, and wife of Ten Datsu-Ba (source: Mythology Dictionary). She demands money from all who arrive at her home on the bank of the River of Three Roads (River Sanzu) and, if it is not paid, takes their garments…one version of the story is found in the folktale “Broken Images“:
“I am Jizo, who guards the souls of little children. It is most pitiful to hear their crying when they come to the sandy river-bed, the Sai-no-kawara. O dreamer, they come alone, as needs they must, wailing and wandering, stretching out their pretty hands. They have a task, which is to pile stones for a tower of prayer. But in the night come the Oni to throw down the towers and to scatter all the stones. So the children are made afraid, and their labour is lost.”
Origin of river rituals:
River rituals involving human sacrifices to river deities were prevalent on the Chinese continent in the Shang, Zhou and Warring States eras and are believed to have been imported by Chinese immigrants into Japan over the long periods of time. The Korean kingdoms too had numerous river and water deities to whom the people tried to appease through their offerings.
In a case study on the Taiwanese 18 deities’ Royal Lords temple cult, the rite of floating and burning boats was noted to be a custom prevalent among southern Chinese and Siberian Khanty peoples. That the imagery of a River of Plague or Disease may have been widely known to Central Asia in ancient times, is suggested by the research paper:
“The Royal Lords cult involves the performance of plague expulsion festivals, which include sending off a “plague boat”-small wooden boat-which represents the community’s accumulated afflictions. I saw exactly such kind of wooden boat in the underground chamber of the Temple of 18 Deities during my fieldwork. According to Katz (2003: 158), worshipers in southern China and Taiwan have used the title “Royal Lord(s)” to refer to a wide range of spirits, including plague-spreading deities. Such cults developed in south China in the 10th century. Most popular deity among them is Marshal Wen (Wen Yuanshuai), who is worshiped in southern Fujian and Taiwan as Lord Chi (Chi Wangye). Marshal Wen originally was a snake-demon who spread diseases by spitting out poisonous vapours. The connected Chinese images of plague-spreading deities and a boat remind to the plot of a Khanty (Siberian) myth “Holy Legend about the Desirable Knight-Merchant of the Low World, Merchant of the Upper World” (1990 no. 30: 105-125), which describes a floating caravan of boats on the Ob river with diseases-spreading deities on them. The caravan brought epidemic diseases and mass deaths to many cities on the Ob banks and belonged to the underworld, which was believed to be situated on the North Lower Ob and was a kingdom of the Lord of Diseases and Death.“
In Japan, offerings of pottery at river sites had also been made since prehistoric or proto-historic times by local communities, excavated finds by archaeologists indicate the purification ritual practice began at least as early as the Kofun era (large quantities of miniature earthern pots were found from the river area of the Mizokui site, Ibaraki city, Osaka; one of them with a face etched onto the pottery).
Some scholars believe that the use of effigies in Nara period river rituals in particular is associated with ancient Chinese witchcraft techniques may go back to the Han dynasty or even earlier as outlined in Chi Songzi zhangli (赤松子章曆 an important Taoist text and ritual compilation) were later introduced into Japan.
Shinto practitioners and experts in Japan today trace the various rites which go by the name of harae (or o-harae) to the Kojiki myth of the act of washing in the sea which Izanagi-no-kami performed after his return from Yomi, the land of the dead (to which he had followed his wife Izanami) in order to purify himself from the uncleanness and polluting elements he had come into contact with there.
In its earliest form of the custom, the ritual offerings made were a fine or penalty imposed upon those who had committed offences or in contracted pollution, under which term all crimes and sins were at first included. The ritual offerings sometimes took the form of human, animal or other food sacrifices, as well as other items of value. In the Nara period the practice was declared to be barbaric, so substitutive pottery, human or animal effigies, and coin offerings became the norm.
Until the Nara period, o-harae ablution events were performed at various irregular times and as the need arose, but from the Nara period onwards, o-harae became regular bi-annual court and shrine events as carried over till today. The “Great Purification” came to be held regularly on the 30th June and 31st December. This was because the mid-ninth century, the Nara court in adopting Chinese Tang dynasty style of court etiquette and government, had established an official bureau of yin-yang geomancy masters who went to work institutionalizing and regulating the expulsion rituals and the management of pollution taboos.
Excavated from the Kannonji site, which were once old riverbeds of a branch of the Yoshino River during the Nara period, were large numbers of artifacts, including pottery and wooden boat effigies and other implements. Also among the artifacts are thin boards shaped into a human outline, and faces drawn in ink. One board is split down the center, broken into upper and lower halves has realistically painted thick eyebrows, and the beard and moustache. Together with the boat effigies made of wood, they are thought to have been used in a haraerite.
Pottery with faces painted in black ink have been excavated from the Mizutare archaeological site of Nagaoka Palace in Kyoto Prefecture.
Archaeologists have also found fragments of earthenware jars that had been tossed into a dried-up riverbed of a tributary of the Yamatogawa River (in today’s Yao city, Osaka) in a ritual to bring salvation and ward off illness. Distinctive faces had been painted in black ink on the small pottery jars. Along with the pottery jars, seven types of coins were discovered, along with Kocho-Junisen copper coins from the Nara (710-784) period (as well as Kangen-Taiho coins minted in the 958 which suggests the practice continued through the early Heian (794-1185) period).
Below is an excerpt from the Encyclopedia of Religion that particularly illuminating on the widespread, and it is contended here, connected ideas and cosmology behind the “river of Death” in various ancient cultures, including Japan’s.”RIVERS OF DEATH.
Crossing the river at the time of death, as part of the journey to another world, is a common part of the symbolic passage that people have seen as part of one’s journey after death. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the hero encounters a boatman who ferries him across the waters of death as he seeks the secret of immortality. The river Styx of Greek mythology is well known as the chief river of Hades, said to flow nine times around its borders. Styx is married to the Titan Pallas and according to Hesiod counts as her children Rivalry, Victory, Power, and Force. The power of the Styx is evidenced in the fact that Achilles gained his invulnerability by being dipped in the river as a baby held by his heel, the only part of his body thereafter vulnerable to mortal wounds. In addition, the most inviolable oath of the gods is sworn with a jug of water from the Styx, poured out while the oath is being uttered.
In Hindu mythology, the river Vaitaran: marks the boundary between the living and the dead; in the Aztec journey, the river Mictlan must be crossed on the way to the underworld; in Japan, rivers are part of certain landscapes designated as realms of the dead in both the Shinto¯ and Buddhist traditions. The Sanzunokawa, for example, is said to divide the realms of the living and the dead. The dry riverbed of Sainokawara is said to be the destination of dead children.
The far shore of the river of life and death, or birth and death, thus becomes an important symbol for the destination of one’s spiritual journey in many religious traditions. In the Buddhist tradition, nirva¯n: a is referred to as the “far shore.” In the Hindu tradition, holy places are called t¯ırthas (“fords”) because they enable one to make that crossing safely. Riverbank t¯ırthas, such as Banaras and Prayaga, are thought to be especially good places to die. In the Christian tradition, crossing over the Jordan has come to have a similar symbolism. On the far shore is not only the promised land, but the spiritual promised land of heaven. Home is on the far shore…”
Source and references:
Encyclopedia of Religion (2nd edition) ed. Lindsay Jones, pps. 7862
The Nara Court practised harae purification rituals by the river (Heritage of Japan sister website to this one)
Common symbols in Eurasia-Pacific unconsious cultural heritage: A case study of the Taiwanese 17 Deities’ cult” by Igor Sitnikov
Humanities › History & Culture
Five Rivers of the Greek Underworld
The Role of the Five Rivers in Greek Mythology
History & Culture
[Written by N.S. Gill and Extracted from ThoughtCo]
The Ancient Greeks made sense of death by believing in an afterlife, during which the souls of those who passed would travel to and live in the Underworld. Also referred to as the kingdom of the dead, Hades was the Greek god that ruled over this part of the world.
While the Underworld may be the land of the dead in Greek mythology, it also has living botanical items. The kingdom of Hades features meadows, asphodel flowers, fruit trees, and other geographical features. Among the most famous are the five rivers of the Underworld.
The five rivers are Styx, Lethe, Archeron, Phlegethon, and Cocytus. Each of the five rivers had a unique function in how the Underworld worked and was named to reflect an emotion or god associated with death.
Styx
River Styx is the largest river of the five as it circles the Underworld seven times. The river was named after Styx, a goddess Zeus made by whom the most solemn oaths were sworn. According to Greek mythology, Styx is also the nymph of the river. The River Styx was also nicknamed the River of Hatred.
Lethe
Lethe is the river of oblivion. Upon entering the Underworld, the dead would have to drink the waters of Lethe to forget their earthly existence. Lethe is also the name of the goddess of forgetfulness. She looks overlooks the River Lethe.
Acheron
In Greek mythology, the Acheron is one of the five Underworld rivers but is sometimes called a lake. The Acheron is the River of Woe or the River of Pain.
The ferryman Charon ferries the dead across the Acheron to transport them from the upper to the lower world. As it borders the world of the living, Acheron is a real river in Greece.
Phlegethon
River Phlegethon is also called the River of Fire because it is said to travel to the depths of the Underworld where land is filled with fire and the most sinister souls live.
River Phlegethon also leads to Tartarus, which is where the dead are judged and where the prison of the Titans is located.
Cocytus
River Cocytus is also called the River of Wailing. Meaning, Cocytus is the river of cries and lamentation. For the souls that Charon refused to ferry over because they had not received a proper burial, the river bank of Cocytus would be their wandering grounds.
River Cocytus was believed to flow into River Acheron, making it the only river that did not flow directly into the Underworld.
Sambatyon River
[The following is extracted from The Strange Side of Jewish History (Yated Neeman's Jewish history) by David]
Two and a half millennia ago, King Shalmanessar exiled the last of the Ten Tribes; the date was 556 BCE. Ever since, people have been wondering what became of these myriads of Jews scattered like chaff to the wind, some over the Sambatyon River, some to Daphne of Antochia, while some were hidden in a cloud (Yerushalmi Sanhedrin 10:1). Easiest to track down should be the Sambatyon River due to a mysterious trait that makes it unique. The Gemora (Sanhedrin 65b) tells us that when Turnusrufus challenged R. Akiva, “Why is this day [Shabbos] different than other days?” Rabbi Akiva answered that there are three proofs that Shabbos is a day of rest. First, the Sambatyon River that rests on Shabbos, second, the fact that one cannot call up the dead on Shabbos, and third, that the grave of Turnusrufus’ wicked father smoked the whole week but ceased to smoke on Shabbos.
In the medrash, Turnusrufus rejects Rabbi Akiva’s proof of the Sambatyon since he never viewed it personally, and indeed, even its location is subject to a variety of opinions.
Perhaps first to mention its location is Josephus (Wars 7:5.1) who describes how Titus passed the Sambatyon on his victorious trip to Rome after conquering Eretz Yisroel. (Strangely, the English edition of this episode has the Sambatyon River running on Shabbos and dry during the week contrary to Chazal; only the Hebrew edition gets it right):
“Titus Caesar remained some time at Berytus (Beirut) and moved from there and gave magnificent shows in all the cities of Syria through which he went, and exhibited the captive Jews as proof of the destruction of that nation. On his march, he saw a river of such a nature as deserves to be recorded in history. It runs between Arcaea (Arka, upper Syria), which is part of Agrippa’s kingdom, and Rapharaea (Rafaniyeh in north Lebanon) and has something very powerful and very strange about it. For when it runs, its current is strong and has plenty of water, after which its springs fail for six days together and leave its channel dry, as anyone may see… Therefore, they call it the Sabbatic river after the holy Shabbos of the Jews.”
The Yalkut Shimoni (Shir Hashirim 985) also intimates that the Sambatyon is not far from Eretz Yisroel in the vicinity of Damascus.
According to the Ramban, the Sambatyon lies further a field. Commenting on the verse, Amarti af’eihem, I said I will scatter them (Devorim 32:26), the Ramban writes: “This hints at the exile of the Ten Tribes who were exiled to the Gozan River, which the sages call Sambatyon.” The Gozan River seems to be in the vicinity of Modai, because concerning Shalmanessar’s exile of the remaining Ten Tribes in 556 BCE, the verse says: “And the king of Assyria exiled Yisroel to Assyria and settled them in Chalach and Chovoir, on the Gozan River, and in the towns of Modai” (II Melochim 18:11).
The Sons of Moshe
Centuries later, during the ninth century, the Sambatyon was given a brand new location by the mysterious Eldad Hadoni who claimed to come from the lost tribes and reported the Sambatyon as lying somewhere south of Ethiopia. In fact, this accords with a verse in Yeshayahu (11:11) mentioning some of the Ten Tribes being exiled to Patros on the southern Nile and to Ethiopia.
According to Eldad Hadoni, the Sambatyon cut off not only the Ten Tribes but also Bnei Moshe, descendants of Moshe Rabeinu who were exiled since the fi rst Churban. As the Jews of Kairwan in modern day Tunisia reported to Rav Tzemach Gaon of Bavel:
“[Eldad Hadoni] also told us that when the Bais Hamikdosh was destroyed and Yisroel went to Bavel, the Kasdim stood before the Bnei Moshe and said to them, Sing to us the song of Tziyon. The Bnei Moshe stood up and burst out crying before the Holy One and bit off their fi ngers with their teeth and said, The fi ngers that we beat with [to music] in the Bais Hamikdosh, how can we beat with them in an impure land? A cloud came, lifted them with their tents and their fl ocks and cattle and took them to Chavilla and lowered them there at night. At sunrise, the cloud left and the Holy One drew before them a river named Sambatyon and locked them in so that no one can reach them.”
Rav Tzemach Gaon replied that the story of the Bnei Moshe has a solid basis: “Regarding that the descendants of Moshe are with them and that the Sambatyon surrounds them, he spoke the truth. For Chazal say in a medrash that Nevuchadnetzar exiled sixty myriad Levites descended from Moshe, and when they and their harps came to the rivers of Bavel it happened to them as R. Eldad told you.”
Indeed, the earliest source mentioning Bnei Moshe’s exile beyond the Sambatyon is the Targum Yonasan to the verse (Shemos 34:10), And he said, Behold, I am making a covenant. Before all your nation I will do wonders, etc. Targum Yonasan translates part of this verse as follows: “However, from you [Moshe] will descend righteous multitudes. Before all your nation I will do wonders for them when they are captives at the rivers of Bavel. I will take them from there and settle them over the Sambatyon River.”
In his sefer Kol Mevaser, the mekubal, Rav Shimon Horowitz of Yerushalayim cites many instances of Jews trying to make contact with the Bnei Moshe, such as when the Jew Yosef ben Yaakov arrived in Yerushalayim in 1899 and made a convincing claim that he was a member of the Bnei Moshe. This led leading Yerushalayim Jews including Rav Shmuel Salant, Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, and Rav Akiva Yosef Shlesinger, to sign a letter to the Bnei Moshe pleading with them to reveal the way to the Ten Tribes that lie beyond the Sambatyon in the hope that this would lead to the redemption. For does not the Vilna Gaon write that “the Bnei Moshe who live beyond the Sambatyon River are great tzaddikim and perushim, and they are the moshi’im who will ascend Har Tziyon”?
Nothing came of their letter; the Turks arrested the mysterious Jew on charges of espionage and executed him in Damascus.
The most far flung report of all originates with Rav Moshe Yaffe who searched for the lost Ten Tribes while traveling to Arabia and India on behalf of Yerushalayim’s needy Jews. The following year, in 1848, he wrote the famous geographer, Yosef Schwartz that he was convinced that the Sambatyon was in China.
“I heard clear testimony that the Sambatyon is in China,” he wrote. “The wealthy Jewish merchant Sasson from Bombay, sent his son, Abdalla, to Canton in those days for his business. His servant told him that his master heard from his translator, that it is clear as sunlight that two months journey from Canton there is a river that throws up stones and sand for six days of the week and rests on Shabbos. However, no one dares to cross this holy river even on Shabbos, and merchants bringing goods to that land leave their wares by one side of the river and return where they came from, and after Shabbos they return and fi nd the pay for their wares, or their wares as they left them.”
Portable Portent
In one of his letters (Kovetz Al Yad, vol. 4, 1888), the Rambam writes that the Sambatyon displays its unique properties even when cut off from its source: “Regarding what you asked about the Tribes, you should know that it is true and we wait for their coming, for they are hidden beyond the mountains of darkness, and the Gozan River and the Sambatyon River. It is true that this river flows with sand all six weekdays and on Shabbos it rests. In the days of the righteous elder, the tzaddik and maggid, my father z”l, people brought a container with sand that moved all the six weekdays and rested on Shabbos. These things are true, for they are sometimes seen by individuals.”
Rav Menashe ben Yisroel, who served as rav in Holland and helped the Jews return to England, brings more testimony to this phenomenon (Mikveh Yisroel page 39):
“Rav Mordechai Yaffeh (the Levush) writes in his sefer, Yefei To’ar… that a certain person had a glass container full of the earth from the Sambatyon River. During the six weekdays the sand stormed inside the glass and on Shabbos it rested. I too would like to testify concerning this something… my father related a number of times. In the city of Lisbon in Portugal, there was an Ethiopian who had a glass container full of this sand. Every erev Shabbos when it was close to Shabbos he went to the street called Rue Nova, or Rechov Hachadash in Hebrew, for there lived Marranos who had been forced to accept Christianity. The Ethiopian would call out to them, show them the glass container in his hand and say, ‘Close the shops, for the time has come to accept Shabbos.’
“I also heard of this matter from a reliable person, that the prominent R. Meir the doctor saw the Ethiopian with the glass container of sand we mentioned standing in front of a Muslim house of prayer in the town of Chalefa. A judge passed and asked about it, took the container, and quarreled with the Ethiopian and censured him, saying, ‘You have acted improperly, for this supports the Sabbath day of the Jews.”
Where is it?
Later in his sefer (page 41), Rav Menashe ben Yisroel asks how the Ten Tribes remain so elusive: “Many people ask that if it is true that the Ten Tribes exist in the world, why do we know nothing clear about them? This is no difficulty, for we see that even concerning things known to us, we do not know where they come from, such as the source of the four rivers, the Nile, Ganges, Tigris, and Euphrates (i.e. the Pishon, Gichon, Chidekel, and Peras). In addition, there are many hidden countries in the lands of Kedar and in part of America, and all the places in the north of the world, such as Florida, the kingdom of the Anian in the land of Peru… and other western countries that are larger than all the parts of the world revealed to us. Besides, it may be that even in the countries known to us some of the hidden tribes live beyond the high mountains…”
Rav Menashe’s answer is adequate for his times, but what about nowadays when people have traveled to almost every corner of the earth and wherever man has not set foot has been scrutinized by satellite?
As a child, Rav Chaim Kanievski once asked the Chazon Ish this question and he replied, “If Hashem wants the Sambatyon River to be hidden and unrevealed, all the searching for it, no matter how sophisticated, will not help.”
It’s all part of the hester ponim of our long exile.
(Partial source: Article by Rav B. Genut, Nahar Hasambatyon zo’ek, Zechor es Yom Hashabbos).
Hidden Rivers Found Underground in Antarctica
[The following, extracted from the R&D blog, was written by Kenny Walter - Digital Reporter - @RandDMagazine]
Hidden, underground rivers in Antarctica may play a key role in determining the fate of Antarctic ice streams.
Researchers from Rice University have discovered hidden rivers in Antarctica after spending two years analyzing sediment cores and precise seafloor maps covering 2,700 square miles of the western Ross Sea.
The researchers found that as recently as 15,000 years ago, the area was covered by thick ice that later retreated hundreds of miles inland to its current location.
The new maps showed that the ice retreated during a period of global warming after the last ice age on Earth and in several places there were not just river systems, but also subglacial lakes that fed the ancient water courses.
Modern Antarctica is covered by ice that is more than two miles thick in some places. However, the ice is not static and gravity compresses it and moves it under its own weight to create rivers of ice that flow to the sea.
Scientists have had difficulty understanding the undersides of massive ice streams because they are rarely accessible to direct observation.
“One thing we know from surface observations is that some of these ice streams move at velocities of hundreds of meters per year,” Lauren Simkins, a postdoctoral researcher at Rice and lead author of the study, said in a statement. “We also know that ice, by itself, is only capable of flowing at velocities of no more than tens of meters per year.
“That means the ice is being helped along. It’s sliding on water or mud or both,” she added.
According to Simkins, the fossilized river system offers a different picture of how Antarctic water drains from subglacial lakes through rivers to the point where ice meets the sea.
“The contemporary observations we have of Antarctic hydrology are recent, spanning maybe a couple decades at best,” she said. “This is the first observation of an extensive, uncovered, water-carved channel that is connected to both subglacial lakes on the upstream end and the ice margin on the downstream end.
“This gives a novel perspective on channelized drainage beneath Antarctic ice,” Simkins added. “We can track the drainage system all the way back to its source, these subglacial lakes and then to its ultimate fate at the grounding line, where freshwater mixed with ocean water.”
Meltwater builds up in subglacial lakes and intense pressures from the weight of ice causes some melting. With several volcanoes heating ice from below, Simkins and Rice co-author and volcanologist Helge Gonnermann confirmed that volcanoes could have provided the necessary heat to feed the lakes. Simkins found at least 20 lakes in the fossil river system, along with evidence that water built up and drained from the lakes in episodic bursts as opposed to a steady stream.
The discovery may lead to new ice maps that show exactly how ice retreated across the channel-lake system, allowing hydrologists and modelers to better predict how today’s ice streams behave and how much they contribute to rising sea levels. The researchers also found the retreating ice streams in the western Ross Sea made a U-turn to follow the course of an under-ice river-the only documented example on the Antarctic seafloor where a single ice stream reversed retreat direction to follow a subglacial hydrological system.
EPILOGUE - WHO WERE THE ANCIENT SEA KINGS?
Piri Reis Map: Evidence of a Very Advanced Prehistoric Civilization?
By Tara MacIsaac, Epoch Times
December 28, 2014 5:18 pm Last Updated: October 17, 2017 7:12 pm
A map created by Turkish admiral and cartographer Piri Reis in 1513 has intrigued scholars both mainstream and alternative since it was discovered in Istanbul’s Topkapi Palace in 1929. On the alternative side, it’s said that this map may show Antarctica hundreds of years before the continent was discovered (it was discovered in 1818). Furthermore, it is said to depict Antarctica as it was in a very remote age, before it was covered with ice.
In short, it could indicate advanced knowledge passed down from a prehistoric sea-faring civilization. Mainstream scientists refute this hypothesis, but remain intrigued by the mysteries this map presents.
Enough has been written about this single piece of etched gazelle skin to fill multiple books. Here we will highlight some key points of the Piri Reis studies, charting our way through its mysteries much as the navigators who used it would have traveled through the wide world they were just getting to know.
What’s Known About the Sources of the Map
Piri Reis wrote in an inscription on the map that he used 20 source materials (charts and maps) from various cartographers, combining the information to create his own. Among the sources were contemporary Portuguese maps as well as some that may have been passed down from the time of Alexander the Great or earlier.
Whether the source materials are as old as Piri Reis thought is a matter of debate. Gregory C. McIntosh, a leading expert on the Piri Reis map, wrote in his book, titled “Piri Reis Map of 1513,” that, “Arab writers often confused Claudius Ptolemy, the geographer of the 2nd century C.E., with Ptolemy I, one of Alexander’s generals and the first Ptolemaic ruler of Egypt, who reigned from 323 to 285 B.C.E.”
“Piri Reis has undoubtedly made the same error, resulting in his believing the charts and maps were from the time of Ptolemy I instead of Claudius Ptolemy,” McIntosh said.
If, however, Piri Reis was not mistaken and the maps are from General Ptolemy’s time, some say the maps may have come from the famed Ptolemaic Library of Alexandria. Could sources from a much earlier age than Piri Reis guessed have come to him from that Library?
How South America and ‘Antarctica’ Are Depicted by Piri Reis
On the Piri Reis map, it seems South America is strangely misshapen. While Brazil is clearly discernable, as the coastline is traced further south, it juts out east, seemingly depicting a landmass in a place where no such landmass exists today. This is the purported southern continent, also known as Terra Australis, or what some say is Antarctica.
So if this is really Antarctica, why doesn’t it look like Antarctica as we now know it? And why is it connected to South America?
To answer the first question, it’s said to accurately resemble part of Antarctica without ice. Today, more than 98 percent of the Antarctic continent is covered by glacier ice, according to Olafur Ingolfsson, a geologist at the University of Iceland.
Captain Lorenzo W. Burroughs, a U.S. Air Force captain in the cartographic section, wrote a letter to Dr. Charles Hapgood in 1961 saying that the “Antarctica” depicted on the Piri Reis map seems to accurately show Antarctica’s coast as it is under the ice.
“The Princess Martha Coast of Queen Maud Land, Antarctica, appears to be truly represented on the southern sector of the Piri Reis map. The agreement of the Piri Reis map with the seismic profile of this area made by the Norweigan-British-Swedish expedition of 1949 … places beyond a reasonable doubt the conclusion that the original source maps must have been made before the present Antarctic ice cap covered the Queen Maud Land coasts,” Burroughs wrote, as recorded in Dr. Hapgood’s 1966 book “Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings.”
Dr. Hapgood (1904-1982) was one of the first to publicly suggest that the Piri Reis map depicts Antarctica during a prehistoric time. He was a Harvard-educated historian whose theories about geological shifts earned the admiration of Albert Einstein. This brings us to the second question of why “Antarctica” is connected to South America in the Piri Reis map.
Antarctica’s Shift?
All maps from this time contain some inaccuracies. Coastlines were often exaggerated in size, for example, because navigators needed to know in particular detail what they would encounter there. It’s possible cartographers also supplemented what hadn’t actually been observed with what they imagined should be there. For example, Piri Reis’s depiction of North America is very inaccurate, but it provides the same information as many other maps of the time. One theory is that these maps show Asia where North America should be, since hopes were still high that a route to Asia may be found through the Atlantic, though Europeans had begun to explore the continent standing in their way.
We will discuss some of the accuracies and inaccuracies of this map in further detail later, but for now, it may be noted that Piri Reis’s compilation of various sources, combined with the imprecise methods of mapping in his day, could produce a map with an accurate coastline of Antarctica (taken from one source) and an inaccurate placement of that coast (taken from another source).
Also to be taken into consideration, when a 2-D map is made, the spherical geography of the Earth is distorted. Piri Reis’s method of mapping and how this relates to the distortion is a matter of debate among researchers.
Distortion, however, is not the explanation Hapgood gave for the northern positioning of Antarctica. Hapgood hypothesized that the land masses shifted.
He said a rapid 15-degree pole shift may have occurred some 11,000 years ago. In an introduction to Hapgood’s book “Earth’s Shifting Crust,” Albert Einstein praisedHapgood’s theory and explained that these shifts could “produce a movement of the Earth’s crust over the rest of the Earth’s body, and this will displace the polar regions toward the equator.”
Modern studies refute Hapgood’s theory to a certain extent, but they do show that such movement in the Earth’s crust can occur, especially pushing landmasses from the poles toward the equator, just as Antarctica would purportedly have been pushed toward the equator.
John A. Tardunu, a geophysicist at the University of Rochester, has said the poles have not deviated by more than 5 degrees over the past 130 million years. True polar wander is generally held to occur at a rate of 1 degree per million years.
But, 800 million years ago, it seems a 50-degree shift took place, according to Adam Maloof, an associate professor of geosciences at Princeton University. This shift happened over the course of perhaps 10 million to 20 million years, Maloof explained in an interview with NPR.
The crusts shifted at a rate of about 20 inches (50 centimeters) a day, compared to the rate they are shifting today of 4 inches (10 centimeters) a day. He explained that the globe shifts its weight toward the equator to maintain equilibrium as it rotates.
“And what was particularly bizarre about this shift [that happened 800 million years ago] is that it was a there-and-back-again motion. It seemed to rotate one way, and then rotate back,” Maloof said.
So, Hapgood’s timeline of 11,000 years ago doesn’t match up with current data, and a shift of tens of millions of years is considerably more leisurely than Hapgood’s idea of rapid shifts within thousands of years. But, Antarctica may have moved up closer to the equator at some in the Earth’s history.
150,000-Year-Old Pipes Baffle Scientists in China: Out of Place in Time?
Similar Petroglyphs in Israel, America Reveal Ancient Global Language?
For this to fit with the theory that a prehistoric civilization mapped the Antarctic coast where it is shown in the Piri Reis map, we’d have to place that civilization much further back in time, or learn something new about how the Earth’s crust shifts.
Latitude Described in Anomalous Manner
A note inscribed by Piri Reis opposite South America translates as: “It is related by the Portuguese infidel that in this spot night and day are at their shortest of two hours, at their longest of 22 hours. But the day is very warm and in the night there is much dew.”
This description suggests a far more southern latitude than the Portuguese or anyone else is known to have sailed by 1513. McIntosh wrote: “The latitude indicated by the number of daylight hours given in the inscription would be between 60 degrees and 67 degrees south, depending on whether the edge, center, or entire disk of the sun were being sighted. This range of latitudes, in Drake Passage south of Tierra del Fuego and the Plamer Peninsula in Antarctica is further south than the Portuguese or anyone else is known to have sailed until the next century.”
McIntosh is not a proponent, however, of the theory that Piri Reis attained information about Antarctica from a prehistoric source map. He believes the southern continent depicted in the map is one produced by imagination. From the time of the ancient Greeks, a southern continent had been discussed, though not actually observed, said McIntosh during a presentation at a 2013 conference at the Turkish Embassy in London celebrating the map’s 100-year anniversary. Many maps, not only Piri Reis’s show a southern continent in various forms.
Piri Reis map shows the coastlines of Africa and South America within a half a degree of longitude-stunning precision.
For McIntosh, these maps all show a fictional continent and do not provide evidence of voyages to Antarctica. Ancient maps are often said to show imaginary or mythical creatures and places, though some argue these myths contain a grain of truth. Famed author and researcher Graham Hancock is a proponent of the theory that advanced civilizations existed in prehistory. For him, the multiple maps support the veracity of Piri Reis’s Antarctica. Hapgood and the Air Force cartographers had also analysed, for example, the 1531 map of Oronce Finé and found the same purported accuracy in tracing the Antarctic coastline as it would appear without ice.
Surprising Accuracy in Other Regards
It wasn’t until 1790, with the invention of the marine chronometer, that navigators and cartographers could pinpoint the longitude of a given position with accuracy. Yet, Hancock noted in an interview for the 1996 NBC special series “The Mysterious Origins of Man,” that the Piri Reis map shows the coastlines of Africa and South America within a half a degree of longitude-stunning precision.
Not all aspects of the map are so precise, but the equator is also well-placed and some surprising details are given.
Steven Dutch, a natural and applied sciences professor at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, does not believe the map accurately depicts Antarctica, but he does note the mysteries it presents: “The map seems to show more detail than Europeans were likely to have in 1513. Pizarro hadn’t been to Peru yet, so how did Piri Reis know about the Andes? Did somebody hear tales of mountains far inland? Also, the detail on the South American coast seems a bit rich for 1513. Was the map begun then and completed later? Was the map copied later and the date miscopied?”
Dutch suggests the southern tip of South America may be distorted, bending east where it shouldn’t; thus, the landmass said to be Antarctica would actually be a warped depiction of southern South America. McIntosh does not believe this is the case, but does not rule out the possibility.
Is the southern landmass depicted by this 16th century cartographer, whose skills were of high repute in his day, a mythological continent, a misguided depiction of South America, or a true-and perhaps astoundingly old-depiction of Antarctica’s coast?
Follow @TaraMacIsaac on Twitter, visit the Epoch Times Beyond Science page on Facebook, and subscribe to the Beyond Science newsletter to continue exploring the new frontiers of science!
See also - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHbNbxNJVk0
See also - https://www.nytimes.com/…/new-analysis-hints-ancient-explor…