A Story To Tell: Seeing Through the Minds of Two Admirals
- Eda Ozyesilpinar -
Navigating through The Reis Map
This section focuses on the way Reis presented information through the marginal notes he included in the map, the structure of his writing style, and any names he uses to avoid any confusion throughout this study and to provide a better understanding about the Reis map which clarifies how to read and navigate through the map.
The notes in the Reis Map
Ayse Afetinan (1954) numbers each note in the Reis map and provides full translations in modern Turkish from Ottoman Turkish in her study about the Reis map in The Oldest Map of America Drawn by Piri Reis. In total, there are twenty-four notes on the Reis map and each note provides information about certain locations (geography, culture), certain discoverers, and the sources used to draw the Reis map, and information about the mapmaker Piri Reis.
Figure 2. The notes of the Reis map
Translation Issues
The notes on the Reis map were originally written in Ottoman Turkish; more importantly they are written in verses due to the preference over prose. Even the translation from Ottoman Turkish to Modern Turkish includes inverted sentences and unusual uses of the language. Considering the translation used in this study is translated from Modern Turkish to English (translation of a translation), these unusual structures occurred more than usual within the English translation of the notes on the Reis map. This study did not make any corrections or changes in the English translation to stay loyal to the originality of the writing style of the Reis map; in addition, making changes might have resulted in implementing incorrect interpretations which might have affected the direction of the study.
Usage of "Columbus"
Throughout the note V and in the other notes, Reis uses “Colombo” to refer to Christopher Columbus (see Appendix). To clarify any further confusion which might appear throughout this study whenever direct evidence is used from the notes on the map, including Columbus’s name, it is essential to know that Colombo stands for Columbus.