Case Study: The Piri Reis Map

In a barrage of posts around 12 November 2001 Anthony Sakovitch, a regular participant at the Ma’at Message Board, alleged that I had deliberately distorted a redrawing of the Piri Reis Map (1513) given in Fingerprints of the Gods in order to strengthen Charles Hapgood’s case that this map contains an Ice Age representation of parts of Antarctica.

Anthony alleged that I had:

…enlarged the area that ‘resembles’ Antarctica nearly twice as much as other areas on the map….Given this series of distortions, it certainly does suggest that the coastline depicted is NOT the entire map shown in the plate on the left hand page… but is, in fact, an enlargement of the specific portion that relates to Hapgood’s claim. (Who has FoG?)

In another post, Anthony was even more explicit in his accusations that I had distorted the map:

 Re: Answer to GH’s Piri Reis Question
Author: Anthony 
Date:   Nov-12-01 06:54

Gosh…

According to Graham’s “redrawing” of the map, the distance from Brazil to Africa is less than the actual width of the Gulf of Mexico.

According to Graham’s “redrawing”, Africa is closer to Brazil than Argentina is to the “tip” of Brazil (Natal/Recife region).

You’re not saying that Graham’s map is poorly/inaccurately redrawn, are you?

Now that I look at it, Graham HAS “shrunk” the distance between Brazil and Africa… by about 20%.

As a matter of fact, now that I measure it… it’s WAY skewed from real. The whole THING is out of whack…

Some measurements are the same as the PRM on the opposite page, some have been kept the same (effectively shrinking the distance), some have been enlarged…

It’s no wonder when I first looked at this it didn’t look like the whole map, but only one piece… enlarged. He’s stretched and skewed this thing twelve ways from Sunday!

Anthony

Once again therefore I was confronted by a violent attack on my professional integrity by an individual who posts regularly on the Ma’at Message Board. And once again, as was the case with Martin Stower’s damaging allegations, the attack proved to be false, spurious and baseless. Jeff van Hout and Mark Wells proved this on line (You ought to be ashamed!) and by 14 August Anthony was compelled to issue this retraction:

Graham, it would appear that your redrawing of the Piri Reis map has been reproduced EXACTLY as you had it drawn… and it is an acceptable match to the ACTUAL Piri Reis Map. (Graham did NOT distorted the drawing)

Thanks for the apology, Anthony.

But, once again, mud sticks…