Waldseemuller Map Mystery
The Waldseemuller map, an astonishingly accurate map of the world produced in 1507 will go on permanent display at the Library of Congress this month. What is puzzling about the map is that it shows details that were not discovered yet. Including the name 'America'.
Why did the mapmaker name the territory America and then change his mind later? How was he able to draw South America so accurately? Why did he put a huge ocean west of America years before European explorers discovered the Pacific?
"That's the kind of conundrum, the question, that is still out there," said John Hebert, chief of the geography and map division of the Library of Congress.
The 12 sheets that make up the map, purchased from German Prince Johannes Waldburg-Wolfegg for $10 million in 2003, were mounted on Monday in a huge 6-foot by 9.5-foot (1.85 meter by 2.95 meter) display case machined from a single block of aluminum.
The case will be flooded with inert argon gas to prevent deterioration when it goes on public display December 13.
Researchers are hopeful that putting the rarely shown map on permanent display for the first time since it was discovered in the Waldburg-Wolfegg castle archives in 1901 may stimulate interest in finding out more about the documents used to produce it.
There is a possibility that some older sources, since lost, gave the mapmakers added detail, of course. But the accuracy of certain details is uncanny:
"The actual shape of South America is correct," said Hebert. "The width of South America at certain key points is correct within 70 miles of accuracy."
Given what Europeans are believed to have known about the world at the time, it should not have been possible for the mapmakers to produce it, he said.
The map gives a reasonably correct depiction of the west coast of South America. But according to history, Vasco Nunez de Balboa did not reach the Pacific by land until 1513, and Ferdinand Magellan did not round the southern tip of the continent until 1520.
"So this is a rather compelling map to say, 'How did they come to that conclusion,"' Hebert said.
The mapmakers say they based it on the 1,300-year-old works of the Egyptian geographer Ptolemy as well as letters Florentine navigator Amerigo Vespucci wrote describing his voyages to the new world. But Hebert said there must have been something more.
"From the writings of Vespucci you couldn't have prepared the map," Hebert said. "There had to be something cartographic with it."
You can view a zoomable high definition image of the map here.
By TimF, Tuesday, 4 December , 2007 @ 11:51 am
Or it could be a high quality fake like the Vinland Map (and the Shroud of Turin). Without good provenance, confirming these ‘ancient’ documents is a crapshoot. See http://mcri.org/CMSuploads/vinland_map_1999-22768.pdf?PHPSESSID=f37597c44b000529d924b2f6a0dbfbb6 for more discussion. Too bad Dr. McCrone is dead.
By martian, Tuesday, 4 December , 2007 @ 12:45 pm
The interesting part of this is that this map was supposedly based on the works of Ptolemy 1300 years BEFORE 1507. Did Ptolemy’s map show the western hemisphere as is implied by that statement? Ptolemy’s map no longer exists but if it did show the western hemisphere, HOW DID HE KNOW - 1300 years before the western hemisphere was discovered, or at least 800 years before the Vikings are credited with finding it in 1001?
By Gaius, Tuesday, 4 December , 2007 @ 1:07 pm
He used Chinese satellite images.
By Anthony (Los Angeles), Tuesday, 4 December , 2007 @ 1:18 pm
It’s obvious — space aliens!
(C’mon, you know they’re here. I mean, just look at the California legislature.)