Map named America is a puzzle for researchers

Map named America is a puzzle for researchers

news.yahoo.com

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The only surviving copy of the 500-year-old map that first used the name America goes on permanent display this month at the Library of Congress, but even as it prepares for its debut, the 1507 Waldseemuller map remains a puzzle for researchers.

(visit the link for the full news article)



[edit on 4/12/07 by MikeboydUS]

This is a bizarre story and tells me we know less about history than we think. History is not perfect. Weird things like this pop up from time to time but still people dont realize how biased and flawed the whole proecess of writing history is.

news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

An interesting TidBit, thanx for the link.

It seems when something like this pops up, that contradicts history as we know it, it seems to go away... quietly into the night.

I heard that China 'forgot' more than it knew about navigation long before European explorers.

One of the Dynasties had massive 'city ships' which were destroyed by the following Dynasty because the society underwent a total change from one that wished to project it's self far and wide to one that became insular and cut it's self off from the world.

If that were the case then detailed information would surly of been circulated to others and passed on.

Could it be the reason for the map been so accurate is because the map is not as old as stated?

Or just a well elaborated and perfect fake when it comes to how old really is and who really made it?.

Or we can just give the credit for the 500 year map accuracy to Aliens.

Why did he put a huge ocean west of America years before European explorers discovered the Pacific

Well that bit is easy, anyway.

It was known that there was a ocean to the east of China.

It was known that the earth was round.

America was found to lay to the west of Europe, between Europe and China.

Therefore there had to be another ocean between the newly discovered America and China.

QED

A colorized higher res version of the map...



It's a bit easier to see the perceived size of the New World in the smaller map top center.

reply to post by marg6043


why does it always ahve to be that whenever something thats contradicts todays modern "scientific" or "historic" view of the world it has to automaticly be "fake" ?

Maybe just maybe this shows how umm "well" our writen history really is put together ?

Heh people cant really decide on the accurate history of a few hunderd years but all the sceptics and debunkers rush with the quote "this cant be true because there are no remarks about that in the history accounts" whenever somebody states something abut ancient civilizations or any past mysteries that go back thousands of years into the past ..

Makes you wonder how "accurate" our written history really is

[edit on 4-12-2007 by Thill]

Wow cool map

Vespucci was a merchant from Florence. In 1505, he published a letter claiming that he had led four expeditions to the Americas. On the first of these, in 1497, he had visited South America, making him the first person to explore that continent. There is no evidence other than this letter that he led such an expedition. It is more likely that he accompanied Spanish and Portuguese trips.

Such a ludicrous claim should have been long forgotten. But a German map maker called Martin Waldseemüller, from the town of St Dié in the Vosges Mountains (now in France), believed Vespucci's claim. He decided that the continent should be named in honour of its discoverer, so he made up the name 'America', by converting 'Amerigo' into Latin, the language of scholars, and then making it feminine to match the other continents (Europa, Asia and Africa). The name America first appeared on Waldseemüller's map of the world, referring only to what is now South America. Gradually, the name caught on and eventually became applied to North America as well.

Source

Could this be the answer?

Well, the deeper one delves into history the more it becomes apparent as to how little we know about ancient man.. Obviously there were people here before it was "discovered," so....

Ame rica
Af rica
Costa Rica

There's something interesting about that naming convention. Did rica mean land? Af = aft = below. Africa = land below. Costa = Costal. Costa Rica = Coastal Land. I've read before that Ame-rica just meant "furthest land". Any truth in that? Any language buffs around here with an opinion on that?

Thanks for this thread and thanks APC for putting up the picture. I love old maps. This map is very beautiful. I wonder how much a quality print costs?

[edit on 4uTuesday07/27/20 by paul76]

In every latin language I know of rica and rico means "rich." Not specifically referring to wealth, but to have an abundance or fulfillment of something.

grr... buttons buttons everywhere.

[edit on 4-12-2007 by apc]

reply to post by apc

That makes sense for Costa Rica. Rich coast. What about Africa and America?

Dunno on Africa. If however America is not based on a name, it could be A-Me-Rica. Me is me, and I'm not certain but I think a prefix A modifies the same as in English, so it could loosely mean "Riches for all." I'm gettin pretty mucky on that, though.

>
I'm no linguist, just a language nerd. So I could just be talking out muh bum.

>
OK a quick check of a latin book leads me to believe "far off" is probably more accurate. The prefix A means away or away from. So a-me could just literally mean "away from me", so "Furthest Riches" would make pretty good sense.


[edit on 4-12-2007 by apc]

Anyone know if there is any truth to the Templar Legends about the Western land La Merica and it connections to Scottish expeditions possibly before Columbus?

That might be the actual origin of the name America.

reply to post by apc


Wow, how amazing, and to think it only took them 15 years to explore America and map all those rivers with such precision.

Or...

1) They are really good at naming and claiming.

2) Photocopy?

3) Did they really pay that much for a forged counterfeit?

4) Where's Manhattan?


[edit on 4-12-2007 by Siren]

hi this is very interesting...has anyone heard of the piri re'is map?
www.sacred-texts.com...
or the robert thorne map of 1527,
benedetto map of 1528
oronteus finaeus map
hadji ahmed
mercator
the andrea benincasa map of 1508.......
could go on and on.
these maps show clearly parts of the world NOT yet discovered untill last last 4 hundred years. they are believed to have come from earlier maps. piri re'is 's map was supposidly copied from older maps.
read charles hapgoods book, maps of the anctient sea kings for more info.
i have a copy and its well worth a read (backed up my ideas on the antiquity of the sea fareing civillisation)
m xx

reply to post by Siren


I'm afraid I don't understand #2-4...

Are you looking at the right continent? The large land mass with river detail in the middle of the map is Eurasia. North America is the little blob in the top left "corner."



[edit on 4-12-2007 by apc]

#2, 3 and 4 was a bit of dry humor.

See details below:

Cantino world map (1502)

Main article: Cantino planisphere

The Cantino planisphere is the earliest surviving map showing Portuguese discoveries in the east and west. It is named after Alberto Cantino, an agent for the Duke of Ferrara, who successfully smuggled it from Portugal to Italy in 1502. The map is particularly notable for portraying a fragmentary record of the Brazilian coast, accidentally discovered in 1500 by the Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral and subsequently explored by Gonçalo Coelho and Amerigo Vespucci.