[Still Waters]

news.bbc.co.uk said:

Drawn half a millennium ago and then swiftly forgotten, one map made us see the world as we know it today... and helped name America. But, as Toby Lester has discovered, the most powerful nation on earth also owes its name to a pun.

Almost exactly 500 years ago, in 1507, Martin Waldseemuller and Matthias Ringmann, two obscure Germanic scholars based in the mountains of eastern France, made one of the boldest leaps in the history of geographical thought - and indeed in the larger history of ideas.

Near the end of an otherwise plodding treatise titled Introduction to Cosmography, they announced to their readers the astonishing news that the world did not just consist of Asia, Africa, and Europe, the three parts of the world known since antiquity. A previously unknown fourth part of the world had recently been discovered, they declared, by the Italian merchant Amerigo Vespucci, and in his honour they had decided to give it a name: America.

Read more...

[Dr Alien]

how the hell would they know how it looked like

[Still Waters]

Dr Alien, on 29 October 2009 - 08:56 PM, said:

how the hell would they know how it looked like

dunno I guess you could say that's an unexplained mystery.......sorry I couldn't resist

[Dr Alien]

Still Waters, on 29 October 2009 - 09:12 PM, said:

dunno I guess you could say that's an unexplained mystery.......sorry I couldn't resist

it could be added to the 7(+1) wonders of the world

[karl 12]

Quote

A previously unknown fourth part of the world had recently been discovered, they declared, by the Italian merchant Amerigo Vespucci, and in his honour they had decided to give it a name: America

Still Waters -interesting post.

Found this little nugget about Amerigo Vespucci quite intriguing.

Quote

Q: Who is America named after?

A: AMERIGO VESPUCI


No,not the Italian merchant and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci,but Richard Ameryk,a Welshman and wealthy Bristol merchant.
Ameryk was the chief investor in the second transatlantic voyage of John Cabot- the English name of the Italian navigator Giovanni Caboto whose voyages in 1497 and 1498 laid the groundwork for the later British claim to Canada.He moved to London from Genoa in 1484 and was authorised by King Henry to search for unknown lands to the west.
On his little ship 'Matthew',Cabot reached Labrador in May 1497 and became the first recorded European to set foot on American soil,predating Vespucci by two years.
Martin Waldseemuller's great map of the world made the assumption that the name derived from a Latin version of Amerigo Vaespucci's first name but the only place the name 'America' was ever used was Bristol.
Vespucci never reached North America at all(all the early maps and trade were British), nor did he ever use the name America for his 'discovery'.
New countries or continents were always named after the surname so America would have become Vespucci land (or Vespuccia) if the Italian explorer had consciously given a name to it.

http://www.qi.com/tv/

Cheers.

This post has been edited by karl 12: 29 October 2009 - 10:20 PM

[Peter B]

Dr Alien, on 30 October 2009 - 06:56 AM, said:

how the hell would they know how it looked like

Well, to be fair, it's hardly an accurate outline of America, either North or South. If you look at enlarged versions of the map, you can tell which coastlines have been visited by Europeans by the density of names along the land-side of the coast. It's particularly noticeable around Africa, and in a couple of sections of the east coast of North and South America. But all along the west coast of North and South America there are no names.

As for the existence of the Pacific Ocean, my suspicion is that it was an inspired guess by Waldseemueller which happened to be right. My logic works as follows:

1. Columbus was convinced he could sail west from Europe to China.

2. Jesuit astronomers (at least, I think it was them) said he couldn't possibly do so, based on their (fairly accurate) calculations of the circumference of the Earth and the width of Eurasia.

3. Columbus sailed anyway, and found land. He assumed this land was China.

4. If Waldseemueller had access to calculations of the size of the Earth, the approximate width of Eurasia, the approximate distance Columbus had travelled, and descriptions of what Columbus and others had found, he may have concluded that the land Columbus had found wasn't China. And seeing as this was the east coast of a land which wasn't China, then the land had to have a west coast facing the east coast of China.

I think the map is impressive, and if my theory is right, then Waldseemueller should be congratulated for his logic stream. But if my theory is right, it was still a guess, just a correct one. It might be interesting to have a look at other maps of the time to see what wrong guess other map makers made. Anyway, he still made mistakes - note that the islands off the coast of Asia are all wrong, and he has a gap between North and South America.

[susieice]

You can google the Piri Reis map that was drawn in 1513. It gives an accurate depliction of the North and South Americas and the northern coast of Antartica.

[questionmark]

susieice, on 31 October 2009 - 05:44 PM, said:

You can google the Piri Reis map that was drawn in 1513. It gives an accurate depliction of the North and South Americas and the northern coast of Antartica.

it does?

[susieice]

questionmark, on 31 October 2009 - 12:37 PM, said:

it does?

coastlines

You can also google the Oronteus Finaeus Map of 1532. It not only shows Antartica but also maps its coastline. Unfortunately these maps do exist.

This post has been edited by susieice: 31 October 2009 - 04:46 PM

[questionmark]

susieice, on 31 October 2009 - 06:41 PM, said:

coastlines

You can also google the Oronteus Finaeus Map of 1532. It not only shows Antartica but also maps its coastline. Unfortunately these maps do exist.

right, and where is Cape Horn on that map?

[karl 12]

Unusual and Marvelous Maps:

http://www.darkroast...elous-maps.html