There are many things that you do not understand even in the days when you can see things in
every corner of the whole world while staying at the desk by using Google map and Bing map
like present. Especially if it is in the midst of a great voyage, the Americas called "New
World" and "New World" are often unknown from people in Europe, and maps at that time included
mermaids and giants, Dragon etc. are drawn.
The map shows this, the Spanish cartographer Diego Gutierrez Also known as a painter and
publisher Hieronymus cock This work is named "Americae Sive Quartae Orbis Partis Nova Et
Exactissima Descriptio". This map is the oldest one as a wall hanging
map depicting the new world. In 1492 when Christophar • Columbus' arrival of the Bahamas
arrived in Brazil by Vicente • Yañes • Pinson in January 1500, it was 1522 that the fleet
of Ferdinand • Magellan played the world around the world, so there are already many
known places Because of it being, the coastline is accurately drawn.
The mermaid can be seen in the left corner of the ancient map, near Tierra del Fuego.
It’s an archipelago off the southern point of the South American mainland, across the
Strait of Magellan. Americae Sive Quartae Orbis Partis Nova Et
Exactissima Descriptio is an ancient map by Diego Gutiérrez and Hieronymus Cock. It was
published in 1562 in Antwerp. The map: A New and Most Exact Description
of America or The Fourth Part of the World, includes the eastern coast of North America,
the whole Central and South America and portion of the western coasts of Europe and Africa.
This map depicts abundant information about the American continent. It further contains
six organized sheets. It measures large 93×86 centimeters which
makes it one of the largest map of America. Moreover, it remained as the greatest Spanish
map of America before the mid-eighteenth century. Currently, there are two existing copies of
the map. One is located in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C and the other
in the British Library in London. The map was official since Philip II, King
of Spain approved it.
Even though a latitude scale lacks from the map, the Equator and the Tropics of Cancer
and Capricorn are visible. Hence, the distance between these latitudes can help to define
the distances of the whole map. Drawings of parrots, monkeys, mermaids, sea
monsters and giant Patagones are the finishing touch of the numerous rivers, mountains and
capes. The map precisely identifies the presence
of the Amazon and Paraná river basins, Lake Titicaca, the location of Potosí, Mexico
City an Florida. Anyway, in addition to everything else, this
ancient map also depicts a couple of strange things too.
The Patagones are mythical giants that arose in the first European descriptions on the
coast of Patagonia region. Experts assume that the source of the myth
could be relying on the Tehuelche tribes from that area.
The first reference to these giants is the story of Fernando de Magallanes’ trip around
the world. In this text, the author claimed to have noticed
them on the southern coast of South America in the year 1520.
Antonio Pigafetta, one of the few survivors of the expedition wrote this about the supposed
giants: “The captain-general sent one of our men
to the giant so that he might perform the same actions as a sign of peace. Having done
that, the man led the giant to an islet into the presence of the captain-general. When
the giant was in the captain-general’s and our presence, he marveled greatly and made
signs with one finger raised upward, believing that we had come from the sky.”
“He was so tall that we reached only to his waist, and he was well proportioned. His
face was large and painted red all over, while about his eyes he was painted yellow; and
he had two hearts painted on the middle of his cheeks. His scanty hair was painted white.”
“He was dressed in the skins of animals skillfully sewn together. That animal has
a head and ears as large as those of a mule, a neck and body like those of a camel, the
legs of a deer, and the tail of a horse, like which it neighs, and that land has very many
of them.” “His feet were shod with the same kind of
skins which covered his feet in the manner of shoes. In his hand he carried a short,
heavy bow, with a cord somewhat thicker than those of the lute, and made from the intestines
of the same animal, and a bundle of rather short cane arrows feathered like ours, and
with points of white and black flint stones in the manner of Turkish arrows, instead of
iron. Those points were fashioned by means of another stone.”—(Diary of Pigafetta,
pp. 51-52). Most likely the weirdest part belongs to the
left part of the map, near Tierra del Fuego. In particular, this section depicts what seems
to be a mermaid holding something like a flying saucer.
The mermaid observes a ship going towards the coast of today’s Chile. In her right
hand, she holds an object that strongly resembles a flying disc.
This disc really looks like something that modern-day people would describe as a UFO.
But is it really? Just above this mermaid, to the right of the
ship, we see another mermaid overlooking the ship and holding in her left hand an oval-shaped
object. The creators of this ancient map combined
real places with mythological elements. Whatever the object is, is definitely a mystery.
One thing or another, it’s quite interesting to see how people imagined America more than
500 years ago. This map is the oldest one as a wall hanging
map depicting the new world. In 1492 when Christophar • Columbus' arrival of the Bahamas
arrived in Brazil by Vicente • Yañes • Pinson in January 1500, it was 1522 that the fleet
of Ferdinand • Magellan played the world around the world, so there are already many
known places Because of it being, the coastline is accurately drawn.
On the other hand, it is distinctive that it is portrayed as "publicity content" or
"folklore tradition".
Latin America was home at that time to highly resourceful indigenous peoples, says Alencar
Brayner. The Aztecs and the Mayans knew how to work with metals, cultivate land and farm,
and preserve artifacts. But the map doesn’t depict these people. Instead, Brazilians are
drawn as barbaric cannibals in the midst of butchering and roasting humans.
In southern South America, Gutiérrez shows two members of the Tehuelche tribe as large
giants looking down at an explorer in “Tierra de Patagones,” or the land of giants.
The region, which now constitutes parts of modern Argentina and Chile, was described
by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan after encountering the native Tehuelche tribe
in 1520. According to his accounts, the Tehuelches were said to have been anywhere from six to
six-and-a-half feet tall, and “appeared gigantic to the relatively short-statured
Spaniards,” wrote Irene Butler in Langley Advance. Magellan said that his men only reached
up to the giants’ waists. To prove that he had found giants in the New
World, Magellan captured two of the Tehuelches and tried to bring them back to Spain. However,
they didn’t survive the trip, and Magellan was only left with his and his shipmates’
tales of the land of giants. It was given the name Patagonia, which derives from “pata,”
the Spanish word for foot. A huge monster that is going to attack the
ship. Apparently, the appearance that a whale is blowing the tide has become a motif.
A creature that can be seen like a dragon. Hippocampos, It is said that Hippocampos lives
between Norway and the United Kingdom. In the vicinity of Brazil is the figure of
a person who kills people and seems to be grilled and eating. Around this time, explorers
from Europe should already have encountered the local civilization, but it seems that
it is drawn with the image that "barbaric and dangerous people live".
A huge volcano drawn in Mexico And "California" which is drawn with fairly
small letters at the left end of the map. It seems that this map was the first time
the name was used. Like many other 15th and 16th-century maps,
the treacherous oceans are terrorized by an assortment of terrifying sea monsters, reflecting
the fear of the unknown and uncharted waters. In the Atlantic Ocean west of Ireland a massive
clawed creature lurks in the waves. A flying fish can be spotted just below a
ship battle in the lower right panel, while a strange-looking ape or monkey seems to be
gnawing on its prey just west of the Canary Islands.
Gutiérrez drew an assortment of wildlife that had been observed by explorers, including
monkeys, parrots, an elephant and a lion. But strangely, an Indian rhinoceros is found
poised in the African plains. Explorers had seen documented accounts of
rhinos in Africa, however the illustration in the map is actually a copy of Albrecht
Durer’s 1515 depiction of a rhinoceros native to India.
“It’s interesting to see the relationship between map drawing and power,” says Alencar
Brayner. “By the time you can map something, you can point out that it’s belonging to
you.” Even though Gutiérrez and Cock’s map of
the Americas is full of visual splendor, a lot can be read between the lines. There were
still more exciting wonders waiting to be discovered in the New World.