Can Antarctica be the Lost Continent Atlantis?

The map shown here as part of the Piri Reis Map is not part of the Piri Reis Map at all. The Piri Reis Map does not show “Terra Australis Incognita”. The map shown is a portion of the Orontius Finaeus Map of 1531. The maps look nothing alike. On the O.F. map, just below the title “Terra Austalis Incognita” are the words, “Terra Australis recenter inventa sed nondum plene cognita”, which means “Southern land found recently but not fully known”. It was drawn from various sightings at various disconnected (or geographically distal) points by sailors as reported over the years.

For example, no land mass comes that close to the Straight of Magellan at the tip of South America, but on many maps at the time, including the O.F. map, Tierra del Fuego, which was coasted by Magellan himself in 1520, was shown and thought to be the northern coast of Terra Australis Incognito. We now know that it is an island. It is even labelled as Tierra del Fiego on the Jodocus Hondius Map of 1608, which shows is at the northern coast of Terra Australis Incognito. Farther east (or west if you like), the coast of Terra Australis Incognita from the O.F. map matches up remarkably well (for map-making skills of the day) with the northern coast of Australia at the Carpentaria Gulf, including its location in relation to the Island of Java. Much of the rest of the “not fully known” continent is simply drawn in to fill in the map (obviously, as in the example of Tierra del Fuego which is drawn as part of a continent but is clearly an island).

This is in line with the thinking of the day. After being able to calculate with surprising accuracy that the world is a sphere (and how large it is), and knowing that there were lands in the north, it was believed that there must be land in the south in order to balance it out. It turns out they were correct, but were simply off with their efforts in filling in the gaps on the map. If you can superimpose the continent of Antarctica onto Terra Australis from the O.F. map, it is easy to see that Terra Australis contains 5 times the land mass of Antarctica as known today. This isn’t surprising knowing that the Fine connected the shorelines of what we now know as Australia with Tierra del Fuego and likely other islands in between that he found the locations of, which were sighted from a distance and assumed to be part of a land mass.

Patroklos Kampanakis’ map is a fictional, theoretical map that he drew out a his theory that Atlantis was a continent in the Atlantic Ocean between North Africa and South America. He didn’t draw it from any sources he had, and he says what it is in his book (in which the map appears), “The Procataclysm Communication of the Two Worlds via Atlantis”, written in 1893.

Dr. Mills produced a reasonably well thought out but poorly researched article (all the info I wrote can be found in 10 minutes or less on Google, though I’m personally well acquainted with ancient maps).

Sincerely,
ShawnO
Professional Surveyor and Cartographer