1507 Waldseemuller map goes on display

The map was created by the German monk Martin Waldseemuller. Thirteen years after Christopher Columbus first landed in the Western Hemisphere, the Duke of Lorraine brought Waldseemuller and a group of scholars together at a monastery in Saint-Die in France to create a new map of the world.

..."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."

...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.

...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.

Yet more evidence of the ancients knowing more than the recents. Interestingly, his subsequent maps were less accurate, as he replaced old knowledge with new. That's just like the Egyptian pyramids, started out brilliant, then went downhill...

See the map at the Library of Congress