treasure maps

[Martin]

Does any know what some of the old "pirate" maps would look like? What paper would they be? On how big it would measure or would it be more like a manuscript? Would it be in color or black and white?

[Pew]

While not 'treasure maps' per se, I would find if they were created they would be found on a material that would be available on ships at the tie.

Here's a link to producing sea charts which would be quite similar aesthetically to what you are trying to accomplish.

https://pyracy.com/index.php?showtopic=15641&view=&hl=treasure%20maps&fromsearch=1

[Mission]

Your title talks about treasure maps, but your text sort of suggest your talking about nautical charts. You might search in the Captain Twill forum or in here for the term "charts" if you want info on real period charts. (Charts were used for navigation.)

I don't think there are any extant "Pirate Treasure Maps." Huge arguments have taken place among the pirate cognoscente that I know about whether any pirate ever would have left evidence of burying treasure by actually writing it down. (They might have...a few pirates and privateers are recorded as burying treasure, so you'd suppose they'd have to have some sort of way to locate it.)

It's really something that traces its roots back to the fictional book Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. Many editions of that book have a copy of the map he talks about in the story that you might want to use as a reference. I would think if pirate maps existed, they would have been as varied as the people who would have made them.

[Martin]

Thank you for the information. What I meant by "treasure maps" was more or less the personal charts of very local islands.

[Gibbet Jones]

I seen a map marking the location of a treasure in an old book on pirates. I believe it mentioned that the treasure is not known to have been recovered because the island drawn could not be identified. Possibly due to islands in the area changing shape so rapidly.

[Mission]

Gibbet - you should scan that and post it. It would be interesting to see.

Martin - A lot of the period journals have hand drawn maps in them. There are several like this, but the two that come to my mind are:

A Voyage to the South Sea and Round the World in the Years 1708 to 1711 by Edward Cooke

and

The Journal of James Yonge [1647-1721] Plymouth Surgeon, by James Yonge, edited by F.N.L. Poynter.

Note that these are NOT treasure maps, they are just hand-drawn maps from period.

You might be able to get copies of those through your library, although they are a little hard to find. I always recommend using the research librarians as they have been very helpful to me in obtaining some really weird books.

Yonge's maps are pretty simplistic. I did scan one of Genoa in for another post, that I can re-post here for you:

I found Cooke's maps so detailed and charming that I scanned several of those in when I had the library book. His maps are fold-outs, quite large - 11" x 14" or so. Here's one of Peru (from page 110):

And here's one of upper South America (from page 248):

[Dread Pyrate Greyhound]

I'm actually in process of making a chart book with maps of Africa, Madagascar, the caribbean and other seas.

[Commodore Swab]

The closest I can think of an actual treasure map would be the chart recorded in 1733 marking the locations of the sunken galleons (hurricane). In the wrong hands this would of been very valuable as there was much silver and gold never recovered. To further hide the ships at the time the Spanish burned them down to the waterline. In more recent times copies of this "treasure map" was optained from the archives and used to rediscover the sunken ships, even though they were salvaged thousands of coins, silver bars, and other treasure was recovered.