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Book ponders on the question of a previous civilization, that had sea maps that could only be confirmed by submarines under Antartica. Crustal movement theory.
He does not attempt to hypothesize on who or when the original maps may have been developed. Charles Hapgood makes a strong case for ancient civilizations that are unknown to the modern world. Generally, the book is easy to read. He stays focused on what is known and can be analyzed.The notes and appendices are large and the detailed analysis of the various maps that Charles and his associates analyzed can be difficult to follow. However, if one accepts the notes and appendices as valid, then his case for a lost ancient civilization is strong.
It is possible that there was far more information known in classical times but as evidence shows many documents were destroyed and that knowege lost. There is always the possiblity of forgeries and hoaxes in the 40 years since this book came out it would be intersting to take a second look at the data and verify this.I am intersted in prehistory or technology of the remote past and this book indicated that there may have been some mathmatical knowlege that was at some advanced state from 12,000 to 6,000 years ago. I leared a great deal about cartography and the difficulty in creating world maps. Still the book is well written and it focues on how map were drawn and the complexities involved. Still the book is dated bacuase there are theories today that these civilizations could now be under water in places like the Black Sea or Persian gulf. Plate tectonics is still when this book was written an unaccpeted idea.The information is strong but still take the book from a skeptical point of view. It also shows the devlopment or rediscovery of some of the techniques of creating maps. I read the book in two days and most of the information is technical observations of many maps that may be based on classical maps because much of the geography was not discovered by the time the maps were to have been written.
I have read about 2/3 of this book and find it details the analysis of old maps by a professor and his students trying to trace the map origins. The method is to try to place the old maps on modern maps and see if any of the old suggests early knowledge of faraway places (Antarctic, North America, etc). I had hoped there would be hard evidence of how the maps originated, since maps can be easily faked. But there is no hard evidence so far.
Prof. Are the results convincing. The biggest problem is the lack of solid evidences. There are many theories about the ancient civilizations. Besides, ther are some really interesting points, e.g.: a very good explanation of why Colombus estimated shorter distance between Europe and America, and some REALLY EXACT midieval maps of the medeterranium.This book is well above most of the books of "ancient history, lost civilizations, etc" category, because it is based on facts and calculations, you can check if you want. Hapgood and his students made a great job.
I read this book twice and I carefully studied the chapters of map making and writing, and I think that Prof.
Hapgood finds his evidence in old maps.
It needs to much assumptions to be true.
If we look back to the human history, somehow we always cross the boundaries of official science.
For me, not really, there's a point, when a coastline of the Antarctic is extracted from the map.
In his book he analyze maps with scientific methodology, and gets some really interesting results.
Focusing mainly to the map of Piri Reis, he extracts data out of an old map, and presents the results as an "accurate map" of the American coastline long before it was explored by the Europeans.
The same is true with the map of Oronteus Finaeus map.
This could be a 5 star book, but I feel, that some of the conclusions are forced.
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