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 enlarge | Author: Charles H. Hapgood
Publisher: Adventures Unlimited Press
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
Buy New: $12.34
You Save: $7.61 (38%)
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Rating:  39 reviews
Sales Rank: 45414
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 315
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.8
Dimensions (in): 9.9 x 7.9 x 1
ISBN: 0932813429
Dewey Decimal Number: 912.09
EAN: 9780932813428
ASIN: 0932813429
Publication Date: January 1997
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| Customer Reviews:
Dusted Excellence on the Uncovering of the Ancient Superior Cartography Knowledge October 25, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book is about medieval and some Rennaissance maps which are very unusual: They show continents not yet (re-)discovered. Isles now submerged. The coastal areas of Antarctica and Greenland entirely free of ice. A remarkable precision completely out of place for the Imes (times). Based on cartographical systems utterly unknown back then - and obviously completely not overstood by the copyists of ancient maps. Ancient maps which are based on source maps which were ancient in the Imes what we today consider as ancient.
When I first browsed through the ads for other books in this book's back I dreaded what I got myself into. From Atlantis to UFOs you will find anything no hard evidence will be found of currently. Personally, I do not DISbelief any of that either, I just dread to read wild speculation. Because that usually turns out to be utter non-sense later. Yet, occasionally sparking the search for more knowledge. Which IS important then, after all. This shows perfectly with this book. Most of it is very 1960s state of the art scientific fact based. No wonder, as the author worked on this subject for seven years (1959-1966) - as a professor with his students and the help of the US air force map division. After the presentation of the facts on the various maps, he adds a concluding chapter - with a lot of speculation. The theories therein were valid at the Imes. Reproduced is a foreword by no less than Albert Einstein for an earlier book by the author, which theory gets new attention in this follow up book. The specifics of the main theory of earth crust shifting (as in one peace moving in one direction) due to the heavy ice caps at the poles causing centrifugal displacements sound extremely hilarious today. Yet, at the Imes, ANY continental shifting sounded hilarious, and today we know that the continents move around indeed. Just not the way, the author once suspected.
Which leads me to the subtraction of a star for major dust having accumulated on this book, without getting updated with a preface or reworked altogether. This book is historic already. It has been written at Imes, humans were just starting to get pictures of earth from space, but hadn't been on the moon yet. It was published eight years before the invention of Arno Peters' superior projection of the world. When the ice ages were still pure mysteries. When the age of humans of some 195,000 years wasn't known. And when historic legends such as the supposed burning of the Alexandria library by Muslim conquerors was still believed in, i.e. hadn't been exposed as the medieval European Christian propaganda it was. (In reality, it was first Julius Caesar, then fanatic Christians who successively burned that (once rebuild) world treasure, the last Imes some seven centuries before the Muslims arrived.)
All which in a way makes a point for that which the author is writing: That some superior knowledge may get forgotten/never known by (mainstream) humanity while in other areas common progress is made. He's referring to the lost source maps. I am referring to his book. His speculation about the earth has been dealt with and progressed on. His very scientific facts about the maps he has conducted has not entered general human consciousness. After the first edition, his book remained unpublished for some 20 years, till a publisher had to reprint it, whose usual readership is satisfied with less strict scientific standards. After reading the other reviews here, I may add that the paperback of 1996 indeed is in black and white. That may have contributed to the very bad reproduction of SOME of the maps, contributing to the subtraction of a star. Most are clearly recognisable, but with individual ones I felt insulted with the presentation. Luckily, some are schematized on the following pages.
I am very thankful that the author unravelled the SEEMING imprecision of some old maps, which only have to get looked at within the correct cartographic system to become virtually perfect. Just not for easy long distance navigation, something e.g. Columbus didn't realize. (The same as the Peters Projection isn't the best choice for navigation.) By the way, it is known in the meanwhile that Columbus knew not only of ancient maps, but also of previous African travels to the Americas. That's why he chose his sea route starting from West Africa to catch the best current. For more on that read e.g. They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America by Ivan Van Sertima and in a way also The Lost Treasure of King Juba: The Evidence of Africans in America before Columbus. The latter suggests an additional reason for the loss of the source maps: A fleeing African King's court taking the maps with it upon Roman invasion, making sure this way that the Romans wouldn't be able to follow.
Other seemingly hilarious elements on the maps are explained as making sense - when the original source maps get considered, not the knowledge lacking later copyists -, such as mythical beasts presented in some territories.
If anybody knows a more recent source about these maps, please leave a comment. For example I am amazed that it doesn't strike anybody, such as the author as odd that some land masses are free of ice, yet on other maps the sea level is DROPPED or equal to today. There are some "odd" climactic conditions making this half way possible, yet I would like to clearly know about the specific scenario at hand. (Or wether this ancient map making knowledge is supposed to have existed THIS long that it covered different fundamentally changed world climates.) And about other confirming or challenging information which has accumulated by now. Such as a bathymetric comparison of the Aegean Sea proving wether the once depicted additional islands are really there, i.e. submerged. One confirming fact I DO know is that residues of American cocaine and Australian eucalyptus have been found in Egyptian mummies, as the Western edge of Australia is presented on one of the maps as well. It has also been found out that the Egyptian culture is much older than presented in 20th century orthodox egyptology, so the question of who might have come up with the now lost source maps isn't really such a mystery anymore (and is not restricted to the admirers of "Atlantis"), especially considering that the maps were obviously centered on Egypt.
it makes you think October 18, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Well researched and argued with lots of background and technical detail. Well worth a read as it is good to understand some of the alternative theories that are out there.
Little Ugly Duck July 4, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Charles Hapgood made an outstanding scientific work on Piri Rais map, together with his students and professional map-makers. The conclusion of the book, that there were excellent navigators with sophisticated techniques to set the longitude over 4000 years ago, was difficult to swallow for the established learned culture, which assumes that Progress is a one-way process, from ancient barbarians to ourselves being on the top. This explains in part the lack of reaction of scientifics. But the worst drawback was the enthusiasm of Esotericians and Traditionalists who praised Hapgood on the basis of the Platon's Atlandide tale.
Last but not least, Hapgood developped a theory of the terrestrial crust being subject to brisks slippages and displacements. Althoug A. Einstein approved the idea, the theory of continents drifting was institutionalised and widely accepted. Hapgood was therefore tagged as an outsider amateur, and forgotten.
 Very well written book June 16, 2007
Anyone interested in exploring ancient historical anomalies should absolutely begin with this book. This is NOT a von Daniken-esq hack job written by some pulp fiction fanatic looking to cash in on a popular trend. Hapgood was a professor at Keene State College NH, and he approached the analysis of these maps from a rigorous academic point of view, but presents his findings in an easily readable format. He did an excellent job researching and describing these maps, including the Piri Reis map of South America, and the Oronteus Finaeus map of Antarctica published in 1531 - some 300 years before Antarctica was discovered by western explorers. This latter map even shows the true coastline of Antarctica as it appears under hundreds of feet of ice (something we only recently were capable of verifying circa 1950). Hapgood was one of the first to present hard evidence which challenges the fundamental assumption taught by modern Anthropology that man only recently developed the intelligence to explore the Earth's oceans. In fact, this evidence shows very clearly that humans many thousand years before the Renaissance actively explored and mapped the Earth's oceans well in advance of Columbus or Magellan, with a skill level that easily exceeded that of Columbus as well as all of his contemporaries. (The active exploration of the new world by ancient peoples has since been validated by more recent research, such as the forensic evidence published by Balabanova et. al. showing cocaine and tobacco in dynastic period Egyptian mummies.) The material on the Oronteus Finaeus map alone is well worth the read.
But wait, there's MORE! June 8, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Yes, Hapgood's book is a great read. But there is a wonderful treasure waiting for those who would like more evidence of these ancient mariners. And on this subject, "the dead yet speak." Cyrus H. Gordon, who passed away in 2001, left us a fine little book in 1971 called Before Columbus. This book provides a very scholarly foundation for the theory that intercontinental trans-oceanic commerce commenced and flourished at times so long ago that Columbus is a relative newcomer. So, if you like Ancient Sea Kings, by all means order yourself a copy of Before Columbus.
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