From: doug@uuisis.isis.org (Doug Thompson)
Subject: Re: July 4, 1992 - Global Spiritual Independence Day
Organization: International Shared Information Service (Ottawa)
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 92 19:48:50 GMT

firth@sei.cmu.edu (Robert Firth) writes:

> In article <67562@cup.portal.com> John_-_Winston@cup.portal.com writes:
> 
> >  After analyzing it mathematically Hapgood determined it could only be an 
> >aerial view whose projection point  was miles above the meridian of the 
> >Egyptian city of Alexandria, site of an ancient library.
> >  And when he uncovered similar ancient maps, Professor Hapgood concluded th
> >the original maps were made by space travellers and were then copied by 
> >scholars at the centuries-old library. 
> 
> In defence of poor Prof Hapgood, let me say that he concluded neither of
> the above.  As he explains in his book, "Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings"
> 
> (a) the Piri Reis map is based on an azimuthal equidistant projection
>     whose centre is Lat 23.5N, Long 30E - the intersection of the
>     Meridian of Alexandria and the Tropic of Cancer.  This was quite
>     within the capabilities of the Hellenistic geometers, and the
>     choice of Alexandria for the Prime Meridian not uncommon.
> 
> (b) the map was patched together out of several fragments, some in
>     different projections, and at least once had its scale corrected
>     to agree with the value given by Eratosthenes for the terrestrial
>     circumference.  This was a miscorrection, since Eratosthenes was
>     off by a few percent.
> 
> (c) the main "original" from which Reis made his map was Hellenistic,
>     as the Admiral himself says in his marginal notes.
> 
> (d) but that map in turn probably originated from an earlier seafaring
>     civilisation, whose history is now lost.
> 
> Well, pretty speculative, but still realistic.  No space aliens; no
> aerial photography; no telepathic Pleideans.  Weekly World News put
> that in all on their own.

I think this whole thing is really worth quoting. I've seen the map and
have photos of it. It was in circulation in antiquity and its orgins
really are lost. However it is important to note that the Chinese had
sailing vessels capable of planetary circumnavigation several milennia
before Europeans did. The West has typically neglected Chinese History
but the 'lost seafaring civiliation' could very plausibly have been
Chinese. The Chinese had the *means* to explore and produce such a map
long before Columbus hoisted his main sail.

While contact between Chinese Civilizaiton and Western Civilizations was
limited until quite recently, there always has been a little and it must
be remembered that Columbus and Cabot and Frobisher and Cartier and all
the rest set out from Europe to find *CHINA* and *INDIA* and North
America was a *big surprise* to them.

We know from the legend of Jason that Greek seafarers from milennia B.C.
sailed eastward on voyages of exploration. We know that Troy (in Turkey)
maintained trade relations both east and west. It is very plausible that
Chinese maps could have made their way to Greek Scholars in Alexandria
who had the mathematics to interpret them and come up with an
astonishingly accurate map of the world, a correct understanding that
the world was round, a pretty damned good estimate of the size of the
earth, etc. No flying saucers required. You can gather the necessary
data in a Chinese Junk.

In other words, there are a lot of plausible hypotheses to explain this
remarkable map which are quite human and terrestrial in origin.

This doesn't prove it wasn't little green men on flying saucers who
created the map, nor does it prove that it was little yellow chinamen on
sailboats who made the map. It just shows that either could have done
it.

In other words, when seeking a candidate for an explanation we can say
that spacemen need not apply. The feat is not beyond the indepenently
confrimed capacity of homo-sapiens.

=Doug