Page 27 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

emphasized by the coring tubes used, in 1949, by one of the Byrd
Antarctic Expeditions to take samples of sediment from the bottom of the
Ross Sea. The sediments showed numerous clearly demarcated layers of
stratification reflecting different environmental conditions in different
epochs: ‘coarse glacial marine’, ‘medium glacial marine’, ‘fine glacial
marine’, and so on. The most surprising discovery, however, ‘was that a
number of the layers were formed of fine-grained, well-assorted
sediments, such as are brought down to the sea by rivers flowing from
temperate (that is, ice-free) lands ...’
7
Using the ionium-dating method developed by Dr W. D. Urry (which
makes use of three different radioactive elements found in sea water ),
8
researchers at the Carnegie Institute in Washington DC were able to
establish beyond any reasonable doubt that great rivers carrying fine-
grained well-assorted sediments had indeed flowed in Antarctica until
about 6000 years ago, as the Oronteus Finaeus Map showed. It was only
after that date, around 4000 BC, ‘that the glacial kind of sediment began
to be deposited on the Ross Sea bottom ... The cores indicate that warm
conditions had prevailed for a long period before that.’
9

Mercator and Buache

The Piri Reis and Oronteus Finaeus Maps therefore provide us with a
glimpse of Antarctica as no cartographer in historical times could
possibly have seen it. On their own, of course, these two pieces of
evidence should not be sufficient to persuade us that we might be gazing
at the fingerprints of a lost civilization. Can three, or four, or six such
maps, however, be dismissed with equal justification?

Ibid., p. 97.
7
8 For a detailed description of the process see Maps, P. 96.
9 Ibid., page 98.

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