Page 41 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

‘unbelievable’, asserts Hapgood, ‘that anyone in the fourteenth century
could have found accurate latitudes for these places, to say nothing of
accurate longitudes’.
16
The Oronteus Finaeus World Map also commands attention: it
successfully places the coasts of Antarctica in correct latitudes and
relative longitudes and finds a remarkably accurate area for the continent
as a whole. This reflects a level of geographical knowledge not available
until the twentieth century.
17
The Portolano of lehudi Ibn Ben Zara is another map notable for its
accuracy where relative latitudes and longitudes are concerned. Total
18
longitude between Gibraltar and the Sea of Azov is accurate to half a
degree, while across the map as a whole average errors of longitude are
less than a degree.
19
These examples represent only a small fraction of the large and
challenging dossier of evidence presented by Hapgood. Layer upon layer,
the cumulative effect of his painstaking and detailed analysis is to
suggest that we are deluding ourselves when we suppose that accurate
instruments for measuring longitude were not invented until the
eighteenth century. On the contrary, the Piri Reis and other maps appear
to indicate very strongly that such instruments were re-discovered then,
that they had existed long ages before and had been used by a civilized
people, now lost to history, who had explored and charted the entire
earth. Furthermore, it seems that these people were capable not only of
designing and manufacturing precise and technically advanced
mechanical instruments but were masters of a precocious mathematical
science.

The lost mathematicians

To understand why, we should first remind ourselves of the obvious: the
earth is a sphere. When it comes to mapping it, therefore, only a globe
can represent it in correct proportion. Transferring cartographic data
from a globe to flat sheets of paper inevitably involves distortions and
can be accomplished only by means of an artificial and complex
mechanical and mathematical device known as map projection.
There are many different kinds of projection. Mercator’s, still used in
atlases today, is perhaps the most familiar. Others are dauntingly
referred to as Azimuthal, Stereographic, Gnomonic, Azimuthal
Equidistant, Cordiform, and so on, but it is unnecessary to go into this
any further here. We need only note that all successful projections require

16 Ibid.
Ibid., p. 98.
17
18 Ibid., p. 170.
19 Ibid., p. 173.

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