Page 42 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

the use of sophisticated mathematical techniques of a kind supposedly
unknown in the ancient world (particularly in the deepest antiquity
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before 4000 BC when there was allegedly no human civilization at all, let
alone one capable of developing and using advanced mathematics and
geometry).
Charles Hapgood submitted his collection of ancient maps to the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology for evaluation by Professor Richard
Strachan. The general conclusion was obvious, but he wanted to know
precisely what level of mathematics would have been required to draw up
the original source documents. On 18 April 1965 Strachan replied that a
very high level of mathematics indeed would have been necessary. Some
of the maps, for example, seemed to express ‘a Mercator type projection’
long before the time of Mercator himself. The relative complexity of this
projection (involving latitude expansion) meant that a trigonometric
coordinate transformation method must have been used.
Other reasons for deducing that the ancient map-makers must have
been skilled mathematicians were as follows:

1 The determination of place locations on a continent requires at least geometric
triangulation methods. Over large distances (of the order of 1000 miles) corrections
must be made for the curvature of the earth, which requires some understanding of
spherical trigonometry.
2 The location of continents with respect to one another requires an understanding of
the earth’s sphericity, and the use of spherical trigonometry.
3 Cultures with this knowledge, plus the precision instruments to make the required
measurements to determine location, would most certainly use their mathematical
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technology in creating maps and charts.’
Strachan’s impression that the maps, through generations of copyists,
revealed the handiwork of an ancient, mysterious and technologically
advanced civilization, was shared by reconnaissance experts from the US
Airforce to whom Hapgood submitted the evidence. Lorenzo Burroughs,
chief of the 8th Reconnaissance Technical Squadron’s Cartographic
Section at Westover Air Base, made a particularly close study of the
Oronteus Finaeus Map. He concluded that some of the sources upon
which it was based must have been drawn up by means of a projection
similar to the modern Cordiform Projection. This, said Burroughs:

suggests the use of advanced mathematics. Further, the shape given to the
Antarctic Continent suggests the possibility, if not the probability, that the original
source maps were compiled on a stereographic or gnomonic type of projection
involving the use of spherical trigonometry.

We are convinced that the findings made by you and your associates are valid, and
that they raise extremely important questions affecting geology and ancient

20 Ibid., p. 225ff.
21 Ibid., p. 228.

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