Fingerprints of the Gods - Book Review

Beagle · Post by **Beagle** » Fri Jun 30, 2006 8:23 pm

For this review I prefer to go chapter by chapter and have an orderly discussion. For members who do not own a copy or have not read the book, it may be difficult to contribute to the discussion. I just bought the book after many years. It's very well referenced and I'm going to check them as I go. I'm ready for Ch. 1. Minimalist do you have any thoughts about the best way to do this?

BTW - absolutely no hijacking!!

Post by **Minimalist** » Fri Jun 30, 2006 8:55 pm

I think you said it very well.

One can only hope against hijacking.

Post by **Minimalist** » Fri Jun 30, 2006 8:57 pm

My edition is copyrighted 1995.

Beagle · Post by **Beagle** » Fri Jun 30, 2006 9:24 pm

My newly acquired book is copyrighted 1995 as well.

Chapter 1

Hancock begins with very old maps, very controversial ones. His comments are referenced and to me they all hold up.

We could spend a lot of time debating the maps. There are countless refutations of the Piri Reis map. I have my own thoughts on that and we could go in circles for quite a while.

However, it seems to me that Hancock is using that map as his prelude to making his case that the Antarctic was ice free 6,000 years ago. It wasn't by way of isotopic analysis of core drilling. However, I feel pretty strongly that the side of Antarctica that was exposed to Atlantic waters had an exposed coastline during the last ice age.

I can gladly tell you my theory (building on others) about the Atlantic conveyor belt shutdown and the resultant shutdown of the circumpolar stream. Or the main issue is about an exposed coastline for a period following the last ice. In that case, I accept Hancocks premise. But not necessarily about the map.

Comment?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Jun 30, 2006 9:30 pm

don't worry about me, i don't own a copy and it has been years since i read it. plus i am not interested in doing a book review

Post by **Minimalist** » Fri Jun 30, 2006 9:33 pm

Well, I don't buy the theory that Antarctica was ice-free and, as I told Hancock's research assistance, it wasn't ice-free in 1949 when the Swedes and British mapped it.

This leads to one of three possibilities:

1- The Piri Reis map or the source maps that it was drawn from were astonishingly fortunate guesses.

2- In spite of what geology says, the ice did melt.

3- The source maps were drawn from aerial surveillance in remote antiquity.

Obviously Hancock rejects #1 and as you read further you will see that Piri Reis is not the only map involved and he regards #3 as more outlandish than #2. Hence his flirtation with Hapgood's Earth-Crust Displacement theory.

Beagle · Post by **Beagle** » Fri Jun 30, 2006 9:33 pm

Thanks to you and others.

Sam Salmon · Post by **Sam Salmon** » Fri Jun 30, 2006 9:35 pm

archaeologist wrote:don't worry about me, i don't own a copy and it has been years since i read it. plus i am not interested in doing a book review

Neither do I own a copy and it's been ages since I read it.
However I am very interested in reading a balanced review and no one here is expected to worry about me-ever.

Beagle · Post by **Beagle** » Fri Jun 30, 2006 9:37 pm

Sam if you have read it then you will be interested in participating. Welcome. I plan to pick it apart if I can. But so far I agree.

Post by **Minimalist** » Fri Jun 30, 2006 10:16 pm

Did you get to the part about Claudius Ptolemy's map...second century AD showing glaciers in northern europe?

I sure as hell can't explain that one.

Beagle · Post by **Beagle** » Fri Jun 30, 2006 10:50 pm

Well, for now I'll have to say that map is a mystery. I've looked at these maps before and I'm sure that you've seen the arguments against them. They show an ice age world - no doubt.

Salutations - before I post again I hope to be ready for chapter 2. That it unless you think we should dwell on the maps awhile. We don't need to get ahead of ourselves.

Hell...we're retired.

Post by **Minimalist** » Fri Jun 30, 2006 10:55 pm

They show an ice age world - no doubt.

That's the key to the whole book....it deserves to be kicked around for a while.

WHO THE HELL COULD HAVE DRAWN SUCH MAPS?

Or, (in for a penny, in for a pound, as the Brits say,) did they begin life as aerial photographs which were later hand copied over and over?

Drat....not only couldn't they draw maps....they couldn't fly either.

See why I think it should be discussed?

Post by **Minimalist** » Fri Jun 30, 2006 11:21 pm

Just for the hell of it...and for the edification of those who want to follow along:

Hancock writes:

The rising sea levels were caused by the tumultuous melting of the ice-cap which was rapidly retreating everywhere in the northern hemisphere by around 10,000 BC. It is therefore interesting that at least one ancient map appears to show southern Sweden covered with remnant glaciers of the kind that must indeed have been prevalent then in these latitudes. The remnant glaciers are on Claudius Ptolemy's famous Map of the North. Originally complied in the second century AD, this remarkable work from the last great geographer of the classical antiquity was lost for hundreds of years and rediscovered in the fifteenth century.

Ptolemy was custodian of the library at Alexandria, which contained the greatest manuscript collection of ancient times, and it was there that he consulted the archaic source documents that enabled him to compile his own map. Acceptance of the possibility that the original version of at least one of the charts he referred to could have been made around 10,000 BC helps us to explain why he shows glaciers, characteristic of that exact epoch, together with 'lakes...suggesting the shapes of present-day lakes, and streams very much suggesting glacial streams....flowing from the glaciers into the lakes.' *

It is probably unnecessary to add that no one on earth in Roman times, when Ptolemy drew his map, had the slighest suspicion that ice ages could once have existed in northern Europe. Nor did anyone in the fifteenth century (when the map was rediscovered) possess such knowledge. Indeed, it is impossible to see how the remnant glaciers could have been surveyed, imagined or invented by any known civilization prior to our own.

* Hancock references Charles Hapgood's Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings, as his source.

Essan · Post by **Essan** » Sat Jul 01, 2006 1:48 am

Minimalist wrote:
This leads to one of three possibilities:

1- The Piri Reis map or the source maps that it was drawn from were astonishingly fortunate guesses.

2- In spite of what geology says, the ice did melt.

3- The source maps were drawn from aerial surveillance in remote antiquity.

Or

4. The Piri Re'is map actually depicts the contination of the S American coastaline, curved to fit the available area. Thus explaining why the bottom half of S America is otherwise misisng and, more significantly, why the Drake Passage is not shown.

Post by **Minimalist** » Sat Jul 01, 2006 10:12 am

There are other maps showing Antarctica, however. One of them, as I recall, shows Antarctica as several islands buried under the ice pack. I'll check it out a little later.

Just today I noted this article:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 100735.htm

which speaks of North American Lake Bursts....releases of masses of fresh water from melted glaciers in Canada. That there were several of these is a major component of Hancock's theory of the submergingof the Continental Shelf. For that reason, I placed it here for reference.

The findings, reported in this week's edition of the international journal Science (30 June 2006), prove for the first time that sudden North American 'lake bursts' slowed ocean circulation and cooled the climate approximately 8200 years ago. The groundbreaking research increases our understanding of the complex link between ocean circulation and climate change and highlights the sensitivity of the Atlantic overturning circulation to freshwater forcing.