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Newsgroups: talk.origins,sci.skeptic
Subject: The Mysterious Origins of Man and the Oronteus Finaeus Map of 1532
From: Heinrich
Date: Tue, 04 Jun 1996 00:51:52 -0600
The Mysterious Origins of Man and the Oronteus Finaeus Map of 1532
The segment of the _Mysterious Origins of Man_ concerning the
Oronteus Finaeus Map of 1532 starts out with Charlton Heston
stating that Dr. Charles Hapgood [author of the _Ancient Maps
of the Sea Kings_, Hapgood (1966, 1979)], made a _startling
discovery_ while he was combing through the map room at
the Library of Congress. MOM then goes on to quote Dr. Hapgood
as saying:
_As my eyes fell upon the southern hemisphere of a world
map drawn by a Oronteus Finaeus in 1532, I had the instant
conviction that I had found here a truly authentic map of the
real Antarctica._
Unfortunately, this conviction likely so prejudiced his ideas
concerning the Oronteus Finaeus Map that he was unable to
evaluate it objectively. Once, Dr. Hapgood _knew_ he had
an authentic map of Antarctica, he proceeded to overlooked,
as will be later explained, many serious problems with this map
being an accurate, although possibly still authentic, map of
Antarctica.
In MOM, Mr. Graham Hancock stated:
_The mystery of this map is it shows Antarctica as it looks
under the ice long before Antarctica is even supposed to
have been discovered._
This part of MOM, Mr. Hancock not only incorrectly states
the claims made by Hapgood (1966, 1979), but also the claims
made in his own book, _The Fingerprints of the Gods_ (Hancock
1995). According to Hapgood (1966, p. 93, 1979, p. 79) and Hancock
(1995, p. 18, 478), it is the Phillip Buache Map of 1737 that shows
either the ice-free, sub-glacial bedrock, or combined topography
of Antarctica. As discussed in a previous post of mine titled
_Part 6 - The Buaches Map, Exhibit 9, Fingerprints of the Gods
(long Post)._, the Phillip Buache Map of 1737 fails miserably
in any way to accurately portray either the subglacial bedrock
topography of Antarctica as mapped by Drewry (1983, sheet 3)
or the ice-free topography of Antarctica as represented by the
bedrock surface as adjusted for isostatic rebound by Drewry
(1983, sheet 6). In these claims, both Mr. Hancock and Dr.
Hapgood failed to realize that because of isostatic rebound,
the ice-free topography of Antarctica and the present subglacial
topography are two very different entities. The ice-free
topography would differ by as much as 950 meters (3100 feet)
in the interior and 50 meters (160 feet) along the coast as result
of uplift that would take place with the removal of the Antarctic
ice sheet (Drewry 1983, sheet 6).
Contrary to MOM, both Hapgood (1966, p. 79-93, 1979, p. 69-79)
and Hancock (1995, p. 14-16,22) clearly state that the Oronteus
Finaeus Map of 1532 shows the continent of Antarctica with
ice-free coasts >when the ice-cap was present only in the deep
interior<.
Then Mr. Hancock continued:
_And perhaps the greatest mystery of all is it shows
the Antarctica Peninsula not as it looks today covered by
more than a mile of ice, but as it actually looks underneath
that cover of ice._
It is mysterious that both MOM and Mr. Hancock manage again
to seriously misrepresent the Oronteus Finaeus Map of 1532 and
the claims of Hapgood (1966, 1979). As noted by Hapgood (1966,
p. 93, 1979, p. 78-79), a major deficiency of Oronteus Finaeus Map
of 1532 is that it lacks any feature that can be either recognized
as or inferred to be related to the Antarctic (Palmer) Peninsula.
In fact, the great mystery is that why MOM and Mr. Hancock
would claim that the Oronteus Finaeus Map of 1532 shows
the Antarctic (Palmer) Peninsula when it clearly does not
(Hapgood 1979, Figure 52).
For the lack of this peninsula, Hapgood (1966, p. 93, 1979,
p. 78-79) gives a confused explanation. He claims that the base
of this peninsula can be seen, but the Oronteus Finaeus Map
shows no such base. He claims that this peninsula exists only as
scattered bedrock islands, which is true according to Drewry
(1983, sheet 3). However, the modern Antarctica Peninsula
would have been present as a long north-south trending
island only even the most rudimentary map of a partially
glaciated Antarctica. Its elevation and isostatic rebound would
have kept it well above any projected sea level rise (Drewry
1983). The absence of this island is one of many gross
inconsistencies between this map and the partially glaciated
hypothetical, prehistoric Antarctica proposed by Hapgood (1966,
1979).
Then Charlton Heston stated that Hapgood put his theory to the
test. According to MOM, Dr. Hapgood compared the Oronteus
Finaeus map with a modern map of ice-covered Antarctica and
found the maps to be similar. Then he compared a map created by
seismographic surveys with the actual coastlines of the Oronteus
Finaeus map.
As Charlton Heston claimed:
_When the maps were overlaid, the similarities astonished him._
This is an astonishing statement when the subglacial bedrock
topographic map of Drewry (1983, sheet 3) is compared with the
Oronteus Finaeus Map. In such a comparison, there exist such
major inconsistencies between them that the Oronteus Finaeus Map
resembles the modern map of ice-covered Antarctica more than it
does the map of Drewry (1983) made by seismographic and other
surveys. For example, Wilkes Land which the Oronteus Finaeus
Map shows as solid land is occupied almost entirely by two large
subsea basins and an _archipeligo_ of bedrock islands (Drewry
1983, sheet 3). In a partially glaciated Antarctica, this solid land
shown on the Oronteus Finaeus Map would also be under water.
Also, the Oronteus Finaeus Map fails to show the Amery Basin,
which in either a partially or completely deglaciated Antarctica
would be occupied by a 700 to 800 km (1100 to 1300 miles) long
bay lying perpendicular to the coast of Antarctica between
Princess Elizabeth Land and Mac Robertson Land (Drewry 1983,
sheet 3). In addition, because the bedrock surface underlying
West Antarctica lies hundreds of kilometers below sea level,
except for some bedrock _islands_, the coastline shown by the
Oronteus Finaeus Map for it would have been had to been
the edge of an ice sheet. Yet, the Oronteus Finaeus Map shows
the same features that Hapgood (1966, 1979) claims to be river
mouths and fjords on other parts of the alleged nonglacial
coastline on this glacial coastline. These and many other
problems clearly show that Oronteus Finaeus Map of 1538, like
the Buache Map of 1737 fails miserably to show either the
hypothetical unglaciated or even a speculative partially
glaciated Antarctica. Comparison of the Oronteus Finaeus Map
with a map showing the bedrock topography adjusted for isostatic
rebound, Drewry (1983, sheet 6), also fails to produce a
satisfactory match.
In this segment of MOM, Mr. Graham Hancock finally concluded:
_The clearest deduction of all is that whoever drew up
those original source maps thousands of years ago had a
level of technology as high as our own._
and
_ So this is a testimony of an advanced civilization in
remote prehistory._
The clearest deduction that can be made from the above analysis
is that there is no evidence of any advanced map-making
technology being involved in the production of the Oronteus
Finaeus Map of 1538. Thus, there is also absolutely no evidence
of an advanced civilization in remote prehistory as far as the
Oronteus Finaeus Map of 1532 and Buache Map of 1737 are
concerned. However, at:
gopher://marauder.millersv.edu:70/00/otherMU/columbus/data/art/LUNDE02
.ART
Mr. Paul Lunde in _The Oronteus Finaeus Map_ that was published
in the January-February 1980 issue of _Aramco World Magazine_
presents a more credible hypothesis that the source map for the
Oronteus Finaeus Map of 1532 might have been a poorly drawn
map of historic Antarctica, possibly Australia, made by some
unknown Portuguese sailors sometime before 1513. Regardless of
the source data, if any, for the Oronteus Finaeus Map of 1532, it
clearly fails to accurately portray either a partially or completely
unglaciated Antarctica that MOM would have people to believe.
This segments ends with Charlton Heston stating:
_A woolly mammoth was frozen so quickly that its last meal
of buttercups remained fresh in its stomach for thousands of
years. This sudden drop in temperature maybe a clue to the
disappearance of the civilization that Plato called Atlantis._
Even this last statement presents some problems. First, MOM
later fails to present any evidence that Atlantis was ever in
Antarctica. Finally the claim by MOM that woolly mammoths
were frozen so quickly that its last meal of buttercups
remained fresh in its stomach is nothing more than folklore
lacking any basis in fact.
The presence of well preserved plant remains associated
with mammoths and mastodons has little to do with
quick freezing. Very well preserved gut contents have
been found even with skeletal remains without any freezing.
For example, vertebrate paleontologists found plants remains
that were once in the guts of a mastodon associated with the
skeleton of a mastodon that they excavated from a bog within
Ohio (Lepper, et al. 1991, pp. 122-123). Also, paleontologists have
recovered other complete mastodon skeletons containing well-
preserved plant remains that were once gut and stomach contents
in bogs of New York, New Jersey, and other states (Dreimanis
1968, Pp. 264.).
Plant remains are so durable that flash-freezing is unnecessary
for their preservation. In the example of the Ohio mastodon,
the plant remains that once occupied the gut survived long after
the remainder of the mastodon had decayed because of the water-
logged, anaerobic environment in which they were buried.
If freezing temperatures are essential for the preservation of
plant material in the gut contents, why did the plant remains
associated with this mastodon survived when the mastodon was
never frozen and the rest of the mastodon had decayed away? In
this case and other cases it is clearly evident that quick freezing is
unnecessary for the preservation of plant material.
Conclusion
This segment of MOM fails to present any credible evidence
either for an ice-free Antarctica or the fast-freezing of mammoths.
References Cited
Dreimanis, A., 1968, Extinction of Mastodons in Eastern
North America: Testing a New Climatic-Environmental Hypothesis.
The Ohio Journal of Science, vol. 68, no. 6, pp. 257-272.
Drewry, D. J. (ed.), 1983, Antarctica: Glaciological and
Geophysical Folio. Scott Polar Research Institute,
Cambridge.
Hancock, Graham, 1995, Fingerprints of the Gods.
Crown Publishers, Inc., New York.
Hapgood, C. H., 1966, Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings, 1st
Edition, Chilton Books, Philadelphia.
Hapgood, C. H., 1979, Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings, 2nd
Edition, E. P. Dutton, New York.
Lepper, B. T., Frolking, T. A., and others, 1991,
Intestinal Contents of a Late Pleistocene Mastodont from
Midcontinental North America. Quaternary Research vol. 36,
pp. 120-125
Sincerely,
Paul V. Heinrich
(as a private citizen)
heinrich@intersurf.com
Baton Rouge, LA
Earthquakes don't kill people.
Overpasses and buildings kill people.
-anonymous civil engineer
My standard disclaimer applies
