Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings: Evidence of Advanced Civilization in the Ice Age

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Summary: More knowledge has been forgotten than we realize
Review: The discovery of an ancient map in Turkey, upon which Christopher Columbus was said to have relied, turns out to show the coastlines of Antarctica and Greenland in such exact detail that the maps must have been created (1) thousands of years ago, at least 5000 or more, before the two island continents were covered with ice, (2) by a sea-faring people with the ability to measure longitude, which was recently "discovered" in the 1700s, trigonometric skills, and other non-obvious mathematical know-how. In short, proof that there were ancient peoples that knew a great deal more than was passed down through the ages. A straightforward telling of how Hapgood and his students pieced together the evidence for the existence of ancient civilization, based on the ancient maps they could locate.

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Summary: one of the greatest books of the 20th century!
Review: There is little doubt that MAPS OF THE ANCIENT SEA KINGS will remembered as one of the greatest books of the 20th century. It reveals information about the beingings of western civilization. One example is Dr. Hapgood's study of the Piri Reis Map. Sometimes referred to as "the lost map of Columbus,' hundreds of biographies of this explorer ignored its existence inspite of the fact that the Turkish Government and the U.S. State Department validated this map's long history in the 1930's. Hapgood shows how Colubmus used this map to "discover" America. His books has complete documentation from the State Department concerning this conclusion. However, the academic establishment along with the mass media has deliberately tried to supress knowledge of this 1519 map. Discovered in 1930 in Turkey,it was written by Admiral Piri Reis of the Turkish navy. The Admiral wrote on this map that he got it from one of Columbus' navigators who he captured in a naval battle. The naviagtor had his map on his person and he told the admiral the truth about Columbus and his so-called discovery. The original map,which showed Central and South jAmerica, was seen by Alexander the Great (360 B.C.)and was at least 10,000 years old. At any rate, it is a shame that historians continue to give credit for Columbus' discovery when the Piri Reis Map showed he was a complete fraud and his story has been fooling people for 500 years,

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Summary: Belongs in your library --
Review: This book is a classic and worth having around, but Robert Schoch in his book Voices of the Rocks (which I highly recommend) does an intelligent analysis of Hapgood's maps and comes to a far different conclusion. Hapgood's Path of the Pole attributes the change in Antarctic climate to a crustal displacement, which took place thousands of years ago over several thousand years.

The Flem-Aths followed Hapgood, but claimed that the crustal displacements took place in very short time frames, and on a regularly scheduled basis. This is just another attempt to get catastrophe to behave itself, using in effect no data whatsoever, although it's obvious the Flem-Aths did a lot of work in support of their hypothesis.

Best of any of the Atlantis books (for now) is that of Mary Settegast, Plato Prehistorian, originally published in the mid 1980s but out in a nice new year 2000 edition, probably on the strength of Robert Schoch's and Richard Ellis' references in their respective works.

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Summary: Interesting, lots of detail
Review: This book is fairly interesting and includes lots of details about the Reis map. However, the book reads like a dissertation, and the pictures are extremely difficult to see. The whole book would be a million times better if it were edited, and if the maps were reproduced in color on glossy paper.

Basically, this book is not a coffee-table book, and it is not easy to read--you really have to wade through all the dense text, but if you have the patience for it, it's quite interesting.

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Summary: Can you say spherical geometry?
Review: This book is worth keeping for the pictures alone. At least my copies have color and do look like coffee table books. I do not want to argue valideties. That is up to the author. But there is no other book that really covers the Piri Reis map. It seems to have disappeared form the Internet. I have been able to find a few other references now and then like other people mentioning that fact that Columbus did have a map case of sorts. However no one else is as enthusiastic as Charles H. Hapgood is. Frankly I am surprised to find this book in print. As far as who got to the west first, it seems that anyone falling in the water would turn up here. So what is the big deal? Maybe the paperback version does not have colored pictures?

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Summary: A very scientific and thought provoking book.
Review: This book, if nothing else confirms the very real possibility, that there was once a civilization which had a high degree of knowledge and learning, some 10,000 yrs ago or more. The author and his team of scientist through their studies of ancient maps confirm the very real possibility that such a civilization actually existed. Encompassed within the maps themselves there is strong evidence of a high degree of mathematics. This book lends futher creadance to the biblical Genesis tale in the Bible,as well as other ancient accounts which all seem to point to a once global and highly evolved economy. It raises the question: is it possible that history is repeating itself through our own ignorance of our forgotten past?

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Summary: Not perfect but deserves to be taken seriously
Review: While Hapgood's "Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings" is not as thoroughly scientific and impeccably argumented as many readers seem to think ([e-mail] from Seattle has correctly pointed out many weak points in the book), it does seem to be an honest piece of work and one might say that the facts Hapgood has gathered for our appreciation are too numerous and too peculiar to be plainly dismissed as sheer coincidence or the caprices of imaginative mapmakers. No matter how one decides to link these facts or interpret them they do constitute evidence for some past reality modern historians have generally failed to recognize.

Much of the problem lies in our unwillingness to attribute a normal human status and intelligence to our forefathers, let alone a refined and complex spiritual life. Our blind faith in the positivist creed of continuous progress has made us think of human beings living fifty, ten or even five thousand years ago as fierce and stupid brutes dragging their females around by the hair and killing each other for a piece of meat. Though vividly painted in our imagination, nothing could be more wrong.

What makes us truly human is not the presence in our society of microscopes and spaceshuttles but our possession of three inalienable prerequisites, namely theomorphism, transcendental intelligence and free will [F. Schuon]. In their wisdom many (but not all) peoples of the past (and some of the present) chose not to dwell in heavy, stone-erected urban settings and, in view of their sacred and ritual outlook, did not find it attractive or particularly "human" to engage in an unchecked and unwholesome development of machinery and commerce (like the one our present humanity has produced for itself). Consequently, one should not expect automatic weapons and spark plugs to be common occurrences in archeological excavations (of course, they wouldn't be recognizable as such for long, either).

Another thing which makes it hard to verify Hapgood's claims is what René Guénon used to call "the time barrier" (actually the starting point of what some traditions term "the iron age" or even "the dark age") at approximately 4,500 B.C. For some unexplained reason historians call the time prior to this barrier "Pre-history" while every cultural phenomenon in it is ascribed to "legend" (so let historians admit that if History is something that can begin at a specific time it must be the History of something likewise specific). Another and lesser time barrier at around 600 B.C. - when vast reformulations of world traditions occurred - is about as far as they are able to date any event unequivocally.

Thus, if Hapgood's source maps really contained vestiges of rivers and mountains on now ice-covered land masses they would necessarily have been drawn by civilizations from the "legendary period" prior to Guénon's time barrier. Such civilizations are now all but inaccessible to conventional scientific research, so I think Hapgood's hard work and partial success in bringing at least fragments of such evidence to light deserves our recognition - and more than two stars!