Piri Reis map

A  letter from Air Force Commander Harold Z. Ohlmeyer to Charles H Hapgood;

“6, July, 1960

Subject: Admiral Piri Reis Map


TO: Prof. Charles H. Hapgood
Keene College
Keene, New Hampshire




Dear Professor Hapgood,


Your request of evaluation of certain unusual features of the Piri Reis map of 1513 by this organization has been reviewed. The claim that the lower part of the map portrays the Princess Martha Coast of Queen Maud Land, Antarctic, and the Palmer Peninsular, is reasonable. We find that this is the most logical and in all probability the correct interpretation of the map. The geographical detail shown in the lower part of the map agrees very remarkably with the results of the seismic profile made across the top of the ice-cap by the Swedish-British Antarctic Expedition of 1949. 
This indicates the coastline had been mapped before it was covered by the ice-cap. The ice-cap in this region is now about a mile thick. We have no idea how the data on this map can be reconciled with the supposed state of geographical knowledge in 1513.



Harold Z. Ohlmeyer Lt. Colonel, USAF Commander”

Could it be possible that an ancient thalassocracy, unknown to modern historians, discovered and mapped in great detail the coastline of Antarctica 6,000 or more years ago, and then passed this information down through the millennia until it found its way into the Library of Alexandria only to be fortuitously reproduced before it would have otherwise been forever lost upon the library’s destruction? While many modern academics dismiss this theory as fantastical poppycock, I cannot bring myself to discard the possibility that ancient civilizations were advanced in ways that would astound us if only their accomplishments hadn’t been lost to the great eraser of time.

In 1929, a group of historians made what can only be described as an amazing discovery, written on the skin of a gazelle. After study and research, they found that it is a genuine map drawn in 1513 by Piri Reis, a well documented admiral of the Turkish navy. He depicts Europe and North Africa, the coast of Brazil, several islands (Azores, Canary Islands, and the mythical island of Antilia), and even Antarctica, which was thought to be discovered more than 300 years later.

Text on the map states that Reis drew it based largely on ancient cartographical information that he gathered from other maps drawn by Roman cartographer and all-around Renaissance man Claudius Ptolemaeus (better known as Ptolomy) who lived during the 2nd century AD. (Ptolomy, it should be noted, introduced the use of longitude and latitude, which are essential tools of modern cartography). Reis also drew information from Indian, Portuguese, and Arabic maps, and even a map drawn by Christopher Columbus. Some of his source maps, historians speculate, were derived from those housed in the legendary Library of Alexandria before it burned in 48 BC, depriving the modern world of incalculable volumes of ancient knowledge.

Synthesizing information from such diverse sources, Reis compiled one of the most accurate world maps of the 16^th century

The most puzzling thing is not that it shows we need to rethink the chronology for a number of exploratory discoveries, but that it describes Antarctica’s topography as not being masked by ice and in great detail. The last time that occured was more than 6000 years ago.