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The deepest mine in the world is Western Deep Levels near Charletonville, South Africa. It is 4,2km (2.6 miles) deep. |
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The Lost Civilisation of Antarctica
Posted on Friday, February 23, 2007 (CST) by Thoth
 When we think of Antarctica, the place immediately conjures up an image of a magnificent glacial wilderness at the bottom of the world.
But could it be that long before it was claimed by the ice and snow, Antarctica was once a temperate land filled with rivers and mountains and where one of the earliest advanced civilisations once thrived?
It may be that such a civilisation, one forgotten by time and long hidden by the ice, originally called Antarctica their home. While Antarctica remains hidden beneath a two mile thick layer of ice we can only speculate at what might be there, but there are a few pieces of evidence that point to such a scenario as being a possibility, prompting the exodus of a people that could no longer remain in their homeland.
The Piri Re’is Map
 One of the biggest clues to
suggest that our understanding of Antarctica may be incomplete is the
legendary Piri Re'is Map which was found in Constantinople in 1929. The
map is thought to have been drawn in the 15th
century by an Admiral of the Ottoman Navy, Admiral Piri Ibn Haji
Memmed, known as Piri Re'is. Notes made in the map’s margins sourced a
set of around twenty maps dating back to the time of Alexander the
Great as being the sources for the Piri Re’is. What makes the map
unique, besides its age and history, is that it seems to show that the
ancients knew a great deal more about the shape and proximity of the
continents than conventional history suggests and that even more
remarkably, it mapped Antarctica as a land mass. For that to have been
correct this information would have had to have been obtained at a much
earlier time than that of Alexander the Great which was around 323BC.,
which suggests that Alexander’s maps were copies of even older
documents.
Antarctica was officially
unknown to the world until 1820, when the lieutenant of the Russian
Imperial Fleet, Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev discovered what appeared to
be a new continent; yet this ‘new’ continent is clearly identifiable on
the Piri Re’is map, which is dated 1513. Many suggest that rather than
discovering a new continent, Lazarev had rediscovered a lost continent.
One of the best-known and
controversial features in the Piri Re'is map is the Antarctic
coastline, which it shows in extraordinary detail. The problem is that
not only does it show Antarctica before it was discovered, it seems to
represent the coast of the continent at a time before it was covered in
glaciers; at a time when it was just a regular landmass like any other.
Information that confirmed
the size and shape of the landmass in the Antarctic was only gleaned in
the 20th century, many years after the map was
discovered and even longer since it was drawn. There is much
disagreement as to the last time Antarctica was free of ice with some
experts suggesting that it was as recent as around 6,000 years ago,
while other geologists point to ice cores that are 500,000 years old
being recovered from Antarctica. Nevertheless, cartographers and
historians alike are baffled as to how the people responsible for
drawing up this map could have known that this land existed, but if
Antarctica was once free of ice it is fairly logical to assume that it
was populated.
 It is not surprising then,
that the Piri Re'is map is one of the cornerstones of the growing body
of evidence to support the case for there having been an unknown pre
Ice Age civilization living on this land. One researcher who took an
enormous amount of interest in the map was historian and geographer,
Professor Charles Hapgood. Hapgood, a respected albeit controversial
scholar in his own right, spent a great deal of time studying the map
and reached the conclusion that it had been drawn by a civilization
with advanced seafaring and mapping skills who had surveyed the entire Earth in the ancient past.
In 1949, a combined British
and Swedish expedition conducted intensive seismic measurements of the
South Pole through the ice cap. When shown a copy of the Piri Re’is map
for comparison, the commander of the 8th
Technical Investigation Squadron of the US Armed Force Strategic
Command, Colonel Harold Olmayer, is quoted as having said, “the
geographical details of the bottom part of the map; the shore of
Antarctica, correspond with the results of the seismic measurements. We
cannot correlate these data with the supposed level of geography in
1513." Thus confirming what many researchers already thought; that the
source map was far older than anything drawn up in the last few hundred
years.
The Oronteus Finaeus Map
 Charles Hapgood also worked
with another well known and ancient map that supports the pre-glacial
Antarctic theory; the Oronteus Finaeus Map, which was found in the
Library of Congress, Washington DC in 1960, but which dates back to
1531. As with the Piri Re’is map, much of Antarctica appears to be free
of ice, with flowing rivers and mountain ranges being represented; the
presence of which has only recently been verified by modern technology.
According to the map, the centre of the land was without geographical
features which some believe points to the fact that it was already
covered in ice at the time the map was drawn. In the early 1960s,
Hapgood had the opportunity to study the Oronteus Finaeus map alongside Doctor
Richard Stratchen of the Massachusetts Technology Institute (MIT). Both
men concluded that the Oronteus Finaeus map had indeed depicted Antarctica’s
coast at a time when it was free of ice.
Opponents of the idea that
these ancient maps show an ice free Antarctica counter that the Oronteus Finaeus Map fails to show the Amery Basin. In either a
partially or completely deglaciated Antarctica, this basin would have
been occupied by a 700 to 800 kilometers (430 to 490 miles) long bay
and would have been a major physiographic feature that would have been
mapped had the area been ice free. Even though this basin forms a
prominent bay along the coast of modern Antarctica, it is missing from
the Oronteus Finaeus Map. What these criticisms fail to take into
account is the numerous transcriptions that might have occurred since
the original source map was drawn. If the map is indeed based on an
original source map that is between 6,000 and 500,000 years old, it is
quite conceivable that errors and omissions did occur as various copies
of the map were made over perhaps thousands of years. The fact that
Antarctica exists at all on these maps has never been explained, let
alone the fact that features such as rivers and mountains have been
mapped on the land.
 A third map of Antarctica,
this time drawn by the 18th century French geographer Philippe Bauche,
a member of the French Academy of Science, was completed in 1737; well
before the continent was discovered. This map cast more confusion onto
our preconception of ancient seafaring and geographical knowledge,
because it showed Antarctica as being divided in two by a narrow band
of water. When the first seismic survey was undertaken in 1958, it
confirmed that Antarctica as a land mass is divided in two by an
ancient waterway. Many geologists think that the last time that this
was obvious would have been not thousands of years ago, but millions of
years ago. The survey seems to confirm that the person who originally
drew the map somehow had knowledge that would not be common knowledge
until the twentieth century, yet the map was drawn some 200 years
earlier, presumably from an even earlier version.
The Destruction of Eden
 If Antarctica was ice free
in the past, forming a temperate and thus habitable environment, then
it is highly likely and perfectly logical that it would have been
inhabited by people, given that every other continent in the world was.
There are many different theories as to how often and how quickly these
ice ages occur, but very little common agreement. As the ice began to
form, first in the centre of the continent and then gradually moving
out, that temperate climate would have been replaced by a cold and
hostile one where it would have become impossible to survive.
Any
civilisation living there would have been faced with the choice between
remaining, and facing certain death through cold and starvation or
migrating as far away as possible from the encroaching ice. Without
knowing how far the ice would reach, the equator would probably have
seemed like the safest bet.
The Birth of Egypt and Sumer
 The Piri Re’is, Oronteus Finaeus,
and Bauche maps all seem to show a representation of Antarctica before
it was lost beneath the ice and snow, which according to some was
around 6,000-10,000 years ago. Coincidentally, this is the time when
many think that the ancient Egyptian and Sumerian civilizations
appeared; civilisations that seemed to be able to progress from nomadic
tribesmen to a technologically advanced structured society in a fairly
short period of time, forming organised and sophisticated cultures.
The big question is of
course, is there any evidence to suggest that Egypt was founded by
seafaring migrants. Interestingly, in 1991, US and Egyptian
archaeologists working in Abidos, Egypt, discovered 14 large boats that
belonged to Pharaohs of First Dynasty. The boats were estimated to be
at least 5,000 years old, each vessel being about 75 feet long and 7 to
10 feet wide at the widest part, with narrowing prow and stern and a
shallow draft. They are believed to be the most ancient but also the
most advanced sailing vessels ever discovered in the world, and owed
their preservation to the dry Egyptian climate. Unlike other boats of
that era, they were made from planks of wood, rather than being carved
from hollowed out tree trunks, suggesting that the Egyptians had very
advanced boat building skills.
According to Dr. Cheryl
Ward, a nautical archaeologist at Florida State University: "In the
ancient world, boats were the most complex machines produced."
 If you couple that boat
building expertise with an advanced geographical knowledge of the Earth
– one that until recently exceeded modern understanding, and an
advanced knowledge of maths and astronomy, which would have been
required to draw such detailed maps with such precision and navigate
the world’s oceans, then it is interesting to ponder upon the
possibility that Egypt was indeed founded by an established
civilisation that was perhaps forced to abandon their own continent and
start anew. Could it be that these boats or ones like them were used to
ferry refugees from a civilisation that was being destroyed by an
increasingly hostile climate, enabling them to forge a new civilisation
in Egypt, and indeed other parts of the world?
But if there really was a
lost civilisation living on Antarctica, surely some evidence for it
must survive in Antarctica itself? According to Congressional
investigators, a spy satellite image taken of Antarctica reportedly
revealed an anomalous structure two miles beneath the ice. Details
about the nature of the structure remain scant, but clearly there is
something there.
In addition, magnetic
anomalies have been recorded and a substantial liquid water lake,
nicknamed Lake Vostok (after the Russian base), has been identified
beneath the ice. According to researchers from the enterprise mission,
although there are natural explanations to account for the magnetic
anomalies, such as the thickness of the Earth’s crust, an anomaly like
this could also be caused by an accumulation of metals - the kind you
would get if you found the ruins of an ancient, buried city. Until we
are in a position to explore the Antarctic region more thoroughly, the
idea of a lost city hidden below miles of ice sheets remains little
more than a tantalising possibility.
Conclusion
It seems more than a little
odd that several ancient maps have recorded a continent that no one at
the time knew that it existed. The fact that they show the Antarctic
landmass without its icy covering is even more mysterious and doesn’t
fit in with anything you will find in a text book about climate changes
or cartography, yet the indisputable fact is that these maps exist.
There is land below the ice of Antarctica, we have established that
much, all we need to ask now, is, was that land occupied and what
happened to the people who lived there when the climate changed?
Perhaps only time will tell.
© ThothWeb - http://www.thothweb.com
All images copyright © by
their respective photographers. This article is copyrighted. No part of
this article can be reproduced without the written permission of
ThothWeb.
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Re: The Lost Civilisation of Antarctica
by Vampyre on Friday, February 23, 2007 (CST)
(User Info | Send a Message) | | This is like a flashback to Graham Hancock's book Fingerprints of the Gods. He also mentions in the book, of scientists finding trees on Antarctica, more proof that it once had a sub-tropical climate. The theory he proposes with the help of others is that Antarctica hasn't always been located where it is now. By a process called continental displacement. If this interests you read the book, and you will believe that there were extreme technoligically advanced people on this earth thousands and thousands of years ago. |
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