Mystery map

Mystery map
By Victor Ghoshe

Without satellite imagery and aerial photography how is this possible in 1531? How could a cartographer in 1531 possibly know what was under the thick ice??



Among all the maps produced at the turn of the 16th century portraying an Antarctic continent, there are probably none more remarkable than those produced by French mathematician and cartographer Oronce Finé. Finé's maps not only present Antarctica as an independent landmass, but also render the continent with amazing accuracy. While our current view of history dictates that this cannot be an authentic map of Antarctica, the accuracy in Finé's design strongly suggests otherwise.

"Of course the real intrigue here is that the cartographers would have had to chart this region of the continent when it had been free of ice as the Foundation Ice Stream is thousands of feet thick, and even Atka Bay is currently occupied by a 600-foot sheet of snow-covered ice composing a portion of the Ekstrom Ice Shelf. This presents a conflict with scientific analysis and dating of ice core samples which have established that a deglaciated Antarctica last existed some 30 million years ago, vastly predating any civilization capable of charting the continent. If this is an authentic map of Antarctica we have either to believe the impossible that an advanced civilization existed more than 30 million years ago creating a map that somehow endured this span of time or believe the improbable, that scientific dating of the icecap is flawed and the ice is merely thousands of years old. It is definitely hard to fathom Finé accomplishing this degree of accuracy equipped with luck alone. Keep in mind also that this is not one lucky design pulled out of a collection of thousands appearing at the turn of the 16th century, it is one of perhaps a dozen or so."

Source :: http://www.atlantismaps.com/chapter_2.html