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Know_files/FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS.pdf - D Ank Unlimited

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Graham Hancock – <strong>FINGERPRINTS</strong> <strong>OF</strong> <strong>THE</strong> <strong>GODS</strong><br />

other evidence that has been brought forward in the past should be re-examined<br />

with an open mind. 12<br />

Despite a ringing endorsement from Albert Einstein (see below), and<br />

despite the later admission of John Wright, president of the American<br />

Geographical Society, that Hapgood had ‘posed hypotheses that cry aloud<br />

for further testing’, no further scientific research has ever been<br />

undertaken into these anomalous early maps. Moreover, far from being<br />

applauded for making a serious new contribution to the debate about the<br />

antiquity of human civilization, Hapgood until his death was coldshouldered<br />

by the majority of his professional peers, who couched their<br />

discussion of his work in what has accurately been described as ‘thick<br />

and unwarranted sarcasm, selecting trivia and factors not subject to<br />

verification as the bases for condemnation, seeking in this way to avoid<br />

the basic issues’. 13<br />

A man ahead of his time<br />

The late Charles Hapgood taught the history of science at Keene College,<br />

New Hampshire, USA. He wasn’t a geologist, or an ancient historian. It is<br />

possible, however, that future generations will remember him as the man<br />

whose work undermined the foundations of world history—and a large<br />

chunk of world geology as well.<br />

Albert Einstein was among the first to realize this when he took the<br />

unprecedented step of contributing the foreword to a book Hapgood<br />

wrote in 1953, some years before he began his investigation of the Piri<br />

Reis Map:<br />

I frequently receive communications from people who wish to consult me<br />

concerning their unpublished ideas [Einstein observed]. It goes without saying that<br />

these ideas are very seldom possessed of scientific validity. The very first<br />

communication, however, that I received from Mr. Hapgood electrified me. His<br />

idea is original, of great simplicity, and—if it continues to prove itself—of great<br />

importance to everything that is related to the history of the earth’s surface. 14<br />

The ‘idea’ expressed in Hapgood’s 1953 book is a global geological<br />

theory which elegantly explains how and why large parts of Antarctica<br />

could have remained ice-free until 4000 BC, together with many other<br />

anomalies of earth science. In brief the argument is:<br />

1 Antarctica was not always covered with ice and was at one time much<br />

warmer than it is today.<br />

12<br />

Ibid.<br />

13<br />

Ibid., foreword. See also F. N. Earll, foreword to C. H. Hapgood, Path of the Pole,<br />

Chilton Books, New York, 1970, p. viii.<br />

14<br />

From Einstein's foreword (written in 1953) to Charles H. Hapgood, Earth's Shifting<br />

Crust: A Key to Some Basic Problems of Earth Science, Pantheon Books, New York, 1958,<br />

pp. 1-2.<br />

19

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