A New Theory On Mapping The New World

Washington Post ^ | 10-7-2002 | Guy Gugliotta

[blam]

A New Theory on Mapping the New World

By Guy Gugliotta
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 7, 2002; Page A07

In 1507, a group of scholars working in France produced an extraordinary map of the world, the first to put the still-recent discoveries of Columbus and others into a new continent separate from Asia, and to call that continent "America." With the Waldseemuller map, the New World was born.

But there was something else. What would later come to be called South America and Central America were surprisingly well-shaped, not only on the east coast, where explorers had already sailed, but also on the west coast -- which no European was known to have seen.

[blam]

We cannot post entire articles from the Washington Post. Click here to read the entire article

[blam]

Ping.

[WyldKard]

Interesting.

It's pretty well known that a lot of folks were hanging aroudn that part of the world on the q-t, and that Columbus was certainly not the first to make it to America.

For instance, there is a document written by a Buddhist monk around 500ad..I forget the name, but apparently not only does the monk write about flora and fauna that only appears in Mexico, but he pegged the distance from China to Mexico very closely...

[Ronaldus Magnus]

It would be nice if the Washington-BLEEP would show the map.

[blam]

Explorer From China Who 'Beat Columbus To America"

[Physicist]

I don't know. I'm not entirely whelmed by its depiction of South America.

[blam]

"I don't know. I'm not entirely whelmed by its depiction of South America."

I agree. Also, take a look at SE Asia. That must have been mapped during the Ice Age while the Sundra Shelf was exposed(?).

[ffrancone]

The article suggests that the distortion is due to the inherent problem of mapping a globe onto a flat surface. The center of the map is in proportion, and the closer things get to the edge, the more distorted they are.

[general_re]

The article suggests that the distortion is due to the inherent problem of mapping a globe onto a flat surface. The center of the map is in proportion, and the closer things get to the edge, the more distorted they are.

I'm not sure I buy that either. The classic Mercator projection maps do distort the sizes of things, but not as you move to the east or west, but rather to the north and south - the closer you get to the poles, and the farther from the equator, the more distorted the relative sizes of the continents are. Hence, the well-known problem of Greenland appearing to be as large as the entire continent of Africa, which it certainly is not. But there's no real distortion as you move along the equator from east to west, or west to east...

[Physicist]

North and South America don't look merely distorted to me. They each look as if a portion of the east coast was mapped, and the shortest possible west coast drawn in to hook it together. Since they knew of the existence of the Pacific ocean (coming from the other direction), they knew the western continents couldn't extend westward indefinitely.

[RightWhale]

That must have been mapped during the Ice Age while the Sundra Shelf was exposed

This is central to the Hapgood hypothesis, which is:

. The early maps, that is, from the dawn of modern civilization, were poor copies of good world maps drawn in pre-phoenician times. Phoenicians represented the nadir of civilization, there was an advanced civilization before Phoenicians. This hypothetical advanced civilization navigated and mapped the entire globe including Antarctica. As that civilization collapsed, some of their maps were retained and copied, but copied without understanding basics such as map projections. The resulting maps, such as Ptolemaic maps were poor and distorted as a result. Thus Ptololemy, rather than being advanced intellectually, was actually stumbling about without understanding. We see the same phenomenon today in many bureaucratic agencies, and Ptolemy was nothing more than a bureaucrat.

[FreetheSouth!]

Blam, if you ever get around to a ping list, please put me on it!

[RightWhale]

South America looks squished on this projection. It isn't the flat Mercator projection that used to hang on the gradeschool classroom wall, but one of the split appleskin projections now considered modern. In the center the distortion is minimized, but toward the edges, in any direction there is considerable foreshortening. All the same, much of Mexico, and California and Alaska are missing. Cuba is there, but Cuba was usually on the old maps even if nothing else was.

[blam]

"This is central to the Hapgood hypothesis, which is:"

The more I learn the more I believe this or something similar must have happened...and I do believe these ancient civilizations were ended by 'natural' catastrophies.

[blam]

"Blam, if you ever get around to a ping list, please put me on it!"

Okay.

[Rebelbase]

Interesting read. I like the author's speculations.

[aShepard]

Very interesting!

I suspect that the long ago discoverer, Pablo de Gore, travelled up the west coast, took some gold from the indians, at what is now Hollywood, and returned to Spain.

Thus, Al Gore's distant relatives discovered America.

[Physicist]

Thus, Al Gore's distant relatives discovered America.

More importantly, they discovered how to work its system.

[blam]

Archaeologists Found This Statue In Olmec Ruins In Mexico. I guess he/it flew over here, huh?

[dead]

Bump! Very interesting article.

BTW, the WP made me give them demographic information before they'd let me read it.

I can understand them not taking 1368 as my birth year, but they wouldn't take 1899 either. If I really was 103, I'd be pissed.