ATLAS

VariantOMEGA-10-21-2Sheet 2 of 6 of the dossier Ancient maps of Antarctica

Finé's 1531 world map and the bare coast

The version that finds in a printed 1531 French map the outline of Antarctica before its glaciation.

Woodcut world map shaped like two joined hearts, with a large southern continent at the bottom.
Oronce Finé's 1531 world map in double heart-shaped (cordiform) projection, with the southern land Terra Australis at the bottom. Oronce Finé · public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Summary

The second pillar of the theory is a printed map: the 1531 world map of Oronce Finé, in Latin Orontius Finaeus, a French mathematician appointed that year to the chair of mathematics at the Collège Royal in Paris. On it, a large southern land labelled Terra Australis sits under the tip of South America. Charles Hapgood noticed the map at the Library of Congress in 1959 and found it startling: because it was printed in 1531, it could not have been amended later. In his reading, its outline resembled modern maps of Antarctica, and it showed estuaries and inlets, suggesting great rivers, rather than the ice shelves of today. From this he concluded that Finé had used very old maps made when much of the continent was free of ice. The US Air Force squadron that Hapgood consulted is said to have gone further in 1961, reading the whole continent as mapped from ice-free sources. Zecharia Sitchin and Graham Hancock repeated the idea that the map came from pre-Ice Age maps drawn by a lost civilization, and Hancock's book places an advanced civilization on Antarctica before a pole shift around 10,450 BC. This sheet records the thesis and where it circulates; the other sheets say what the map's legend and the history of cartography show.

What the thesis says

The sources show where these claims circulate, not that they are true.

  1. Thesis

    Hapgood saw the 1531 map in the Library of Congress in 1959 and described it as a map of what was almost certainly Antarctica.

    • Piri Reis and the Hapgood Hypotheses, Aramco World (Paul F. Hoye, Paul Lunde), January 1980
      a map of what was almost certainly Antarctica, done in 1531 by the French cartographer Oronce Fine
  2. Thesis

    In this reading the map shows estuaries and inlets suggesting great rivers instead of today's ice shelves, so some coasts would have been free of ice when the source maps were drawn.

  3. Thesis

    Charles Hapgood, Zecharia Sitchin and Graham Hancock assert that the Finé map was made from pre-Ice Age maps drawn by a lost civilization.

  4. Thesis

    In Fingerprints of the Gods, Graham Hancock claims that an advanced civilization lived on Antarctica during the last ice age before the continent shifted south, and he dates a major pole shift to 10,450 BC.

    • Fingerprints of the Gods, Wikipedia
      claims that an advanced civilization lived on Antarctica during the last ice age before the continent shifted south to its current position
Two outlines of a southern continent shown side by side, one from an old map and one from a modern map.
Illustration of the thesis: the southern land of the 1531 map next to a modern map of Antarctica, scaled and rotated by an amateur to make the shapes match. It is a comparison made by supporters, not proof. Portolanero · CC BY · Wikimedia Commons

Unconfirmed accounts

  1. Unofficial, unconfirmed

    A letter of 14 August 1961 attributed to a US Air Force reconnaissance squadron, reproduced online, says that the Piri Reis and Finé maps were compiled from accurate source maps, irrespective of dates.

    • Piri Reis map of Antarctica, Curiosmos
      we have concluded that both of these maps were compiled from accurate source maps, irrespective of dates

Verified facts

  1. Verified fact

    Oronce Finé, a French mathematician, was appointed in 1531 to the chair of mathematics at the Collège Royal, the present Collège de France.

    • Oronce Finé, Wikipedia
      In 1531, he was appointed to the chair of mathematics at the Collège Royal
  2. Verified fact

    On his world map Finé drew a southern land, Terra Australis, with the legend that it was recently discovered but not yet completely explored.