Introduction: The Mystery of the Maps Summary and Analysis

The travels of Graham Hancock and Santha Faiia take them to cultural and historical sites from mountains and plateaus of Peru and Bolivia to pyramids and monuments in Central America and Mexico with a final return to the Great Pyramid and Sphinx in Egypt and the Giza Plateau. The story begins with ancient maps showing Antarctica to once be in a temperate zone till the earth's crust displaces it to the Antarctic polar ice-cap where a lost civilization may be buried under two miles of glacial ice.

United States Air Force Commander Ohlmeyer's reply of July 6, 1960, to Professor Hapgood confirms that the Admiral Piri Reis map from 1513 AD shows coastal land under the Antarctic ice cap before its discovery in 1818 AD. Queen Maud Land is last known to be ice-free in...