----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Someone please enlighten me. I've recently been getting questions concerning the Piri Reis Atlantic map. This apparently is a Turkish portolan chart dated 1513 that surfaced in the 1920s and purports to show much of the eastern coast of the Americas. The map again came to attention in the mid-1950s through the efforts of an archaeologist named Arlington Mallery, who claimed that part of the map actually shows part of the coast of Antarctica before it was covered by ice (!) -- from there to loony stuff about advanced civilizations in the Ice Age. This is all discussed extensively in books by Charles Hapgood, most notably Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings (1966). This has just been reissued in paperback. Is anyone out there familiar with this stuff? I'd appreciate any information/opinions. Help me keep a toehold on orthodoxy! Frank Reddy GEnie Science Sysop