Fingerprints of the Gods: The Evidence of Earth's Lost Civilization

by Graham Hancock

At some risk of over-simplification, the academic consensus is broadly: • Civilization first developed in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East. • This development began after 4000 BC, and culminated in the emergence of the earliest true civilizations (Sumer and Egypt) around 3000 BC, soon followed by the Indus Valley and China. • About 1500 years later, civilization took off spontaneously and independently in the Americas. • Since 3000 BC in the Old World (and about 1500 BC in the New) civilization has steadily ‘evolved’ in the direction of ever more refined, complex and productive forms. • In consequence, and particularly by comparison with ourselves, all ancient civilizations (and all their works) are to be understood as essentially primitive (the Sumerian astronomers regarded the heavens with unscientific awe, and even the pyramids of Egypt were built by ‘technological primitives’). The evidence of the Piri Reis Map appears to contradict all this.