PIRI REIS AND THE HAPGOOD HYPOTHESIS

On the other hand, some of the objections are themselves open to debate and Hapgood himself anticipated and answered many of them.

To start with, Hapgood and his advocates knew full well that to suggest a "lost world," with its echoes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and subsequent science-fiction elaborations, might well evoke merciless public scorn from scholars and scientists - as the writings of the late Immanuel Velikovsky had in the 1950's and as Chariots of the Gods did in 1968. The existence of this "lost civilization," after all could only be inferred; there were no artifacts.

Hapgood, therefore, pointed out in Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings that civilizations have vanished before. No one knew where Sumer, Akkad, Nineveh and Babylon were until 19th-century archeologists dug them up. And as late as 1970 - only 10 years ago - no one even suspected the existence of a civilization called Ebla (See Aramco World, March -April l978). It had existed. It was real. But it vanished without a trace. Why then, argue Hapgood advocates, couldn't there have been other civilizations that vanished?

The same is true of Hapgood's unspecified advanced technology. Greek fire - something like napalm - was developed in the ninth century but its composition has never been duplicated. Arab scientists of the Golden Age were able to perform delicate eye surgery - using advanced instruments - but these skills were later lost. And in 1900, according to Scientific American, archeologists discovered an astoundingly advanced gearing system in a Greek navigational instrument. It dated back to 65 B.C. and its existence had never been suspected.