Mark,
I kind of got bored with what I was doing, so I am going to see what I can come up with.\
for you.
Here's a first try:
Cultural Evidence for Atlantis
Human Records
Fields of Study
Social Sciences
Human Records
Archaeological
Natural Sciences
Maps
While the great astronomers and mathematicians of the past had worked out reasonable relationships between the stars in the heavens and the routes across the oceans, the number of reasonably good maps was never more than half a dozen in any period of early history until the science of marine cartography began to emerge in the early days of the Renaissance.
Sykes once commented that, "... right up to the 17th century, fragmentary remains of what can only have been Atlantis were shown in all the best maps of the world made by the most renowned cartographers."
Early Cartographers and Their Maps
Atlantis, Antilla, El Brasil, St. Brendan's Isle, and a host of other fragmentary remains of what may well have been the lost continent were shown in the best maps of the world until the 17th century.
Such cartographers as Bianca, Hall, Juan Cora, Ortilius, Pareto, Pizigani, Roselli, Toscanelli, and Valesqua showed one or more of these islands on their maps.
How could a map drawn in 1513 manage to show coastlines of South America and portions of the Antarctic on a system of map making superior to that in use at the time?
In 1665, Athanasius Kircher, a German Jesuit Priest, published the first map of the Atlantean continent in his book Mundus Subterraneus, which greatly resembles the map included in the report of the German Oceanographic Research ship, Meteor, published just before World War II.
In December 1959 in New World Antiquity, in More On Early Maps, the editor published an excerpt from an article in August 1942's Signal, a German propaganda magazine about the original Toscanelli map found by Professor Sebastiano Crino in the National Library of Florence in 1939.
TOSCANELLI MAP - 1457
(Notice how remarkably accurate is the depiction of North America -Bianca)
http://www.heritage.nf.ca/exploration/toscanelli.htmlThe map was completed by Paolo dal Toscanelli, the great Florentine geographer, in 1457. The first copy was sent to King Alfonso V of Portugal, while a second copy was received by the navigator Columbus. Of the explanatory notes added to the map, the most interesting lies on the outer of the two strips of text inserted in the ocean west of Europe, which says, "Beyond this island there are no inhabited countries known nor a free passage for the steersman, for fog holds up the sailor". This new map of the world became the property of the Italian State.
In June 1963 in Atlantis, Sykes wrote The Piri Reis Map, in which he stated,
"How could a map drawn in 1513, sixteen years after the arrival of Columbus in the Americas, manage to show coastlines of South America and portions of the Antarctic, which had not yet been explored, on a system of map making which was greatly superior to that in use at the time? Mr. Hapgood (presented paper on this subject to the 10th International Congress on the History of Science) produces some very convincing arguments and tables of figures to show that the center on which the grid of the map was based was in Egypt at Cyrene or Syene, used by Eratosthenes (BC 276-196), the Librarian of the University of Alexandria, appointed by Ptolemy III, the mathematician and philosopher... If this assertion is correct, then the original document on which the Piri Reis and, in all probability, portions of the Onoteus Finaeus Map, were drawn, must have preceded the destruction of the Great Library at Alexandria..."
Sykes was convinced that earlier versions of the Piri Reis map might be found in Asiatic Turkey, which had the largest store of untapped manuscripts now available to the western world; or perhaps in Arab or Soviet countries. Sykes also believed that the Phoenicians were the most likely candidates to have explored South America and Antarctica, and created the map.
In June 1964 in Atlantis, Sykes wrote The Great Exploratory Periods In The Atlantic in which he stated, "... the Renaissance map makers... The inclusion of such places as Hy Brazil, Buss Island, Antilla, etc, on their maps, simply meant that they were cribbing from earlier maps, not only Phoenician and Berber, but also the Piri Reis map, and anything else that was available."
In November 1965 in New World Antiquity, Sykes wrote Maps As Sources Of Historical Information in which he stated, "The recent publication by Yale University of the Vineland Map and the consequent historical repercussions, have raised certain queries as to the exact place which these maps should take in the records of the past... why is it that a map which is produced a long time after the actual event, invariably inspires so much more credence in academic circles than the narratives on the basis of which the map was originally drawn — In this particular case, the narratives that lie behind the map have been known for centuries: The Greenland Saga and the Saga of Eric, plus other fragments. In addition there has been a whole series of petroglyphs... in various parts of Canada and the United States... the petroglyphs have been dismissed as forgeries, the sagas as romantic fiction, and the travelers' tales as rubbish."
Sykes believed that the Yale map was authentic despite the controversy surrounding it. The reason was simply that the Vikings did come to America before Columbus. In the May 1966 issue of New World Antiquity, in The Russians And The Vineland Map, it was reported that the Russians disputed the authenticity of the Vineland Map.
In September 1968 in New World Antiquity, Sykes wrote Pre Columbian Atlantic Charts in which he stated,
"We have a historical series of maps dating back to Thales (640 BC) and Anaximander (550 BC), if not earlier... Piri Reis compiled his map from Western sources... The real sources of all the ancient sea lore appear to have been the Phoenicians, the Minoans (before 1400 BC), and the Etruscans, all of whom ventured outside the Pillars of Hercules, frequently with the backing of Egyptian money... the first maps were the work of Venetian adventurers and their Spanish and Portuguese competitors, with the backing of the knowledge of the Berbers who had a tradition of Atlantic sailing from the days of Carthage, if not earlier... story of Brandon... story of Maeldune... story of O'Corra... other Celtic explorers... The work of Edrisi... Nicolas of Lynn... The Egyptians left behind a couple of travel stories: The Two Brothers and the Shipwrecked Sailor; the Phoenicians left us the Voyage of Hanno; the Greeks left us the Odyssey and the Argonautica; the Irish left us the stories of Brandan, Corra, and Maeldune; the Welsh the Story of Madoc; the Norsemen the Vineland Sagas. That is nearly the lot, except for the relations of the Arab historians from Masoudi to Edrisi who managed to accumulate a vast store of information, much of which is still awaiting translation. The list of early map makers is truly a short one."
EL IDRISI'S MAP (1154) IS IN "ITALY AND MAGNA GRAECIA", HERE:
http://atlantisonline.smfforfree2.com/index.php/topic,5268.15.htmlIn November 1968 in New World Antiquity, Sykes wrote An Early World Map in which he asked his readers for more information about Edrisi's map inscribed on a great sheet of silver and given shortly before the death in 1154 of Roger the King of Sicily. The reference occurred in the Encyclopedia of Islam. This world map would appear to be the earliest in Europe.
In September 1969 in New World Antiquity, Sykes wrote The Piri Reis Map And Its Antecedents in which he stated,
"... whatever else the early travelers did most of them were not competent to draw maps. It is for this reason that some stress has been laid on Nicolas of Lynn simply because he was trained in the use of the astrolabe and the compass and being a mathematician cum astronomer the problems of charting a reasonably accurate course would not be too great. He seems to have been the only one so inclined after Pytheas."
In August 1971 in Atlantis, L.M. Young reviewed Charles H. Hapgood's Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings. Young discussed the evidence that indicated that many of the charts and maps thought to have come into existence around the time of Columbus originated from a civilization more advanced than that of Europe in the 16th century. Young wrote,
"... a very important chart was discovered in 1929... Found in the old Imperial Palace of Constantinople this was dated to 1513 and signed by a Turkish admiral now commonly known as Piri Reis (Piri Ibn Memmed) who states in one of the several inscribed legends that the western part of the map had been based on one drawn by Columbus... Putting aside for a moment the problems of the Piri Reis map, at least those of a geographical kind, Hapgood comparing the former with the portolans or medieval sea charts, noted these were oriented in the same manner. To be more explicit, unlike maps with the modern grid of latitude and longitude, the lines on the old charts radiate from a number of centers as if they were reproducing the points of the compass for which they are generally recognized to be. The Dulcert Portolano of 1339 is a good example... The compass seems to have appeared in medieval Europe during the 12th century... in Europe, the charts and portolans do not appear until the 14th century..."
In March 1972 in Atlantis, Sykes wrote A World Map Of The 6th Century BC in which he stated,
"The great era of Greek science began when Thales the astronomer and mathematician opened up his school at Miletus... Apart from his interest in Astronomy, Thales was also a geographer. He prepared a globe on which he mapped the world as it was known to sailors and travelers passing through the Port of Miletus plus the background of information gathered by both Egypt and Phoenicia and stored away in their great libraries. The pupil of Thales, Anaximander, prepared a map of the world which Hecateus, the famous historian, had cast on a bronze slab which was kept in the temple at Miletus, our source for this is Herodotus... all trace of it has been lost... The real problem is who drew the first real map. Here, although the Babylonian map is the oldest in existence at the moment, the real maps were those drawn by sailors and not by landsmen, these are to be sought in seaports..."
http://www.seachild.net/atlantology/fields/humanrecords2.html