Posted on
February 10, 2017 by
malagabay
Ancient maps are frequently held in high esteem for their artistic qualities.
But many observers simply
dismiss the content of these ancient maps because modern maps are very different and very accurate.
These differences are particularly stark when [for example] reviewing an ancient map that includes Scotland.
However, ignoring these strange and unfamiliar maps can be a big mistake because ancient cartographers understood that the Earth’s geography changes over time.
The second redeeming feature of the
Zeno Map is that it neatly dovetails with the narrative of
Atlantic Expansion that’s been well documented by cartographers since [at least] 1606.
See:
Iceland Goes South
For example, many generations of cartographers updated the
Gazetteer in Ptolemy’s
Cosmographia with the latest longitude and latitude values as they changed over time.
See:
The Arabian Horizon – The Ptolemy Inheritance
The Geography, also known by its Latin names as the Geographia and the
Cosmographia, is a
gazetteer, an
atlas, and a
treatise on cartography, compiling the geographical knowledge of the 2nd-century Roman Empire.
Originally written by
Claudius Ptolemy in Greek at Alexandria around
AD 150, the work was a revision of a now-lost atlas by Marinus of Tyre using additional Roman and Persian gazetteers and new principles.
The Geography consists of three sections, divided among 8 books.
Book I is a treatise on cartography, describing the methods used to assemble and arrange Ptolemy’s data.
From Book II through the beginning of Book VII,
a gazetteer provides
longitude and latitude values for the world known to the ancient Romans (the “ecumene”).
The rest of Book VII provides details on three projections to be used for the construction of a map of the world, varying in complexity and fidelity.
Book VIII constitutes an atlas of regional maps.
Geography (Ptolemy) - Wikipedia
Therefore, it should really come as no surprise that the strange and quirky map of Scotland [drafted by Nicolaus Germanus in 1467] fits snugly with the modern bathymetry of the North Sea.
Doggerland was an area now beneath the southern North Sea that
connected Great Britain to continental Europe…
…
In July 2012, the results of a fifteen-year study of Doggerland by the universities of St Andrews, Dundee, and Aberdeen, including artefacts survey results, were displayed at the Royal Society in London.
Richard Bates of St Andrews University said:
“We have speculated for years on the lost land’s existence from bones dredged by fishermen all over the North Sea, but it’s only since working with oil companies in the last few years that we have been able to re-create what this lost land looked like.…
We have now been able to model its flora and fauna, build up a picture of the ancient people that lived there and begin to understand some of the dramatic events that subsequently changed the land, including the sea rising and a devastating tsunami.”
Doggerland - Wikipedia
The
North Sea is a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean located between Great Britain, Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France.
…
For the most part, the sea lies on the European continental shelf
with a mean depth of 90 metres (300 ft).
The only exception is the
Norwegian trench, which extends parallel to the Norwegian shoreline from Oslo to an area north of Bergen. It is between 20 and 30 kilometres (12 and 19 mi) wide and has a maximum depth of
725 metres (2,379 ft).
The
Dogger Bank, a vast moraine, or accumulation of unconsolidated glacial debris,
rises to a mere 15 to 30 metres (50–100 ft)
below the surface.
North Sea - Wikipedia
The
Devil’s Hole is a group of deep trenches
in the North Sea about 200 km (125 mi) east of Dundee, Scotland.
…
Soundings showed that the surrounding seabed is between 80 and 90 metres (260 – 300 ft) but the
trenches are as deep as 230 m (750 ft).
They
run in a north-south direction and are on average between 1 and 2 km (.6 – 1.25 mi) in width and 20 to 30 km (12 – 18 mi) long.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil’s_Hole_(North_Sea)
If the Nicolaus Germanus map of Scotland is accepted at
face value then we are presented with the curious conundrum of how exactly Scotland morphed into it’s current familiar form shown on modern maps.
Solving this mystery is like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle.
After some
trial and error it becomes apparent the only way this ancient form of Scotland can morph into its current shape is by splitting Scotland into two independent pieces which can move independently.
This insight reveals the disintegration of Doggerland was a two step operation and that Eastern Scotland was initially separated from the British mainland by the Doggerland outflow channel.
The
first step nudged Western Scotland [along with English & Wales] Northwards.
This Northward nudge appears to have damned Doggerland’s natural Northern drainage channel [in the gap between the ancient
two piece Scotland] and created a [roughly] circular depression that rapidly began to fill with water.
The expansion of the freshly damned Doggerland lake [aka the North Sea] ultimately created a Southerly overflow channel which is now known as the
English Channel.
The 1467 Germanus map of Scotland captures the configuration after this
first step.
The
second step in the transformation is far more catastrophic.
The Western section of Scotland rotates anti-clockwise by about 90° whilst the Eastern section of Scotland performs an amazing back-flip that arcs through [about] 180°.
Although this scenario may sound preposterous there is clear supporting evidence because the boundaries of the ancient
two piece Scotland align with the
Great Glen Fault and the
Highland Boundary Fault.
Aligned
northeast to southwest, the
Great Glen Fault extends further southwest in a straight line through Loch Linnhe and the Firth of Lorne, and then on
into northwestern Ireland, directly through Lough Foyle, Donegal Bay and Clew Bay.
Great Glen Fault - Wikipedia
The
Highland Boundary Fault is a major fault zone that
traverses Scotland from Arran and Helensburgh on the west coast to Stonehaven in the east.
It separates two distinctly different physiographic and geological terrains: the Highlands from the Lowlands, and in most places it is recognisable as a change in topography.
Where rivers cross the fault, they often pass through gorges, and the associated waterfalls can be a barrier to salmon migration.
Highland Boundary Fault - Wikipedia
To the
north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault lie hard Precambrian and Cambrian
metamorphic rocks: marine deposits metamorphosed to schists, phyllites and slates, namely the Dalradian Supergroup and the Highland Border Ophiolite suite.
To the south and east are Old Red Sandstone conglomerates and sandstones: softer, sedimentary rocks of the Devonian and Carboniferous periods.
Between these areas lie the quite different rocks of the Highland Border Complex (at one time called the Highland Boundary Complex), a weakly metamorphosed sedimentary sequence of sandstones, lavas, limestones, mudstones and conglomerates.
Highland Boundary Fault - Wikipedia
In other words: ancient Eastern Scotland was transformed into the
Grampian Mountains.
The
Grampian Mountains or Grampians (Am Monadh in Gaelic) are one of the three major mountain ranges in Scotland, occupying a considerable portion of the Scottish Highlands in northeast Scotland.
The range
extends southwest to northeast between the Highland Boundary Fault and the Great Glen, occupying almost half of the land-area of Scotland and including the Cairngorms and the Lochaber hills.
The range includes many of the highest mountains in the British Isles, including Ben Nevis and Ben Macdui the two highest.
Grampian Mountains - Wikipedia
The official mainstream dating for this
second step in the catastrophic
Shaping of Scotland places these events somewhere between the original production of Ptolemy’s
Cosmographia in [about] 150 CE and the drafting of the map by Germanus in 1467 CE.
The
Old Japanese Cedar Tree chronology clearly highlights two catastrophic events during the 1st millennium: 637 CE [
Arabian Horizon] and 914 CE [
Heinsohn Horizon].
Therefore, it’s very likely that the catastrophic
second step events occurred in 914 CE.
This timing conforms to the cartographic evidence that clearly documents the separation of Europe from North America as the North Atlantic expanded during the 2nd millennium.
See:
Finding Frisland
Aligned northeast to southwest, the
Great Glen Fault extends further southwest in a straight line through Loch Linnhe and the Firth of Lorne, and then on into northwestern Ireland, directly through Lough Foyle, Donegal Bay and Clew Bay.
…
The fault
continues on the North American side of the North Atlantic Ocean, but is no longer part of a contiguous fault, as the complete fault was broken when the Mid-Atlantic Ridge formed 200 million years ago.
The North American side of the fault runs through the length of northwestern Newfoundland, Canada, as the Cabot Fault (Long Range Fault) and on into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It is at least 300 miles (480 km) long.
Great Glen Fault - Wikipedia
This
second step in the catastrophic
Shaping of Scotland explains why the last remaining vestiges of Doggerland were swept away by a “catastrophic” tsunami which buried many mainland settlements under a thick blanket of mud.
Analysis suggests the
tsunami over-ran Doggerland, a low-lying landmass that has since vanished beneath the waves.
…
Prof Vince Gaffney, an archaeologist at the University of Birmingham, said: “I think they (the researchers) are probably right, because
the tsunami would have been a catastrophic event.”
Prehistoric North Sea ‘Atlantis’ hit by 5m tsunami
BBC News – Paul Rincon – 1 May 2014
Prehistoric North Sea 'Atlantis' hit by 5m tsunami
Reconstructions of Viking port towns of the 8th-10th c. CE supposedly not
needed from 1-700 CE when wading through treacherous surf would do.
Vikings For 700 Years Without Sails, Ports, and Towns?
Gunnar Heinsohn – June 2014
Click to access heinsohn-viking-pdf-062014.pdf
Hedeby was an important
Viking Age (8th to the 11th centuries)
trading settlement near the southern end of the Jutland Peninsula, now in the Schleswig-Flensburg district of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.
Hedeby - Wikipedia
No wonder, centuries later, so many curious Europeans wanted to explore this
New World.
The
New World is one of the names used for the Earth’s Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas (including nearby islands such as those of the Caribbean and Bermuda).
The term originated in the early 16th century after Europeans made landfall in what would later be called the Americas in the age of discovery, expanding the geographical horizon of classical geographers, who had thought of the world as consisting of Africa, Europe, and Asia, collectively now referred to as the Old World (a.k.a. Afro-Eurasia).
New World - Wikipedia
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