The oldest known human civilization is by general consensus thought to be the Sumerians. It is roughly 4,000 BC and they have no cultural heritage to speak of. However, in high regard they hold an ancient race that some call the Nefilim. To the Sumerians, these beings were as Gods. Is it not possible, that there was once a time far beyond our reckoning in which civilizations were well beyond advanced? Many have attempted to present such a case to the scientific community at large and are, unsurprisingly, not taken too seriously.
Regardless, when presenting such theories, one piece of evidence that tends to b e used is the Piri Reis Map, a map said to be produced in 1513 by famous Turkish Admiral and cartographer of whom the map is named after. It was discovered in 1929 when Topkopi Palace was being converted into a museum. It was printed on gazelle skin and had noted scribbled on it by Reis himself. The odd thing about this particular map is that it shows in incredible detail various islands in the Atlantic, such as the Canary Islands and depicts the coasts of South America and Antarctica in a detail that should not have been possible in the 16th century. And the weird thing about Antarctica being in such a map was twofold: one, the continent was not officially discovered until the mid-1800's. Until then, it was simply assumed that there was such a continent; mostly because it seemed logical that one would be needed to balance out the landmass in the north. Most maps produced before the modern 'discovery' of Antarctica often included this theoretical land mass, called the Great Southern Land. So in that regard, the Piri Reis Map was not all that odd. But as far as Latitude and Longitude, the map is far more accurate than anything from that era.
The second aspect of this oddity, far more strange than the first, is that it seemed to depict the continent as it would have been without ice. Now as far as science is concerned, the last time the landmass of Antarctica was free of ice was somewhere around 6,000 years ago. Far before any known nautical culture existed. Even stranger still, was the inclusion of rivers, plateaus, deserts and bays that modern sonar research has indeed confirmed to be in existence, nearly one mile below the ice.
And how does this prove helpful in deducing that there may have been ancient cultures far more advanced than we give them credit for? Piri Reis himself admitted to basing his work on the maps on far older documents. Notes written by Reis himself on the document tell that he was not responsible for the cartography and the exploration, but was rather a compiler using a large number of sources. Some were maps drawn by contemporaries of his time, but some, he said, were much older, with some dating back to the days of Alexander the Great.
There are also techniques present in the map that should not have been available to Reis for hundreds of more years. For one thing the detail of the map on every level suggests the use of spherical trigonometry is it's making. This suggests that the mapmakers whom Reis researched new quite well that the earth was indeed round and what is more when the map is transferred to a globe, it matches up perfectly. Arlington Mallery, an authority on ancient maps who had studied the map in the 1950's, once said that the only way to get such accuracy would have been to conduct surveys from the air.
The map has its doubters to be sure, the most famous of whom being Gregory McIntosh who published a work about the map in 2000. McIntosh is of the opinion that the map is no more detailed than any other map from it's era and that the claims of its history and accuracy have been somewhat exaggerated. Nevertheless, The Piri Reis Map has intrigued many of varying viewpoints with its mysteries and its possibilities and maybe, just maybe, it is another piece in the puzzle to discovering that mystical and advanced ancient culture.