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The icy mass – measuring over 14 million km-squared – has long been a source of great mystery and was the last continent of the world to be discovered.

But its freezing temperatures and barren landscape have stopped people from ever attempting to colonise it, so has remained virtually untouched over the years.

However, this may not actually be the case.

(Image: GETTY) (Image: MOONXELS)

A scientific theory known as crustal displacement means that thousands of years ago, the icy tundra may have been home to an ancient and mysterious civilisation.

Professor Charles A Hapgood, a history expert from the US, first published a paper in the 1950s that said movement in the Earth’s crust meant that only 11,600 years ago large parts of Antarctica were totally ice free.

He said evidence of this was in the 500-year-old Piri Reis map – a world map drawn up by the Ottoman admiral of the same name.

A number of scholars who have examined the map claim it clearly shows the west coast of Africa, the east coast of South America and the northern coast of Antarctica – but not covered in sheet ice.

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US Air Force Lt. Colonel Harold Z Ohlmeyer sent a letter in 1960 to Professor Hapgood saying his theory on the Piri Reis map was correct.

He wrote: “The geographical detail shown in the lower part of the map agrees very remarkably with the results of the seismic profile made across the top of the ice-cap by the Swedish-British Antarctic Expedition of 1949.

“This indicates the coastline had been mapped before it was covered by the ice-cap. This part of Antarctica [is] ice free.

“The ice-cap in this region is now about a mile thick.”

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Conspiracists now think Hapgood was right and he discovered that much of the south pole was ice free – and also the location of The Lost City of Atlantis.

The existence of this mythical utopia was first mentioned in the writings by ancient Greek philosopher Plato in 360 BC.

The Atlantis that Plato described was founded by people who were half god and half human around 9,000 years before his own time.

If it did exist, this would be at a similar time that Professor Hapgood said shifts had occurred in the Earth’s crust.

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And just a month ago further proof of an Antarctica Atlantis emerged in the form of pictures what appears to be huge pyramids jutting out of its ice.

The astounding photos showed structures that bear an uncanny resemblance to the pyramids of Giza, which were built thousands of years ago by the ancient Egyptians.

Could all of this mean one of the world’s greatest mysteries is about to be unlocked?