The World Grid: (Prehistoric Geodesy) It has been suggested that there once existed a network of aligned sacred and ancient sites that composed what is commonly termed today 'The World-Grid'. The obvious propensity for straight lines in prehistory is demonstrated by the numerous 'ley-lines' and geometric alignments around the ancient world. It is also common to find that such alignments connect prehistoric sites together, which is one of the main arguments put forward to supports the idea of the existence of a prehistoric 'world grid'. What is a 'World Grid'.?

Evidence of a world grid.

Proposed Examples.

Prehistoric Geodesy. What Exactly is the World-Grid: The basic essence of a world grid is the intellectual division of the surface of the world into a mathematically predictable model. There are several theories already in place to explain the existence of such a 'world-grid', should it ever be confirmed. The idea of the earth as a geometric shape goes back in history at least to the Pythagorean school of thinking in ancient Greece. Its famous adherent, Plato, wrote that ï¿½the earth, viewed from above, resembles a ball sewn from twelve pieces of skin'. ' Because of the advanced geodetic and geographic science of the Egyptians, Egypt became the geodetic centre of the known world. Other countries located their shrines and capital cities in terms of Egyptian 'zero' meridian, including such capitals such as Nimrod, Sardis, Susa, Persepolis, and apparently, even the ancient Chinese capital of An-Yang... As each of these geodetic centres was a political as well as geographical 'navel' of the world, an Omphalus or stone navel, was placed there to represent the northern hemisphere from equator to pole, marked out with meridians and parallels, showing the direction and distance to other such navels'. Extract from Peter Tompkins 'At the Centre of the World' (1) The works of Eratosthenes and Plato leave no question that the Greeks knew the earth was round, and divided it by 360ï¿½. But although they are often credited with the 'invention' of this now global-standard division of both time and space, the roots of such knowledge are today in question. As the Greeks themselves wrote that they obtained much of their knowledge from Egyptian and Babylonian sources, it should come as little surprise to find that the placement of the most sacred centres of ancient Egypt appears to echo a placement according to a geometry based on earthly measurements, a process which can be seen repeated around the prehistoric world, and through perhaps offering a clue to the underlying origin of the science itself; Astronomical observation. Geodesy and the World-Grid: There is a fundamental difference between Geodesy and the World Grid, in that the Grid is based on a geometrically uniform pattern, whereas geodesy is also concerned with 'energy lines' and topographical features. (More about Geodesy) According to Webster's dictionary, a grid is defined as: "a network of uniformly spaced horizontal and perpendicular lines, specifically one used for locating points by means of a system of coordinates." Proposed Examples of the world-Grid: View of the Earth as a 'Giant Crystal' as envisioned by a group of three Russian scientists in the 1960's. Their findings were published in 'Khimiya i Zhizn', the popular science journal of the Academy of Sciences, entitled 'Is the Earth a Giant Crystal?. They decided that there was nothing in theory to prevent a lattice-working pattern - a 'matrix of cosmic energy' as they put it - being built into the structure of the earth at the time when it was being formed, whose shape could still be dimly perceived today. According to their hypothesis, the crystal can still be seen in twelve pentagonal slabs covering the surface of the globe (a dodecahedron as suggested by Socrates who said 'The real Earth viewed from above is supposed to look like one of those balls made of twelve pieces of skin sewn together'), overlaid with twenty equilateral triangles. The entire geometric structure, they claim, can be seen in its influence on the siting of ancient civilisations, on earth faults, magnetic anomalies, and many other otherwise unrelated locations which are placed either at the intersections of the grid, or along its lines. The Becker-Hagens Icosahdron Projection. (1. Great Pyramid at Giza, Egypt), (11. Orkney Islands, Scotland), (18. Bermuda triangle, Bahamas), (47. Easter Island), David Zink's map of megalithic sites and other features from his book The Ancient Stones Speak, (Dutton, 1979).

(1) Giza, the Great Pyramid. (9) Hudson Bay, present location of north magnetic pole (11) Northern British Isles, Maes Howe, Ring of Brodgar, Callanish (12) Mohenjo Daroï¿½Rama Empire culture (13) Xian Pyramids, largest in the world (14) Southern Japan, "Dragon's Triangle," great seismic activity (18) Bimini, Bahama's (20) Algerian megalithic ruins (21) Megaliths at Axum, the Coptic Christian center in Ethiopia (25) Bangkok and Ankor Wat. (26) Sarawak, Borneo, site of ancient megalithic structures (28) Pohnpei Island, Micronesia, site of the megalithic city of Nan Madol (35) Lima, Peru, boundary of the Nazca Plate, Pisco, the Candlestick of the Andes & the Nazca Lines (41) Zimbabwe with its ancient mines & structures (47) Easter Island and its megaliths Evidence for a Prehistoric Global Mapping Project: The suggestion that the world might have been accurately plotted and mapped by prehistoric people c. 3,000 BC stretches the imagination of most historians to breaking point. However, a picture is beginning to form from a variety of sources that suggests that a global-mapping project may well have been initiated at around this time. One of the strongest pieces of evidence for this comes in the form of a map. The Piri-reis map has several interesting features, in particular, the fact that it appears to show the correct application of longitude and latitude, in addition to the fact that the map centres on the 'Tropic of Capricorn' and the longitude of 'Alexandria', suggesting knowledge of astronomy, geometry, and astrology at the same time. We can reasonably conclude from this that the makers of the map either originated from that region or had a good knowledge of it. This evidence combined suggests a familiarity with the concept of a spherical globe, and the mathematics necessary to translate compass points onto a two dimensional representation. The Piri-Reis map is actually a fragment of a larger world-map, composed from several smaller maps, all of which were calculated to centre on Egypt. The controversial suggestion that the continent of Antarctic is visible (seen in entirety on other middle age maps), places the creation of the map no more recently than 4,000 B.C., as established by core-sampling from the Ross-sea, which showed that the continent was obscured with snow and ice after that date. The implications of the Piri-Reis map are considerate. There is a clear suggestion from the location and dimensions of Egyptian temples and sacred sites that they were aware of the dimensions of the earth, and included both longitude and latitude into the placement of their most important structures. The Piri Reis Map: An Egyptian Legacy?. Although several uncertain claims have been made concerning the Piri-reis map, there was one interesting result from Hapgood's research which has a significant bearing on this subject. The accuracy of the map in terms of longitude and latitude made it possible to calculate the cartographic centre, which was... you guessed it.. Egypt. The centre of the map - Although only the left-third of the map now remains, the remaining 'Rose des vents' on the map enabled Hapgood to project for the cartographic centre (see below), which was calculated to fall in 'the region of Syene', in Egypt, and following a series of more accurate tests he determined that the centre of the map was situated on the ancient Tropic of Cancer, and on the same Meridian as later Alexandria (at 30ï¿½ longitude). T he longitude reading is easily explained in terms of the prehistory of the Nile valley, but the latitude is far easier to explain in terms of astronomy or geodesy. Centre of Piri-reis map - (24ï¿½ 06ï¿½ N, 30ï¿½ 00ï¿½ E) . The suggestion that the latitude was chosen because of its astronomical relevance is of interest as the latitude of the Tropics is known to have changed over time. In fact, at the time of Eratosthenes for example, the Tropic of Cancer was at 23ï¿½ 45ï¿½ N, and the region of Syene, or rather, Elephant island on the Nile, which is situated at 24ï¿½ 06ï¿½ N, would no longer have functioned as a marker of the suns vertical rays in his time, and the only time it would have worked in the way described would have been at around (3,000 BC). The latitude of 23ï¿½ 30ï¿½ has only been applicable in recent times which makes the fact that it centered on the region of Syene very significant. Syene is on the same longitude as modern day Alexandra - 30ï¿½ 00ï¿½ E. They define the western extremes of ancient Egypt. There have been several suggestions that geodetic measurements were observed in Egypt before the Greeks, For example, Strabo the Geographer stated that ï¿½the science of land-measuring originated along the Nile in Egypt' (Book XVII), from a necessity to record the boundaries of the nomes (provinces) of the country, and it is suspected from the placement of sacred Egyptian cities and shrines (as seen above) that a knowledge of the earth as a globe, its dimensions and a division into 360ï¿½ existed in ancient Egypt (as seen in the Piri-reis map - Eratosthenes later divided the globe into 60 divisions of 6ï¿½). In relation to this, the diameter of the circle formed by the Rose-des-vents on the Piri-reis map was calculated to cover 69.5ï¿½ of the earth surface (approx 4% less than 72% (1/5th) - as per the Eratosthenes error - which could be eliminated if the angle of the ecliptic were extended to 24ï¿½ 45ï¿½). So that, while we are comfortable in assuming that the maps of Eratosthenes and Ptolemy provided all the necessary information for latter generations to pick up on (as they did), eventually leading to the production of the Piri-reis map and others, a deeper root has appeared, which points back to earlier activity, and perhaps justifies Hapgoodï¿½s theory of the existence of an ï¿½set of ancient knowledge' in the maps. (More about the Piri-Reis Map) The 12-Wind system We have seen that the centre of the Piri-reis map was in the region of Syene, the south-westerly point of Egypt. The geometry used in the map is - in effect, the cartographer's fingerprint. It shows a division of 360ï¿½ and uses a system known as the 'twelve-wind' system, (based on an 8x8 grid). It is perhaps not so strange that we find this very same geometry in the ground-plan of Giza. The meticulous measuring of the Giza complex by Petrie, Smyth and others, has illuminated the extent of the geometry at Giza, but there is a simple geometry behind the Giza layout which returns us again and again to 30 .which has in fact been associated with an 8x8 grid before as noted by John Michel (3) , who mentions 'Levi's magic squares' of which there was one for each planet, and that each of the seven wonders of the ancient world represented a planet, and that Giza represented Mercury 'the messenger', whose square was an 8x8). While this may be a coincidence, it seems worth mentioning. It can be seen that the 8 x 8 grid used for the layout of the Giza pyramids (above, left) simultaneously reveals the 5:8 ratio between the corners of the three pyramids (which are aligned to Heliopolis), otherwise known as the 'sacred mean', and a symbolically relevant geometric figure. and including sufficient geometry to create 12 equal divisions of 30ï¿½, as seen both between pyramids and in the actual location of Giza (on the 30th parallel). I t can also be seen from the diagram (above, right), that the basis for the Giza ground-plan mirrors Hapgood's method for determining the centre of the Rose-de vent's on the Piri-reis map. ( More about the Piri-Reis Map )