The nursery rhyme begins, ''In fourteen hundred and ninety two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.'' Less well-known is the line that follows: ''…to learn if the old maps were true.'' How can there be ''old maps'' of a land no one knew existed? Were others here before Columbus? What were their reasons for coming and what unexplained artifacts did they leave behind?
The oceans were highways to America rather than barriers, and when discoverers put ashore, they were greeted by unusual inhabitants. In Discovering the Mysteries of Ancient America, the author of The Atlantis Encyclopedia turns his sextant towards this hemisphere. Here is a collection of the most controversial articles selected from seventy issues of the infamous Ancient American magazine. They range from the discovery of Roman relics in Arizona and California's Chinese treasure, to Viking rune-stones in Minnesota and Oklahoma and the mysterious religions of ancient Americans. Many questions will be raised including:
What role did extraterrestrials have in the lives of ancient civilizations?
What ancient pyramids and towers tell us about the people who built them?
Are they some sort of portals to another dimension?
What prehistoric technologies have been discovered, and what can they tell us about early settlers, their religious beliefs, and possible other-worldly visitors?
Did El Dorado exist, and what of the legendary Fountain of Youth?
Was Atlantis in Cuba?
What are America’s lost races and what happened to them?
Discovering the Mysteries of Ancient America brings to the fore the once-hidden true past of America’s earliest civilizations
Frank Joseph is the author of The Atlantis Encyclopedia (New Page Books), as well as a dozen other books on history, prehistory, and metaphysics. He has been the editor-in-chief of Ancient American magazine since its first issue in 1993. He lives in Wisconsin.
Wayne May is the founder-publisher of Ancient American. Laura Lee is the award-winning producer and host of the nationally syndicated ''The Laura Lee Show''. David Hatcher Childress wrote the best-selling Lost Cities series. Zecharia Sitchin is the author of the best-selling Earth Chronicles series. Andrew Collins is world-renowned for his consistent bestsellers, including Gateway to Atlantis.