"Fingerprints of the Gods" by Graham Hancock

What do you do when you come across a scholarly treatise that flies in the face of conventional wisdom, what if the facts as stated and the conclusions as drawn are perfectly appealing to the eye of our reason?
Such a work is "Fingerprints of the Gods", by Graham Hancock,which claims the existence of an advanced civilization around c.15,000 B.C that perhaps persihed or left the planet around the eleventh millenium B.C. ..on whether he may be right or not ,I'll reserve judgement , but the book is a fascinating read...
In fact, there have been, as he acknowledges, several theorists who have over the years forwarded this or similar theories, principally, Geologist Professor Charles Hapgood who first publicized the apparently shocking conclusions one would be forced to draw from the Admiral Piri Ries' map of 1513. Astronomer/Civil Engineer R.Bauval who forwarded the initially ridiculed but now well accepted theory that the pyramids in Giza are arranged in a floor plan that closely resembles the astral arrangement of stars in the Orion constellation, as it would have looked around c. 10450 b.c; also Egyptologist Anthony West who claims on the basis of water erosioon lines on certain ancient rock monuments,esp. the Sphinx and the valley temple at Giza and the Osireion at Abydos, that these monuments must have been around for millenia not merely on the desert as it is today and indeed, as it was even in the time of the Ancient Egyptians, but when the valley was like a vast savannah and received significantly more rainfall, another geological instance that takes us back to the Eleventh Millenium B.C...

On these seemingly strong premises, in additon to the astonishing facts his research has revealed about South american Maya/Inca/Olmic civilizations, the Angkor Wat in Cambodia,and the commonality in the threads of various mythological traditions around the world, the bizzare and controversial conclusions he forwards are these:

Has there been an ancient advanced civilization who have beqeuathed or communicated their technology to us by means of these monuments and mythologies , as they were in the sudden and final throes of their civilation which was sudenly snuffed out by a cataclysmic disaster??...Is such a cataclysm approaching our own civilization??...How are we so sure that the doomsday sayers are wrong??...Is it plausible, that despite the tears rolling down our cheeks in mirth at their stupidity, they may just have a teensy weensy bit more than blind faith on their side, i.e the precise mathematical calculations/ astronomical hints of an ancient advanced race, who were the originators of our mythological traditions?...Fair liberties taken by the author...but fair, and not as far fetched as it sounds...

This book believe or don't believe (the author), was simply unputdownable!