Captain James Cook and Abel Tasman could lose their place in history as the first Europeans to reach New Zealand. A controversial book, To the End of the Earth, claims to contain evidence that Greeks, Spanish and Egyptians settled in New Zealand long before the Maori people. The 378-page book, to be released this weekend, was co-authored by researchers Maxwell C Hill, Gary Cook and Noel Hilliam. It shows ancient maps drawn before the birth of Christ, which the authors said detail the coastlines of Australia and New Zealand. Skeletons, rock carvings, stone buildings and monuments all attest to people of European origin living in New Zealand for centuries before the arrival of Polynesians, they said. The artefacts include a rock carving of an ancient Greek ship found in Taupo, a stone pillar with an accurate coastal map of New Zealand showing Lake Taupo in its pre-232AD eruption shape, and carvings on rocks at Raglan. Hill said a huge boulder weighing several tonnes, deeply cut into a huge circular star calendar and marked with what were believed to be figures and rebuses, was the most stunning find. He said there was also evidence that showed Maui was not the legendary Maori god-explorer, but an actual Egyptian naval navigator, who steered a flotilla of Greek ships to discover new shores, Hill said.
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