Speaker 1: My welcome Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radios, How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Joe McCormick.
Speaker 1: My normal co host, Robert Lamb is not with us today.
Speaker 1: He's off on vacation at the other side of the
Speaker 1: Haunted Sea. So instead I'm bringing you an interview today
Speaker 1: that I did with an expert on maps and sea monsters.
Speaker 1: Sea Monsters seemed appropriate for this time of year. Uh.
Speaker 1: This expert is named Chet van Douser, and I think
Speaker 1: you're really going to enjoy this interview, so to introduce
Speaker 1: him here, Chet band User is a researcher in residence
Speaker 1: at the John Carter Brown Library and a board member
Speaker 1: of the Lazarus Project of the University of Rochester, which
Speaker 1: brings multi spectral imaging to cultural institutions around the world.
Speaker 1: He's published extensively on medieval and Renaissance maps. In addition
Speaker 1: to his book Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renais Son's Maps,
Speaker 1: which was published by British Library, and his book The
Speaker 1: World for a King. Pierre de Scalier's Map of fifteen
Speaker 1: fifty was published in by the British Library and in
Speaker 1: sen Brill published a book he co authored with Ilia Dines,
Speaker 1: Apocalyptic Cartography Thematic Maps in the End of the World
Speaker 1: in a fifteenth century manuscript. In Springer published his book
Speaker 1: Henricus Martelis's World Map at Yale Multi Spectral Imaging Sources
Speaker 1: and influence. His current project is a book about cartographic cartouches.
Speaker 1: And without any further Ado, let's get right into the
Speaker 1: interview about sea monsters. Chad van Duser, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: It's a pleasure to have you here to talk about
Speaker 1: sea monsters and maps of the Medieval and Renaissance period.
Speaker 1: Would you start just by introducing yourself, maybe talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about your background and what got you interested
Speaker 1: in maps. Yes, well, Joe first, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: It's a pleasure to be here. Um. And as as
Speaker 1: far as my background with maps, I had studied mathematics
Speaker 1: and English literature and Ancient Greek and Latin at Berkeley,
Speaker 1: and it took me a while to find maps as
Speaker 1: it were, uh, and it was at a very specific moment.
Speaker 1: I was at the Vatican Museums just as a tourist,
Speaker 1: and they had a manuscript of Ptolemy's geography on display
Speaker 1: and The manuscript was from the middle of the fifteenth century,
Speaker 1: but it had had a map added to it, another
Speaker 1: map painted on blank pages in about fifteen thirty. And
Speaker 1: that map had a very very interesting, totally hypothetical southern
Speaker 1: continent and which, even though it was labeled Terra and Cognita,
Speaker 1: was full of place names, and it also had a
Speaker 1: very unusual shape. And so I wanted to learn more
Speaker 1: about that, where this strange shape might have come from,
Speaker 1: where all these place names might have come from. And
Speaker 1: so that was when I got interested in maps. And uh,
Speaker 1: it was in another institution in Europe where I got
Speaker 1: interested in sea monsters. And in fact it was another
Speaker 1: manuscript of Potlemy's geography. Um. I was at the National
Speaker 1: Library of Spain, and uh they have I knew they
Speaker 1: had a manuscript of Plemy's geography, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: see it. And when I opened the manuscript, I saw
Speaker 1: that all of the maps had sea monsters on them,
Speaker 1: lots and lots of sea monsters, in fact, more than
Speaker 1: any other manuscript I've since encountered. And I thought, and
Speaker 1: these these monsters were not mentioned in the literature about
Speaker 1: this manuscript, So I thought I should write an article
Speaker 1: about the monsters in this manuscript, and the article kept
Speaker 1: growing and growing, growing, and then finally a colleague, Katharine
Speaker 1: Delano Smith, pointed out that it would make more sense
Speaker 1: as a book, and she was absolutely right. Well, I
Speaker 1: just wanted to say, I've really loved this book. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's full of fascinating stuff. Before we get directly into
Speaker 1: the sea monsters, I wondered if you might want to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit more generally about historical cartography. Um,
Speaker 1: what is it that you can learn about a group
Speaker 1: of people from the past, from another time in place
Speaker 1: by looking at the maps they made, that you might
Speaker 1: not learn by looking at other things. Yes? Well, all
Speaker 1: too often historical maps are just used as illustrations for books,
Speaker 1: for historical books, for example, but others as well, whereas
Speaker 1: in fact um maps. Historical maps often contain historical evidence
Speaker 1: uh that is not preserved in other sources, and and
Speaker 1: be for any number of reasons. But just to mention
Speaker 1: one example, the earliest surviving European illustration of an apossum
Speaker 1: occurs on Martin Valtim Miller's cart Marina of fifteen sixteen,
Speaker 1: and there certainly were no doubt earlier European depictions of
Speaker 1: the Apossum, which was regarded as a marvel because it
Speaker 1: was the first marsupial that Europeans had encountered. There certainly
Speaker 1: were earlier depictions, but as it happened, they don't survive,
Speaker 1: and thus, as it happens, the earliest surviving depiction is
Speaker 1: on a map, and this happens much more frequently than
Speaker 1: one might suspect. And uh, a large and detailed map
Speaker 1: can have a little bit of an encyclopedia encyclopedic character
Speaker 1: to it and thus preserves information of both both textual
Speaker 1: and graphical from various sources. And and sometimes considering the
Speaker 1: historical evidence offered by maps is is really essential in
Speaker 1: constructing a history oracle argument? Does looking at ancient maps
Speaker 1: also give you a better idea of the kind of
Speaker 1: the texture of the worldview of ancient people, like what
Speaker 1: they felt about the broader world, especially places far away
Speaker 1: from them. It does. Um. It can be difficult to
Speaker 1: try to go from a map to what the cartographer
Speaker 1: was thinking, but in some cases making that that trans
Speaker 1: that that jump is possible. Um And in fact, monsters
Speaker 1: play into precisely that aspect of maps, in the sense
Speaker 1: that it was generally thought that the most distant parts
Speaker 1: of the world were the parts filled with monsters, and
Speaker 1: and the fact that that's often the case on maps
Speaker 1: is very clear graphic evidence of that that thought about
Speaker 1: the sort of structure of the world. I think maybe
Speaker 1: we should get into our discussion of sea monsters just
Speaker 1: by having you describe a couple of your favorite examples.
Speaker 1: So when you think about your favorite medieval or Renaissance
Speaker 1: maps with sea monsters on them, what do they show
Speaker 1: and what do we know about the circumstances under which
Speaker 1: these maps were made? Yes, well, one of them, one
Speaker 1: of my favorite maps are in this case an atlas
Speaker 1: involving sea monsters is precisely that manuscript of Ptolemy's geography
Speaker 1: in the National Library of Spain. And as is often
Speaker 1: the case, we we know we we don't have textual
Speaker 1: evidence about the creation of that manuscript. We don't have
Speaker 1: a document that that goes through what the person who
Speaker 1: commissioned the manuscript wanted from it um. But if one
Speaker 1: looks a variety of manuscripts of told muse geography, and
Speaker 1: one can do the same thing with nautical charts, one
Speaker 1: begins to get the impression that in commissioning the creation
Speaker 1: of a work like this, that a wealthy person had
Speaker 1: many different options, and many of those options related to
Speaker 1: the decoration of the maps. And we do have one
Speaker 1: contract for the creation of medieval maps, and it does
Speaker 1: talk specifically about the decoration and even the exact number
Speaker 1: of trees that were to be painted on the map.
Speaker 1: And I think we have to imagine something similar happening
Speaker 1: with sea monsters, that this was an optional decorative element. UH.
Speaker 1: One could have a very plain manuscript of Ptolemy's geography
Speaker 1: or nautical chart, or one could have a more elaborately
Speaker 1: decorated one, and the sea monsters were one of those
Speaker 1: optional elements. So when we see sea monsters on anautical
Speaker 1: chart or a manuscript of Ptlemy's geography, we know that
Speaker 1: the person commissioning MAPUH was someone who wanted more. They
Speaker 1: wanted more, more of the options available, more decoration, and
Speaker 1: more elaborate manuscript. So that's certainly part of what's happening
Speaker 1: with that specific manuscript of Ptolemy's geography. But I have
Speaker 1: the feeling that there's more UH, And again we don't
Speaker 1: have textual evidence to support this, so this is a speculation,
Speaker 1: but it seems that whoever whoever was painting the sea
Speaker 1: monsters in the seas of that manuscript took a particularly
Speaker 1: strong interest in the subject because the variety is just
Speaker 1: so remarkable. Um, there's not just sirens, there's multiple different
Speaker 1: types of sirens. There are sirens with one tale, sirens
Speaker 1: with two tales, and sirens wearing European clothing. So it
Speaker 1: really feels like in this case it was a specialist,
Speaker 1: uh in sea monsters, not just a specialist and painting,
Speaker 1: but someone who had a very strong interest in the subject.
Speaker 1: So what do you think creates a passion for sea
Speaker 1: monsters in in that kind of period. Uh, it's a
Speaker 1: wonderful question. I mean, is it the same thing that
Speaker 1: makes somebody interested in horror movies today or would it
Speaker 1: be a different kind of interest? Um? I think I
Speaker 1: think it was a different interest. So one of the uh,
Speaker 1: one of the things that came out in my research
Speaker 1: for this book was so looking at the sea monsters
Speaker 1: on medieval and Renaissance maps. They often look fantastical, They
Speaker 1: often look like one things. Surely the cartographer just invented
Speaker 1: this on the spot, But in fact I was able
Speaker 1: to find the sources for a number of the sea
Speaker 1: monsters on medieval and rest once maps, which is to
Speaker 1: say the cartographers were not simply inventing them on the spot. Uh,
Speaker 1: they were copied from sources that the cartographer would have
Speaker 1: had reason to trust, like an illustrated encyclopedia. Um. So,
Speaker 1: I think sea monsters on maps serve multiple functions, and
Speaker 1: one of them is definitely decoration. But also there was
Speaker 1: a desire to convey information. And I know that can
Speaker 1: sound a little ridiculous when when we look at some
Speaker 1: of these monsters and they do seem utterly fantastical, But
Speaker 1: some of the ones that seem the most fantastic were
Speaker 1: in fact copied from sources that the cartographer would have
Speaker 1: thought reliable. So, yes, there's a decorative element, but at
Speaker 1: the same time, there's a uh desire to convey information
Speaker 1: about what is in the sea. Yeah, there are a
Speaker 1: number of examples I was looking at in your book
Speaker 1: where it really does seem like that it's a specific
Speaker 1: practical warning. One that comes to mind is I believe
Speaker 1: you have an example of a thirteen sixty seven nautical
Speaker 1: chart by the brothers Pizza Gani that shows two ships
Speaker 1: in the North Atlantic near the supposed mythical isle of Brazil,
Speaker 1: I think, and they're being attacked by a dragon and
Speaker 1: a giant octopus. And so you could look at that
Speaker 1: and say, well, that just looks like maybe they were
Speaker 1: trying to liven up some blank space on the map.
Speaker 1: But it comes with a warning. It says, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: while these ships are going to port, dragons and octopuses
Speaker 1: carry all of the crew members off and and leave
Speaker 1: the ships empty, and seems to be warning people who
Speaker 1: are approaching the sport, though I think the port is
Speaker 1: entirely mythical. Is that correct? Yes? Uh, that is in
Speaker 1: fact a great example, and it's it's worth emphasizing, uh
Speaker 1: that that image of the flying dragon and the giant
Speaker 1: octopus attacking the ships is right near, uh, the the
Speaker 1: edge of the map. It's out in the Atlantic, right
Speaker 1: near the as far out in the Atlantic as the
Speaker 1: cart bographer's depiction goes. And I think that's an important
Speaker 1: element here that again, the the area where there's a
Speaker 1: limit of knowledge is where monsters tend to be located.
Speaker 1: So on that same map, uh, the cartographer does show
Speaker 1: ships navigating evidently safely in the Atlantic, but closer to
Speaker 1: the European mainland. There there's three ships that come out
Speaker 1: of the Strait of Gibraltar and are heading north close
Speaker 1: to the coasts of Spain and France, but then further
Speaker 1: out in the Atlantic, again near the limit of the
Speaker 1: cartographer's knowledge. We have this, as you say, warning about
Speaker 1: monsters attacking ships. Is it also an important distinction that
Speaker 1: this is on a nautical chart as opposed to just
Speaker 1: a decorative map. Um, that's a good question. So very
Speaker 1: unsurprising thing about nautical charts is that the makers we're
Speaker 1: really serving two very different audiences. The cartographer could make
Speaker 1: an undecorated nautical chart without the the sea monsters, the
Speaker 1: images of cities, the images of sovereigns, the animals, the
Speaker 1: mountain ranges. And it was that type of undecorated chart
Speaker 1: that would be actually used in navigation. So if if
Speaker 1: a chart was decorated with all these images, it would
Speaker 1: be very expensive. They might have used expensive pigments. That
Speaker 1: type of chart would never have been taken to see
Speaker 1: and for one thing, that the ship ship captain couldn't
Speaker 1: have afforded it. UH. And then even if he could,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't want to subject such a valuable map to UH.
Speaker 1: The salt air. Of course, if you're taking a chart
Speaker 1: to you probably want to use it to indicate your course. Um.
Speaker 1: So the same misers of nautical charts were on the
Speaker 1: one hand serving a practical market, that is, a people
Speaker 1: who actually used the charts to navigate, and those would
Speaker 1: have been the undecora rated charts. And at the same
Speaker 1: time they were serving this market of nobles, rich nobles
Speaker 1: who who wanted the very elaborately decorated charts for collection
Speaker 1: and display as as symbols of their worldly knowledge and power.
Speaker 1: So maybe we should talk about the definition of what
Speaker 1: what makes a sea monster? Um? You know what, we
Speaker 1: know that there are many natural life forms, such as whales,
Speaker 1: that have commonly been interpreted as sea monsters throughout history.
Speaker 1: In fact, one of my favorite parts of your book
Speaker 1: was you just got a spread over a couple of
Speaker 1: pages that's illustrations of walruses as sea monsters. Uh. They're
Speaker 1: just they look amazing. Um. So how does that sort
Speaker 1: of that natural life form category blur with mythological terrors
Speaker 1: like you know, like the kraken or Leviathan or the sirens. Yes, Um, well,
Speaker 1: defining defining the word monster is very problematic. Um. And
Speaker 1: me evil and Renaissance authors who tried to define the
Speaker 1: word disagreed. Um. So some held that a monster was
Speaker 1: something against nature in some way, whereas others held that
Speaker 1: that a monster was as fearsome as it was, was
Speaker 1: nonetheless of a part of God's plan for the world,
Speaker 1: an integral part of God's plan for the world is
Speaker 1: as strange as it seems. So people who tried to
Speaker 1: define monsters differed in very fundamental ways, and it remains
Speaker 1: a word that's difficult to define today, I think. And
Speaker 1: then also there's the fact that as you as you
Speaker 1: were hinting at that, the definition of monster changes over time. So,
Speaker 1: as you said, Wales were throughout the Middle Ages and
Speaker 1: and much of the Renaissance regarded as monsters, and in
Speaker 1: in that that spread the two pages you mentioned, Uh,
Speaker 1: with the walrus is um, there's a map from I
Speaker 1: believe it's that explicitly identifies the walrus as a monster.
Speaker 1: And yet today, uh, you know, for us, a whale
Speaker 1: is the furthest thing from a monster. It's a noble,
Speaker 1: intelligent creature that's to be preserved. And I also think
Speaker 1: that we would we would not characterize a walrus as
Speaker 1: a monster either, um. And it's interesting to think about
Speaker 1: ways that that definition will continue to evolve, how things
Speaker 1: today we think of as monstrous in the future, ideas
Speaker 1: may may continue to change about those things. Well. One
Speaker 1: thing that was funny to me about the the idea
Speaker 1: of walrus as a monster is that it is a
Speaker 1: natural life form that has many of the morphological characteristics
Speaker 1: that are often attributed falsely to monsters, Like it has
Speaker 1: the tusks, it has the briskly facial hair you know
Speaker 1: that we see on I think there are a bunch
Speaker 1: of whales depicted in your book, um that have facial
Speaker 1: hair of some kind, like a mustache. Um. So anyway,
Speaker 1: I thought that was a funny point in comparison, So
Speaker 1: you've talked about the idea that that sometimes monsters on
Speaker 1: maps could be used as a literal warning, like information
Speaker 1: given to sailors. You know, you might not want to
Speaker 1: travel here because there's a map. They could more often probably,
Speaker 1: or maybe you can say whether it be more often
Speaker 1: or not. They would just be decorations that would be
Speaker 1: commissioned by somebody who was looking for a spicier map,
Speaker 1: maybe something that has more character to it and shows
Speaker 1: more worldly knowledge. About what lives there. But what might
Speaker 1: be other economic demands for for sea monsters on maps
Speaker 1: if any? Yes, Well, as I was saying earlier, it's
Speaker 1: because sea monsters serve often serve more than one function
Speaker 1: on maps that can be both decoration UH and an
Speaker 1: attempt to indicate what's actually living in the ocean. It
Speaker 1: can be difficult to divine what the cartographers UH wishes
Speaker 1: were or aims were in placing sea monsters on maps,
Speaker 1: how much it might have been motivated, for example, by
Speaker 1: the the commissioning the maps wish to have a very
Speaker 1: heavily decorated map, and how much it was motivated by
Speaker 1: a wish to to to convey information about what's in
Speaker 1: the oceans. But there's one map in particular, and it's
Speaker 1: uh one of the most spectacular and interesting UH maps
Speaker 1: for a collection of of images of sea monsters, which
Speaker 1: is allows Magnus is Carton Marina of nine, which is
Speaker 1: really just spectacular in terms of sea monsters, and so
Speaker 1: was my favorite, by the way, Yeah, well with good reason.
Speaker 1: So that the map shows Scandinavia, and then the water
Speaker 1: is off Scandinavia and the waters are full of sea monsters,
Speaker 1: and a colleague of mine has suggested that there was
Speaker 1: an additional function, intended function of the sea monsters on
Speaker 1: this map, and that was to scare away fisherman from
Speaker 1: other nations, leaving the abundant catch from the northern waters
Speaker 1: to the fishermen of Scandinavia. And I think that's really
Speaker 1: uh wonderful suggestion about a possible function of sea monsters. Well,
Speaker 1: one possibility that occurred to me. I mean, I was
Speaker 1: wondering if you ever came across something like this. This
Speaker 1: might touch on an episode you cover in the book
Speaker 1: about the flying turtle, but I was thinking about the
Speaker 1: concept in cartography of a trap street, like the idea
Speaker 1: of a a fake feature added to a map to
Speaker 1: sort of enforce copyright. I wonder if a sea monster
Speaker 1: has ever been used for this purpose, not to my knowledge.
Speaker 1: And perhaps part of that would be that in the
Speaker 1: Middle Ages and Renaissance, the ideas about what one was
Speaker 1: permitted to copy. Uh, we're very different, right, Uh, So
Speaker 1: there was this great freedom and there there was no
Speaker 1: no blame associated with copying. Uh many different elements of
Speaker 1: of maps and literary works and other things. So um,
Speaker 1: because of that, it's it's difficult for me to imagine
Speaker 1: sea monster being used that way at least, yeah, at
Speaker 1: least in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. I guess the
Speaker 1: timeline in lineups, but they go back to the example
Speaker 1: of the walrus. I mean, it's very interesting to watch
Speaker 1: basically the evolution of the image of the walrus uh
Speaker 1: from the early sixteenth century to to the end of
Speaker 1: that century. So Martin Vauti Miller on his Carter Marina,
Speaker 1: different map with the same name, depicted the walrus much
Speaker 1: like an elephant, which seems very surprising. It's a preacher
Speaker 1: that looks like an elephant, but it's very clearly labeled walrus.
Speaker 1: And what must have happened is that someone said, well,
Speaker 1: the walrus has tusks like an elephant, and the artist,
Speaker 1: not knowing what better to do, depicted the creature like
Speaker 1: an elephant. And this error had remarkable life through maps.
Speaker 1: It was copied again and again, and over time the
Speaker 1: image gradually became um somewhat more lifelike, but it was
Speaker 1: a slow process. All right, we're going to take a
Speaker 1: quick break, but we'll be right back with more of
Speaker 1: the interview. And we're back. Maybe we should talk about
Speaker 1: a few individual features that. Uh, that that I enjoyed
Speaker 1: from your book, that popped up on several maps. Uh.
Speaker 1: So one is the idea of sirens. Could you speak
Speaker 1: at link a little bit about sirens, what they represent
Speaker 1: and and why they show up on so many maps. Yes. Well, Uh,
Speaker 1: the myth of the siren goes back to Homer's Honyessey
Speaker 1: and he talks about these female creatures that live on
Speaker 1: an island and they sing as sailors passed by and
Speaker 1: their ships, and the their song is so powerful that
Speaker 1: it attracts the sailors to the island and then they
Speaker 1: die there. Um. And over time the image of sirens evolved,
Speaker 1: as often happens with mythical creatures. And there's a important
Speaker 1: world map from about fourteen sixty that shows three different
Speaker 1: kinds of sirens in the Indian Ocean, and it shows
Speaker 1: them graphically, and then there's a descriptive text that talks
Speaker 1: about these three different kinds. And one is half woman bird,
Speaker 1: which is I think the most common way sirens are depicted.
Speaker 1: Another is half woman half fish, and then another is
Speaker 1: half woman half horse, which is very unusual. And that
Speaker 1: that that one does not appear on many other maps.
Speaker 1: But it's a horse with two legs, isn't it? That
Speaker 1: never is a horse with two lights made a less
Speaker 1: sense to me than your standard center. That's right, But yeah,
Speaker 1: the the siren had a very long life on maps
Speaker 1: and is certainly one of the most common sea monsters
Speaker 1: depicted on maps. If a map is only only depicts
Speaker 1: two sea monsters, that the chances are pretty good that
Speaker 1: one of them will be a siren. H One of
Speaker 1: my favorites from your book, definitely the scariest looking one
Speaker 1: to me in the whole book, was a humanoid sea
Speaker 1: monster from Urbano, Montese manuscript outlas of that was just
Speaker 1: like the top half of a man, but just depicted
Speaker 1: in a horrifying way, with red eyes, reaching after a
Speaker 1: ship with these claw like hands. Uh. Do you have
Speaker 1: any more knowledge about what's going on there? Uh? I
Speaker 1: wish I could say yes, I have suspicions. Um, so
Speaker 1: the location of that monster on I think they're on
Speaker 1: Urbano Monsters maps. That monster appears twice, and one of
Speaker 1: them is near the southern tip of Africa, if I
Speaker 1: recall correctly. And in the National Epic of Portugal, there's
Speaker 1: uh this this giant who lives near the southern tip
Speaker 1: of Africa, and and sort of his purpose in life
Speaker 1: is to make the passage around the tip of Africa difficult.
Speaker 1: And I have wondered whether there might be some connection
Speaker 1: between this giant figure emerging from the water with these
Speaker 1: huge claws and red eyes might have some connection with
Speaker 1: that myth, but I haven't been able to find any
Speaker 1: evidence to substantiate that. Oh well, that naturally makes me
Speaker 1: wonder about the connection between the origins of sea monster
Speaker 1: myths and uh, just natural phenomena like weather places where
Speaker 1: there's often bad weather for sea voyages or treacherous passages
Speaker 1: because of rocks or whatever else. Yes, uh, and I
Speaker 1: I wish it were there were more evidence connecting those things.
Speaker 1: So I think you're absolutely right to to suspect that
Speaker 1: there is often a connection between a physical danger and
Speaker 1: the presence of monsters U. And one example of that
Speaker 1: is in the Strait of Messina, which was mythologized this
Speaker 1: difficult straight between Sicily and and and mainland Italy, and
Speaker 1: there was it was mythologized as having two monsters there,
Speaker 1: which is a way of representing the danger um In
Speaker 1: other cases, it's one can with good reasons suspect that connection,
Speaker 1: but I think it's more difficult to define someone who
Speaker 1: clearly says that this is why that monster was depicted there. Um.
Speaker 1: But but thinking about the geography of of sea monsters,
Speaker 1: one one area on maps, medieval Renaissance maps that the
Speaker 1: sea monsters are more frequent is certainly the Indian Ocean,
Speaker 1: and I think that has to do with the fact
Speaker 1: that that was the ocean furthest from Europe that had
Speaker 1: an aim, I think we can say, and so there
Speaker 1: was a tendency bec as we were discussing earlier, there's
Speaker 1: a tendency to place things that are strange and monstrous
Speaker 1: or fantastic at the edges of the world. And uh,
Speaker 1: the Indian Ocean was the edge of the world. Uh,
Speaker 1: not not in the sense of falling off the edge,
Speaker 1: but furthest known. I think that's an important distinction to make.
Speaker 1: Um area of the world and thus was often populated
Speaker 1: with sea monsters. Do you get a sense of to
Speaker 1: what degree there was real fear about these monsters, Like
Speaker 1: if you were an ancient or medieval and Renaissance mariner,
Speaker 1: on average, how afraid are you of sea monsters? It's
Speaker 1: a difficult question. There's a there's a wonderful passage from
Speaker 1: a Roman poet, uh, and it it revolves around a
Speaker 1: ship journey out in the Atlantic, and there's a tremendous storm,
Speaker 1: and the mariners are very afraid and they're they're afraid
Speaker 1: of sinking, but then they're also afraid of the monsters.
Speaker 1: Are explicitly afraid of the monsters. In other cases, I
Speaker 1: guess we have to confront the fact that the voices
Speaker 1: of uh, the average sailor from the Middle Ages is
Speaker 1: not typically a voice that has come down to us,
Speaker 1: that's been preserved in a documentary record, So we it's
Speaker 1: it's often not as easy as one might like to
Speaker 1: to to understand their their feelings about sea monsters. Uh. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I was just thinking about the accounts you
Speaker 1: document in your book, where it seems like that there
Speaker 1: may be an evolution over time in um how much
Speaker 1: helplessness was manifested in the depiction of sea monsters or
Speaker 1: writing about them, Like, is it correct that earlier on
Speaker 1: most depictions of sea monsters were more kind of invulnerable,
Speaker 1: you were completely at their mercy, and over time there
Speaker 1: there became more of a representation of ways of fighting back.
Speaker 1: There there certainly is some movement in that direction. And
Speaker 1: there are two wonderful examples of of ways to to
Speaker 1: fight back against sea monsters, and one of them is
Speaker 1: on the Catalan Atlas, often called so called because it's
Speaker 1: in the Catalan language, the language of Catalunia um. And
Speaker 1: in the Indian Ocean, there's a great image of of
Speaker 1: two men who are diving in in underwater and they
Speaker 1: seem to be collecting these multicolored rocks, and on either
Speaker 1: side of them, uh, there is a sea monster that
Speaker 1: seemed to be swimming away, and as a text that
Speaker 1: explains that these are pearl divers, and the pearl divers
Speaker 1: have a magic spell they say before they get in
Speaker 1: the water that scares away the sea monsters uh, and
Speaker 1: that if it were not for this spell, the sea
Speaker 1: monsters would certainly devour them um. And so that's one
Speaker 1: great case where where humans do seem to have some
Speaker 1: defense against sea monsters. And then the other one is
Speaker 1: again returning to Olaus Magnus car a marina of nine,
Speaker 1: there's an image of a ship with a sea monster
Speaker 1: behind it, a huge sea monster, and there's a man
Speaker 1: standing on the back of a ship and at first
Speaker 1: glance it looks like he's he's pointing a gun at
Speaker 1: the sea monster, but um, the shape isn't quite right
Speaker 1: for a gun. And when one reads the text associated
Speaker 1: with the image, it turns out that this is a trumpet,
Speaker 1: and the text explains that when when a ship is
Speaker 1: in danger of being attacked by a sea monster, as
Speaker 1: if one blows trump trumpet and yells and makes a
Speaker 1: lot of noise as possible to scare the sea monster away,
Speaker 1: the same advice they give you for a bear or
Speaker 1: a cougar. Right, you are absolutely right. And one wonders
Speaker 1: about the circumstances under which this was tried. Another one
Speaker 1: that caught my attention in the book were the it
Speaker 1: was the focal or about the nest of the Abyss
Speaker 1: and the entrance to Hell. I think this is related
Speaker 1: to the St. Brendan legend. Yes, this is and Bianco's
Speaker 1: map Amudia fourteen thirty six. Um, yeah, it's that. That's
Speaker 1: another one where it's it's very difficult to to try
Speaker 1: and get at the source of this idea that there's
Speaker 1: um that there's an entrance to the Abyss at the
Speaker 1: south pole, which is what he's basically saying. Um, and
Speaker 1: there was there was a myth that at the North
Speaker 1: Pole there was a great vortex. Well, first of all,
Speaker 1: there was a huge mountain of magnetic stone, which was
Speaker 1: the explanation for why a compass points north. But then
Speaker 1: there was this huge vortex into which the waters of
Speaker 1: the Earth's oceans were continually being sucked. And I wish
Speaker 1: I knew where this idea of the abyss at the
Speaker 1: South Pole came from, whether it had any relation to
Speaker 1: this myth about this vortex at the North Pole. Um.
Speaker 1: I it's it's difficult to be sure, and there's there's
Speaker 1: a lot of difficulty being sure with medieval and Renaissance maps,
Speaker 1: we don't have a journal that the cartographer left explaining
Speaker 1: why he or she put the things on the map
Speaker 1: that he or she did and what the sources were. Um.
Speaker 1: And sometimes it's possible to find the sources, but other
Speaker 1: times it's not. Um. Is it possible, you think to
Speaker 1: talk about the relationship between maps and sea monsters in
Speaker 1: the history of science. Do you see developing scientific ideas
Speaker 1: playing a role or being manifested in the way sea
Speaker 1: monsters show up on maps over time? Yes? Uh, And
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a rich subject. Uh, So, as I
Speaker 1: was saying, on early maps, let's say, before the middle
Speaker 1: of the sixteenth century, I think there often was an
Speaker 1: attempt to convey scientific information with sea monsters, that is,
Speaker 1: to show what was actually in living in the oceans.
Speaker 1: That they'd certainly also had a decorative function, there's no
Speaker 1: denying that. But but because many of the monsters we
Speaker 1: see portrayed come from things like encyclopedias, illustrated encyclopedias. Uh, this,
Speaker 1: this was what people at the time would have regarded
Speaker 1: as scientific information. Around the middle of the sixteenth century,
Speaker 1: one starts to see on maps sea monsters that were
Speaker 1: merely invented by the cartographer. As far as I or
Speaker 1: anyone else has been able to tell, that is, there
Speaker 1: is no earlier work that shows this same creature. And
Speaker 1: it's they seem to be assembled from parts of different creatures.
Speaker 1: You know, it has the head of a bird, and
Speaker 1: the trunk of an elephant, and the tail of a fish,
Speaker 1: things like that. And when that starts to occur, Uh,
Speaker 1: the scientific function of sea monsters, the the information conveying function,
Speaker 1: the natural history information conveying function of sea monsters starts
Speaker 1: to go away, and sea monsters become more purely decorative,
Speaker 1: and that that change, first of all, did not happen
Speaker 1: all at once, and second of all, did not happen
Speaker 1: for all cartographers. Uh. Some continued after the middle of
Speaker 1: the sixteenth century to to show creatures that came from
Speaker 1: what would have been called something like scientific sources at
Speaker 1: the time. But then uh, sea monsters on maps began
Speaker 1: to decline. So they made a transition towards being more
Speaker 1: purely decorative, and then they began to decline as maps
Speaker 1: began to be thought of in a different way. Maps
Speaker 1: began to be thought of as more purely scientific instruments
Speaker 1: in a more modern sense of the word um, that is,
Speaker 1: something more purely utilitarian rather than an artistic creation. And
Speaker 1: so uh yes, in in the course of particularly the
Speaker 1: seventeenth century, UH, sea monsters on maps declined, um, which
Speaker 1: for someone writing a book about sea monsters on maps,
Speaker 1: it is a little bit sad, um, but but it
Speaker 1: is part of the historical process, and it relates exactly
Speaker 1: to to what you're you're talking about, this relation between
Speaker 1: sea monsters and science, that that sea monsters, I mean,
Speaker 1: people began to understand that these fantastical creatures were not real.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I think it wasn't the
Speaker 1: case that the fantastic creatures began to be replaced with
Speaker 1: real fish. Um, that happens a little bit, but not
Speaker 1: as a general pattern. And so somehow maps began to
Speaker 1: be conceived purely as device, as instruments, scientific instruments for
Speaker 1: for helping you get from point A to point B,
Speaker 1: and less as artistic creations. It's it interests me what
Speaker 1: you're saying though about Um there being a sort of
Speaker 1: counterintuitive or inverted process that as scientific knowledge advances and
Speaker 1: we get a clearer picture of what animals are real
Speaker 1: and what animals are not real, there's actually, for a
Speaker 1: short period an increase in the mythologizing, right, So you're
Speaker 1: saying that that's when like these new fanciful creatures are
Speaker 1: are totally conjured up out of nowhere by the map makers. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's interesting. It is interesting. It's a it's a very
Speaker 1: interesting moment in the history of cartography and the history
Speaker 1: of see creatures on maps. It almost reminds me of
Speaker 1: a thing we've talked about on other episodes of the
Speaker 1: show before, about increase in interest in like witchcraft and demonology.
Speaker 1: Actually is sort of going up as uh as the
Speaker 1: Enlightenment was coming around before it before it faded away.
Speaker 1: That's a fascinating analogy. Alright, time for a quick break,
Speaker 1: but we'll be right back with more of the interview.
Speaker 1: Thank and we return well before we before we surrender
Speaker 1: sea monsters to the onslaught of realism, Maybe we could
Speaker 1: go back and talk about a couple more of them. Uh,
Speaker 1: do you do you want to talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about the idea of whales being mistaken for islands. So
Speaker 1: there was a mythical story uh that goes back to
Speaker 1: a work called the Physiologists, um, very early medieval work
Speaker 1: that that contains this story. And the Physiologist is a
Speaker 1: collection of stories about animals and stones and plants, each
Speaker 1: of them I've given a more role uh interpretation. And
Speaker 1: so in the Physiologist there's a story about sailors who
Speaker 1: find what they think is an island, and they land
Speaker 1: on the island and laid a fire on it. But
Speaker 1: it turns out that the island but they thought was
Speaker 1: an island, is actually a whale. Uh. And when the
Speaker 1: whale feels this fire on its back, uh, it plunges
Speaker 1: into the ocean, taking the sailors with it. And the
Speaker 1: moralization is that if one places one's trust in the devil,
Speaker 1: one will be carried to hell, so that in this
Speaker 1: case the whale is associated with the devil, which is
Speaker 1: another type of monstrosity, if you will. So this uh,
Speaker 1: this story had a very long life. It was um
Speaker 1: adapted from the physiologist and incorporated into medieval best areas,
Speaker 1: medieval animal books, and and had a wide, very wide diffusion.
Speaker 1: And this uh, this story is illustrated uh not only
Speaker 1: on best stories and in various other sources, but also
Speaker 1: on maps several times, UH and in different ways. And
Speaker 1: what One of the one particularly appealing illustration of it
Speaker 1: on a map is on a map by pd Dice,
Speaker 1: who was a Turkish admiral, And on his map he
Speaker 1: has a long text in which he says that he
Speaker 1: composed his map based on information from twenty other maps,
Speaker 1: which is one of the few times we get some
Speaker 1: insight into how maps were created in the early sixteenth century,
Speaker 1: and he illustrates this story. So there's a ship with
Speaker 1: a whale and the two sailors on the back of
Speaker 1: the whale who've lit a fire, and the text nearby
Speaker 1: tells this story and he says, if I recall correctly,
Speaker 1: he says, he copied it from a Portuguese map. So this, uh,
Speaker 1: this story is not one we hear every day. It
Speaker 1: sounds familiar when we do hear it, I think, but
Speaker 1: it is something important in looking at images of whales
Speaker 1: on early maps. Uh, speaking of sea monsters so large
Speaker 1: they're mistaken for land masses. Could you also talk a
Speaker 1: bit about the kracking. Yeah, the cracking doesn't figure in
Speaker 1: my book. Uh so it's it's I really confined my
Speaker 1: attention to maps, and as far as I have been
Speaker 1: able to find, there's no early map that depicts the
Speaker 1: cracking as such. Um. Shame, it's a shame. Um. And
Speaker 1: it may be that may be in part because uh,
Speaker 1: we we don't have any uh medieval Scandinavian maps. Well,
Speaker 1: it's not quite true. We don't have we don't have
Speaker 1: any let me put it this, so we don't have
Speaker 1: any um, medieval navigational charts from Scandinavia. And so one
Speaker 1: might be tempted to imagine that the cracking might have
Speaker 1: been depicted on such a chart, but such charts do
Speaker 1: not survive. And now let's see, I do remember it
Speaker 1: coming up somehow in your book. I guess it was
Speaker 1: a reference to the King's Mirror. Was that used as
Speaker 1: a source for some other legend on a Scandinavian map? Yes,
Speaker 1: the cracking does appear in the in the text The
Speaker 1: King's Mirror, and I'm not recalling the details. So I
Speaker 1: I think that the name kraken Um don't appear on
Speaker 1: a map, but it's the creature. The creature depicted is
Speaker 1: not what we think of as the kracking, so it's
Speaker 1: it's not the same when we think about the crack,
Speaker 1: and I think we have a quite specific, terrifying image
Speaker 1: and that's not what's on this map. Well, one last question, Chet,
Speaker 1: if you don't mind, uh, do you want to talk
Speaker 1: any about what you've been working on more recently? I
Speaker 1: know I believe this book we've been talking about was
Speaker 1: from you've recently been working on, uh something about imaging
Speaker 1: for damaged maps. Yes, uh so. I work with a
Speaker 1: group at the University of Rochester and the Rochester Institute
Speaker 1: of Technology called the Lazarus Project and Archive, so two
Speaker 1: different groups, and we use a technology called multi spectral
Speaker 1: imaging to recover information from damaged manuscripts, books and maps,
Speaker 1: and one of our projects was to use this technology
Speaker 1: on a important world map made in about one by
Speaker 1: a German cartographer who was working in Florence named Enricus Martellas.
Speaker 1: And it is a large world map UM at Yale University.
Speaker 1: And it appeared in the late nineteen fifties and was
Speaker 1: sold and then anonymously donated to Yale, and it's important
Speaker 1: was recognized, but at the same time it was sort
Speaker 1: of this great unstudiable object because most of the text
Speaker 1: on it had faded to eligibility UM and so I
Speaker 1: I was interested in studying the map, and UH did
Speaker 1: some research as to what technologies might be able to
Speaker 1: help with that and got in touch with Gregory Hayworth,
Speaker 1: who is now at the University of Rochester and we
Speaker 1: UH we worked together to image this map in two
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen, and we were able to recover a great
Speaker 1: a large proportion, not all, but almost all of the
Speaker 1: text on the map and many of the images as well.
Speaker 1: And thus UH turn what had been this unstudiable object
Speaker 1: into something that's studiable in all its aspects. And late
Speaker 1: last year I published a book based on this research.
Speaker 1: And when we we generated these images of the map,
Speaker 1: UH I came to the map with my questions. But
Speaker 1: one of the exciting things about the project is that
Speaker 1: all the images will be made freely available online, and
Speaker 1: anyone can now approach this map with his or her
Speaker 1: own questions and write his or her own book or
Speaker 1: article about other aspects of the map that I never
Speaker 1: thought about. So with with the right object and in
Speaker 1: this this case, this map was a great candidate for
Speaker 1: multi spectral imaging. It's like magic text suddenly appears where
Speaker 1: it was totally invisible to the naked eye before. Wow.
Speaker 1: I love that. That's uh. I mean, of course, there's
Speaker 1: always the appeal of the idea of a lost document
Speaker 1: even more maddening. I'm sure it's the idea of an
Speaker 1: old document or text that you have but you can't read. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: it was. It was very tantalizing. But at least in
Speaker 1: this case and in in various others. Uh, there's now
Speaker 1: a solution. There's now the possibility to make these documents
Speaker 1: legible and accessible again, which is very exciting. Yeah, that's fantastic.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, I think we have to call it there,
Speaker 1: but Chet, thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 1: It's been great talking to you. Thank you, Joe, I've
Speaker 1: really enjoyed this very much. All Right, that wraps up
Speaker 1: today's episode, but big thanks again to Chet van Deuser
Speaker 1: for joining us, and if you want to see more
Speaker 1: of his talks more of his work, we'll post some
Speaker 1: links on the landing page to this episode. It's Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind dot com uh. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: if you want to get in touch with us, of course,
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com is the mother ship.
Speaker 1: You can check out all of our podcasts. There. Let's
Speaker 1: go see the other episodes from October. We've been talking
Speaker 1: about monsters all month. If you are not subscribed to
Speaker 1: Invention yet, that's our other podcast. It's about guess what inventions,
Speaker 1: but we bring the Stuff to Blow your Mind spin
Speaker 1: to it. We try to explore the things we made
Speaker 1: and how they made up, the influences of inventions on
Speaker 1: human culture and history, and the circumstances that lead to
Speaker 1: UH to inventions such as escaped coffins, escape hatch coffins
Speaker 1: we've been talking about all month, as well as coffins
Speaker 1: to prevent grave robbery and the theft of bodies by
Speaker 1: the resurrection men who worked for the anatomists of the
Speaker 1: seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. That's been a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: So if you haven't checked out Invention yet, now is
Speaker 1: a great time jump over there and see what it's
Speaker 1: all about. Huge thanks, as always to our excellent audio
Speaker 1: producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get
Speaker 1: in touch with us with feedback about this episode or
Speaker 1: any other suggest a topic for the future, just to
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