Did Medieval Maps Truly Say “Right here Be Dragons”?

Whereas many consider the so-called “Darkish Ages” as a time of profound ignorance and superstition, in actuality, medieval folks knew way more concerning the world than standard historical past sometimes offers them credit score for. However did any medieval map ever have the traditional phrase “Right here be Dragons”? Let’s discover out as we delve into the extraordinary world of medieval cartography.

Regardless of being a well-liked fixture of fantasy video games, books, and different media, the phrase HERE BE DRAGONS – HIC SUNT DRACONES in Latin – solely seems on two precise historic maps. The primary is the Hunt-Lenox Globe, a 5-inch engraved copper sphere of unknown origin courting to round 1510. Bought in Paris in 1855 by American architect Richard Morris Hunt and at present owned by the Uncommon E-book Division of the New York Public Library, the Hunt-Lenox globe is the third oldest terrestrial globe identified to exist, and solely the second to depict the continents of North and South America. In contrast, the oldest identified globe – the Erdapfel or “earth apple” – was accomplished by German printer Georg Glockendon in 1492, earlier than Christopher Columbus returned from his first voyage.

In addition to the Americas, the Hunt-Lenox globe contains a big landmass in the midst of the Pacific Ocean, which has been interpreted as proof that medieval sailors had been conscious of the existence – if not the precise place – of Australia. However maybe the globe’s biggest declare to fame is, as talked about, the phrase HIC SUNT DRACONES, which seems engraved alongside the japanese coast of Asia. The one different look of this phrase is on the 1504 Ostrich Egg Globe, found on the London Map Honest in 2012. Because the title implies, the globe was crafted from the decrease halves of two ostrich eggs joined collectively. It’s additionally noteworthy that the map engraved on the Ostrich Egg Globe is almost equivalent to that on the Hunt-Lenox, with it speculated that it was seemingly the prototype for the later globe.

So what’s up with the dragon phrase?

To start with, some students have argued that the phrase Right here be Dragons would possibly really be a mistranslation. For instance, in 1879, American historian Benjamin Franklin DeCosta wrote an article on the Hunt-Lenox Globe for the Journal of American Historical past, through which he claimed:

“On this area, close to the equatorial line, is seen “Hc Svnt Dracones”, or listed here are the Dagroians, described by Marco Polo as residing within the Kingdom of “Dagroian”. These folks… feasted upon the lifeless and picked their bones.”

Thus, based on DaCosta, the phrase refers to not literal dragons or different animals however moderately to a bunch of individuals in East Asia. Nonetheless, in his annotated reprinting of DeCosta’s article for the Bulletin de la Société Normande de Géographie, French Geographer Gabriel Gravier identified that Marco Polo’s Kingdom of Dagorian was seemingly positioned on the island of Sumatra in what’s now Indonesia – far-off from the place indicated on the globe. So maybe the creator of the Ostrich Egg and Hunt-Lenox maps was referring to dragons in spite of everything.

On that word, whereas the phrase HERE BE DRAGONS seems solely twice traditionally, an identical phrase, HIC SUNT LEONES or “Right here be Lions” was steadily used on Roman and Medieval maps, sometimes alongside the southern fringes of the Roman Empire in sub-saharan Africa. Extra generally, nonetheless, the phrases terra pericolosa – “harmful land” – or terra incognita – “unknown land” – had been used to indicate unexplored areas, the latter originating in Greek polymath Claudius Ptolemy’s 150 C.E. textual content Geographica.

But illustrations of dragons, sea monsters, and different legendary beasts did usually seem in medieval maps, even when they weren’t described in writing. For instance, within the Ebstorf Mappa Mundi, a map of the world created by German cleric Gervase of Ebstorf round 1232, southern Africa is depicted as being populated by dragons and basilisks in addition to actual unique animals like lions and cheetahs. Equally, the 1430 Borgia Map, at present housed within the Vatican Library, depicts dragon-like creatures in Asia with the caption:

“Right here there are even males who’ve massive four-foot horns, and there are even serpents so massive that they might eat an ox entire.”

A 1450 map by Italian cartographer Fra Mauro depicts an imaginary “Island of Dragons” in the midst of the Atlantic Ocean, whereas Swedish cartographer Olaus Magnus’s 1539 Carta Marina reveals terrifying creatures like sea serpents, horned whales, and big lobsters lurking off the coast of Scandinavia. Related creatures, together with the decidedly superior ichthyocentaur – half man, half horse, and half fish – additionally seem in Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, the world’s first Atlas or e book of maps, created by Flemish cartographer Abraham Ortelius in 1570.

However whereas a few of these illustrations had been merely ornamental marginalia – certainly, many surviving maps of this era had been supposed not for navigation however for show within the houses of the rich – others served numerous sensible and symbolic capabilities. In sure circumstances, they really depicted creatures which cartographers believed existed and will doubtlessly be a hazard to wayward explorers. Whereas the exact origins of dragon myths are unknown, one idea posits that they had been impressed – or not less than perpetuated by – the invention of the bones of dinosaurs, whales and different prehistoric creatures. As medieval Christian doctrine held that nature was everlasting and unchanging and residing creatures couldn’t go extinct, it logically adopted that these dragons should nonetheless be alive and properly someplace within the distant, unexplored corners of the globe. Equally, legends of sea serpents had been seemingly impressed by sailors’ sightings of enormous eels and big squids and the like. Moreover, based on an outdated idea courting again to first century Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder, each animal on land was thought to have an equal within the sea – therefore why lots of the creatures depicted on medieval maps resemble maritime variations of canines, lions, pigs and so forth. Certainly, that is the origin of the title sea lions for a household of seals and sea cows for manatees and dugongs – the latter of that are regarded as the inspiration for mermaids.

In different circumstances, dragons and different legendary beasts on maps served a extra symbolic function. For instance, an 1855 Japanese map known as the Jishin-no-ben, which information the injury attributable to two large earthquakes in 1854 and 1855, is surrounded by the determine of a dragon consuming its personal tail, representing the mythological spirit believed to trigger earthquakes. In medieval christian custom, fire-breathing dragons had been usually used to symbolize Devil and the idea of sin. For instance, within the Psalter Mappa Mundi, created round 1250, a pair of dragons on the backside of the map steadiness out the figures of Jesus and the angels on the high. Certainly, medieval maps had been very completely different from what we’re used to at the moment, being much less involved with geographic accuracy than depicting mankind’s religious place within the universe. One of the widespread cartographic types of this era was the “T-O” map, so-named as a result of it was drawn on a circle and divided into the three identified continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa by three intersecting traces representing the Mediterranean Sea, the Nile River, and the Don River. Not like trendy maps, which place north on the high, T-O maps had been oriented with east on the high, with Jerusalem – the holiest metropolis in Christendom – on the centre of the world (and, by extension, the universe).

Whereas unusual to trendy eyes, for a lot of historical past such preparations had been commonplace, with the conference of putting north on the high of a map being a comparatively current growth. For instance, Historical Egyptian maps positioned south on the high in order that Nile River flowed downward, whereas medieval Islamic cartographers adopted the identical conference in an effort to place Mecca – the holiest metropolis in Islam – on the high of the map. It was not till the 14th and fifteenth centuries that northern-oriented maps began turning into customary – the product of European sailors utilizing the north star Polaris for navigation mixed with the introduction of the magnetic compass.

And as explorers started venturing ever additional into the unknown and world trans-oceanic commerce expanded, maps developed from whimsical decorations and depictions of a divinely-ordered universe into extra correct, sensible instruments fitted to long-range navigation. Among the many first such sensible maps had been the so-called Portolan maps, developed in Spain and Italy within the early 14th century. Whereas not at all times oriented with north on the high, these maps did embody a outstanding compass rose for orientation, in addition to traces of latitude and longitude, wind traces, and different data helpful to maritime navigators. And whereas illustrations of dragons and sea monsters grew to become rarer as time went on, for a time these figures had been used to point areas with wealthy fishing or whaling grounds. They had been additionally typically used as political symbols. For instance, German Cartographer Martin Waldseemüller’s 1516 Carta Marina options the determine of King Manuel of Portugal driving a sea monster off the southern tip of Africa, symbolizing Portugal’s dominance over oceanic commerce routes.

However whereas the explanations for medieval cartographers together with legendary beasts of their work usually are not at all times clear, one factor is definite: they did not consider the earth was flat. Opposite to standard perception, medieval folks had been properly conscious that the earth was a globe, this truth having been widespread data since antiquity. Certainly, round 240 B.C.E., the Greek polymath Eratosthenes succeeded in measuring the circumference of the earth with an astonishing diploma of accuracy. Eratosthenes’s methodology was primarily based on the commentary that yearly on the summer time solstice at midday, the solar may very well be seen mirrored on the backside of a water properly in Syene – modern-day Aswan in Egypt. Assuming that the rays of sunshine from the solar had been parallel, this meant that the solar was immediately above the properly, permitting a line to be drawn from the solar to the centre of the earth. Subsequent, Eratosthenes planted a stick within the floor in Alexandria, and at midday on the summer time solstice measured the shadow it forged, giving him the angle between Alexandria and Syene – round 7 levels or 1/fiftieth of a circle. He then merely multiplied the gap between Alexandria and Syene – measured as 5,000 stadia or round 785 kilometres – by 50 to yield a circumference of 250,000 stadia or 39,250 kilometres – solely 2% off from the fashionable determine. Nonetheless, over the centuries the work of Eratosthenes and others was consistently reinterpreted, such that by the fifteenth century the generally accepted circumference of the earth was 25% smaller than its precise worth. It was this error – and never the supposedly heretical perception that the earth was spherical – that led Christopher Columbus to launch his 1492 expedition and by chance uncover the New World.

And whereas the fanciful beasts have lengthy since disappeared from all however essentially the most ornamental maps, the phrase HERE BE DRAGONS lives on within the discipline of pc programming, the place it’s used to point sections of code that work for unknown causes and are finest left undisturbed.

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