Chet van Duzer on Sea Monsters

Sea Monsters seemed appropriate for this time of year. Uh. This expert is named Chet van Douser, and I think you're really going to enjoy this interview, so to introduce him here, Chet band User is a researcher in residence at the John Carter Brown Library and a board member of the Lazarus Project of the University of Rochester, which brings multi spectral imaging to cultural institutions around the world.

He's published extensively on medieval and Renaissance maps. In addition to his book Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renais Son's Maps, which was published by British Library, and his book The World for a King. Pierre de Scalier's Map of fifteen fifty was published in by the British Library and in sen Brill published a book he co authored with Ilia Dines, Apocalyptic Cartography Thematic Maps in the End of the World

in a fifteenth century manuscript. In Springer published his book Henricus Martelis's World Map at Yale Multi Spectral Imaging Sources and influence. His current project is a book about cartographic cartouches. And without any further Ado, let's get right into the interview about sea monsters. Chad van Duser, Welcome to the show. It's a pleasure to have you here to talk about sea monsters and maps of the Medieval and Renaissance period.

Would you start just by introducing yourself, maybe talk a little bit about your background and what got you interested in maps. Yes, well, Joe first, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Um. And as as far as my background with maps, I had studied mathematics and English literature and Ancient Greek and Latin at Berkeley, and it took me a while to find maps as it were, uh, and it was at a very specific moment.

I was at the Vatican Museums just as a tourist, and they had a manuscript of Ptolemy's geography on display and The manuscript was from the middle of the fifteenth century, but it had had a map added to it, another map painted on blank pages in about fifteen thirty. And that map had a very very interesting, totally hypothetical southern continent and which, even though it was labeled Terra and Cognita, was full of place names, and it also had a

very unusual shape. And so I wanted to learn more about that, where this strange shape might have come from, where all these place names might have come from. And so that was when I got interested in maps. And uh, it was in another institution in Europe where I got interested in sea monsters. And in fact it was another manuscript of Potlemy's geography. Um. I was at the National Library of Spain, and uh they have I knew they had a manuscript of Plemy's geography, and I wanted to

see it. And when I opened the manuscript, I saw that all of the maps had sea monsters on them, lots and lots of sea monsters, in fact, more than

any other manuscript I've since encountered. And I thought, and these these monsters were not mentioned in the literature about this manuscript, So I thought I should write an article about the monsters in this manuscript, and the article kept growing and growing, growing, and then finally a colleague, Katharine Delano Smith, pointed out that it would make more sense as a book, and she was absolutely right. Well, I just wanted to say, I've really loved this book. Uh,

it's full of fascinating stuff. Before we get directly into the sea monsters, I wondered if you might want to talk a little bit more generally about historical cartography. Um, what is it that you can learn about a group of people from the past, from another time in place by looking at the maps they made, that you might

not learn by looking at other things. Yes? Well, all too often historical maps are just used as illustrations for books, for historical books, for example, but others as well, whereas in fact um maps. Historical maps often contain historical evidence uh that is not preserved in other sources, and and

be for any number of reasons. But just to mention one example, the earliest surviving European illustration of an apossum occurs on Martin Valtim Miller's cart Marina of fifteen sixteen, and there certainly were no doubt earlier European depictions of the Apossum, which was regarded as a marvel because it

was the first marsupial that Europeans had encountered. There certainly were earlier depictions, but as it happened, they don't survive, and thus, as it happens, the earliest surviving depiction is on a map, and this happens much more frequently than one might suspect. And uh, a large and detailed map can have a little bit of an encyclopedia encyclopedic character to it and thus preserves information of both both textual

and graphical from various sources. And and sometimes considering the historical evidence offered by maps is is really essential in constructing a history oracle argument? Does looking at ancient maps also give you a better idea of the kind of the texture of the worldview of ancient people, like what they felt about the broader world, especially places far away

from them. It does. Um. It can be difficult to try to go from a map to what the cartographer was thinking, but in some cases making that that trans that that jump is possible. Um And in fact, monsters play into precisely that aspect of maps, in the sense that it was generally thought that the most distant parts of the world were the parts filled with monsters, and and the fact that that's often the case on maps is very clear graphic evidence of that that thought about

the sort of structure of the world. I think maybe we should get into our discussion of sea monsters just by having you describe a couple of your favorite examples. So when you think about your favorite medieval or Renaissance maps with sea monsters on them, what do they show and what do we know about the circumstances under which

these maps were made? Yes, well, one of them, one of my favorite maps are in this case an atlas involving sea monsters is precisely that manuscript of Ptolemy's geography in the National Library of Spain. And as is often the case, we we know we we don't have textual evidence about the creation of that manuscript. We don't have a document that that goes through what the person who

commissioned the manuscript wanted from it um. But if one looks a variety of manuscripts of told muse geography, and one can do the same thing with nautical charts, one begins to get the impression that in commissioning the creation of a work like this, that a wealthy person had many different options, and many of those options related to

the decoration of the maps. And we do have one contract for the creation of medieval maps, and it does talk specifically about the decoration and even the exact number of trees that were to be painted on the map. And I think we have to imagine something similar happening

with sea monsters, that this was an optional decorative element. UH. One could have a very plain manuscript of Ptolemy's geography or nautical chart, or one could have a more elaborately decorated one, and the sea monsters were one of those optional elements. So when we see sea monsters on anautical chart or a manuscript of Ptlemy's geography, we know that the person commissioning MAPUH was someone who wanted more. They wanted more, more of the options available, more decoration, and

more elaborate manuscript. So that's certainly part of what's happening with that specific manuscript of Ptolemy's geography. But I have the feeling that there's more UH, And again we don't have textual evidence to support this, so this is a speculation, but it seems that whoever whoever was painting the sea monsters in the seas of that manuscript took a particularly strong interest in the subject because the variety is just so remarkable. Um, there's not just sirens, there's multiple different

types of sirens. There are sirens with one tale, sirens with two tales, and sirens wearing European clothing. So it really feels like in this case it was a specialist, uh in sea monsters, not just a specialist and painting, but someone who had a very strong interest in the subject. So what do you think creates a passion for sea monsters in in that kind of period. Uh, it's a wonderful question. I mean, is it the same thing that makes somebody interested in horror movies today or would it

be a different kind of interest? Um? I think I think it was a different interest. So one of the uh, one of the things that came out in my research for this book was so looking at the sea monsters on medieval and Renaissance maps. They often look fantastical, They often look like one things. Surely the cartographer just invented this on the spot, But in fact I was able to find the sources for a number of the sea monsters on medieval and rest once maps, which is to

say the cartographers were not simply inventing them on the spot. Uh, they were copied from sources that the cartographer would have had reason to trust, like an illustrated encyclopedia. Um. So, I think sea monsters on maps serve multiple functions, and one of them is definitely decoration. But also there was

a desire to convey information. And I know that can sound a little ridiculous when when we look at some of these monsters and they do seem utterly fantastical, But some of the ones that seem the most fantastic were in fact copied from sources that the cartographer would have thought reliable. So, yes, there's a decorative element, but at the same time, there's a uh desire to convey information

about what is in the sea. Yeah, there are a number of examples I was looking at in your book where it really does seem like that it's a specific practical warning. One that comes to mind is I believe you have an example of a thirteen sixty seven nautical chart by the brothers Pizza Gani that shows two ships in the North Atlantic near the supposed mythical isle of Brazil, I think, and they're being attacked by a dragon and

a giant octopus. And so you could look at that and say, well, that just looks like maybe they were trying to liven up some blank space on the map. But it comes with a warning. It says, uh, you know, while these ships are going to port, dragons and octopuses carry all of the crew members off and and leave the ships empty, and seems to be warning people who are approaching the sport, though I think the port is

entirely mythical. Is that correct? Yes? Uh, that is in fact a great example, and it's it's worth emphasizing, uh that that image of the flying dragon and the giant octopus attacking the ships is right near, uh, the the edge of the map. It's out in the Atlantic, right near the as far out in the Atlantic as the cart bographer's depiction goes. And I think that's an important element here that again, the the area where there's a limit of knowledge is where monsters tend to be located.

So on that same map, uh, the cartographer does show ships navigating evidently safely in the Atlantic, but closer to the European mainland. There there's three ships that come out of the Strait of Gibraltar and are heading north close to the coasts of Spain and France, but then further out in the Atlantic, again near the limit of the cartographer's knowledge. We have this, as you say, warning about

monsters attacking ships. Is it also an important distinction that this is on a nautical chart as opposed to just a decorative map. Um, that's a good question. So very unsurprising thing about nautical charts is that the makers we're really serving two very different audiences. The cartographer could make an undecorated nautical chart without the the sea monsters, the images of cities, the images of sovereigns, the animals, the mountain ranges. And it was that type of undecorated chart

that would be actually used in navigation. So if if a chart was decorated with all these images, it would be very expensive. They might have used expensive pigments. That type of chart would never have been taken to see and for one thing, that the ship ship captain couldn't have afforded it. UH. And then even if he could, you wouldn't want to subject such a valuable map to UH. The salt air. Of course, if you're taking a chart

to you probably want to use it to indicate your course. Um. So the same misers of nautical charts were on the one hand serving a practical market, that is, a people who actually used the charts to navigate, and those would have been the undecora rated charts. And at the same time they were serving this market of nobles, rich nobles who who wanted the very elaborately decorated charts for collection and display as as symbols of their worldly knowledge and power.

So maybe we should talk about the definition of what what makes a sea monster? Um? You know what, we know that there are many natural life forms, such as whales, that have commonly been interpreted as sea monsters throughout history. In fact, one of my favorite parts of your book was you just got a spread over a couple of pages that's illustrations of walruses as sea monsters. Uh. They're

just they look amazing. Um. So how does that sort of that natural life form category blur with mythological terrors like you know, like the kraken or Leviathan or the sirens. Yes, Um, well, defining defining the word monster is very problematic. Um. And me evil and Renaissance authors who tried to define the

word disagreed. Um. So some held that a monster was something against nature in some way, whereas others held that that a monster was as fearsome as it was, was nonetheless of a part of God's plan for the world, an integral part of God's plan for the world is as strange as it seems. So people who tried to define monsters differed in very fundamental ways, and it remains a word that's difficult to define today, I think. And then also there's the fact that as you as you

were hinting at that, the definition of monster changes over time. So, as you said, Wales were throughout the Middle Ages and and much of the Renaissance regarded as monsters, and in in that that spread the two pages you mentioned, Uh, with the walrus is um, there's a map from I believe it's that explicitly identifies the walrus as a monster. And yet today, uh, you know, for us, a whale is the furthest thing from a monster. It's a noble,

intelligent creature that's to be preserved. And I also think that we would we would not characterize a walrus as a monster either, um. And it's interesting to think about ways that that definition will continue to evolve, how things today we think of as monstrous in the future, ideas

may may continue to change about those things. Well. One thing that was funny to me about the the idea of walrus as a monster is that it is a natural life form that has many of the morphological characteristics that are often attributed falsely to monsters, Like it has the tusks, it has the briskly facial hair you know that we see on I think there are a bunch of whales depicted in your book, um that have facial

hair of some kind, like a mustache. Um. So anyway, I thought that was a funny point in comparison, So you've talked about the idea that that sometimes monsters on maps could be used as a literal warning, like information given to sailors. You know, you might not want to travel here because there's a map. They could more often probably, or maybe you can say whether it be more often

or not. They would just be decorations that would be commissioned by somebody who was looking for a spicier map, maybe something that has more character to it and shows more worldly knowledge. About what lives there. But what might be other economic demands for for sea monsters on maps if any? Yes, Well, as I was saying earlier, it's because sea monsters serve often serve more than one function on maps that can be both decoration UH and an

attempt to indicate what's actually living in the ocean. It can be difficult to divine what the cartographers UH wishes were or aims were in placing sea monsters on maps, how much it might have been motivated, for example, by the the commissioning the maps wish to have a very heavily decorated map, and how much it was motivated by a wish to to to convey information about what's in

the oceans. But there's one map in particular, and it's uh one of the most spectacular and interesting UH maps for a collection of of images of sea monsters, which is allows Magnus is Carton Marina of nine, which is really just spectacular in terms of sea monsters, and so was my favorite, by the way, Yeah, well with good reason.

So that the map shows Scandinavia, and then the water is off Scandinavia and the waters are full of sea monsters, and a colleague of mine has suggested that there was an additional function, intended function of the sea monsters on this map, and that was to scare away fisherman from other nations, leaving the abundant catch from the northern waters to the fishermen of Scandinavia. And I think that's really uh wonderful suggestion about a possible function of sea monsters. Well,

one possibility that occurred to me. I mean, I was wondering if you ever came across something like this. This might touch on an episode you cover in the book about the flying turtle, but I was thinking about the concept in cartography of a trap street, like the idea of a a fake feature added to a map to sort of enforce copyright. I wonder if a sea monster has ever been used for this purpose, not to my knowledge.

And perhaps part of that would be that in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the ideas about what one was permitted to copy. Uh, we're very different, right, Uh, So there was this great freedom and there there was no no blame associated with copying. Uh many different elements of of maps and literary works and other things. So um, because of that, it's it's difficult for me to imagine sea monster being used that way at least, yeah, at

least in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. I guess the timeline in lineups, but they go back to the example of the walrus. I mean, it's very interesting to watch basically the evolution of the image of the walrus uh from the early sixteenth century to to the end of that century. So Martin Vauti Miller on his Carter Marina, different map with the same name, depicted the walrus much

like an elephant, which seems very surprising. It's a preacher that looks like an elephant, but it's very clearly labeled walrus. And what must have happened is that someone said, well, the walrus has tusks like an elephant, and the artist, not knowing what better to do, depicted the creature like an elephant. And this error had remarkable life through maps. It was copied again and again, and over time the image gradually became um somewhat more lifelike, but it was

a slow process. All right, we're going to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with more of the interview. And we're back. Maybe we should talk about a few individual features that. Uh, that that I enjoyed from your book, that popped up on several maps. Uh. So one is the idea of sirens. Could you speak at link a little bit about sirens, what they represent

and and why they show up on so many maps. Yes. Well, Uh, the myth of the siren goes back to Homer's Honyessey and he talks about these female creatures that live on an island and they sing as sailors passed by and their ships, and the their song is so powerful that it attracts the sailors to the island and then they die there. Um. And over time the image of sirens evolved,

as often happens with mythical creatures. And there's a important world map from about fourteen sixty that shows three different kinds of sirens in the Indian Ocean, and it shows them graphically, and then there's a descriptive text that talks about these three different kinds. And one is half woman bird, which is I think the most common way sirens are depicted. Another is half woman half fish, and then another is

half woman half horse, which is very unusual. And that that that one does not appear on many other maps. But it's a horse with two legs, isn't it? That never is a horse with two lights made a less sense to me than your standard center. That's right, But yeah, the the siren had a very long life on maps and is certainly one of the most common sea monsters depicted on maps. If a map is only only depicts two sea monsters, that the chances are pretty good that

one of them will be a siren. H One of my favorites from your book, definitely the scariest looking one to me in the whole book, was a humanoid sea monster from Urbano, Montese manuscript outlas of that was just like the top half of a man, but just depicted in a horrifying way, with red eyes, reaching after a ship with these claw like hands. Uh. Do you have any more knowledge about what's going on there? Uh? I

wish I could say yes, I have suspicions. Um, so the location of that monster on I think they're on Urbano Monsters maps. That monster appears twice, and one of them is near the southern tip of Africa, if I recall correctly. And in the National Epic of Portugal, there's uh this this giant who lives near the southern tip of Africa, and and sort of his purpose in life is to make the passage around the tip of Africa difficult.

And I have wondered whether there might be some connection between this giant figure emerging from the water with these huge claws and red eyes might have some connection with that myth, but I haven't been able to find any evidence to substantiate that. Oh well, that naturally makes me wonder about the connection between the origins of sea monster myths and uh, just natural phenomena like weather places where there's often bad weather for sea voyages or treacherous passages

because of rocks or whatever else. Yes, uh, and I I wish it were there were more evidence connecting those things.

So I think you're absolutely right to to suspect that there is often a connection between a physical danger and the presence of monsters U. And one example of that is in the Strait of Messina, which was mythologized this difficult straight between Sicily and and and mainland Italy, and there was it was mythologized as having two monsters there, which is a way of representing the danger um In other cases, it's one can with good reasons suspect that connection,

but I think it's more difficult to define someone who

clearly says that this is why that monster was depicted there. Um. But but thinking about the geography of of sea monsters, one one area on maps, medieval Renaissance maps that the sea monsters are more frequent is certainly the Indian Ocean, and I think that has to do with the fact that that was the ocean furthest from Europe that had an aim, I think we can say, and so there was a tendency bec as we were discussing earlier, there's a tendency to place things that are strange and monstrous

or fantastic at the edges of the world. And uh, the Indian Ocean was the edge of the world. Uh, not not in the sense of falling off the edge, but furthest known. I think that's an important distinction to make. Um area of the world and thus was often populated with sea monsters. Do you get a sense of to what degree there was real fear about these monsters, Like if you were an ancient or medieval and Renaissance mariner, on average, how afraid are you of sea monsters? It's

a difficult question. There's a there's a wonderful passage from a Roman poet, uh, and it it revolves around a ship journey out in the Atlantic, and there's a tremendous storm, and the mariners are very afraid and they're they're afraid of sinking, but then they're also afraid of the monsters.

Are explicitly afraid of the monsters. In other cases, I guess we have to confront the fact that the voices of uh, the average sailor from the Middle Ages is not typically a voice that has come down to us, that's been preserved in a documentary record, So we it's it's often not as easy as one might like to

to to understand their their feelings about sea monsters. Uh. Well, I mean, I was just thinking about the accounts you document in your book, where it seems like that there may be an evolution over time in um how much helplessness was manifested in the depiction of sea monsters or writing about them, Like, is it correct that earlier on most depictions of sea monsters were more kind of invulnerable, you were completely at their mercy, and over time there

there became more of a representation of ways of fighting back. There there certainly is some movement in that direction. And there are two wonderful examples of of ways to to fight back against sea monsters, and one of them is on the Catalan Atlas, often called so called because it's

in the Catalan language, the language of Catalunia um. And in the Indian Ocean, there's a great image of of two men who are diving in in underwater and they seem to be collecting these multicolored rocks, and on either side of them, uh, there is a sea monster that seemed to be swimming away, and as a text that explains that these are pearl divers, and the pearl divers have a magic spell they say before they get in the water that scares away the sea monsters uh, and

that if it were not for this spell, the sea monsters would certainly devour them um. And so that's one great case where where humans do seem to have some

defense against sea monsters. And then the other one is again returning to Olaus Magnus car a marina of nine, there's an image of a ship with a sea monster behind it, a huge sea monster, and there's a man standing on the back of a ship and at first glance it looks like he's he's pointing a gun at the sea monster, but um, the shape isn't quite right

for a gun. And when one reads the text associated with the image, it turns out that this is a trumpet, and the text explains that when when a ship is in danger of being attacked by a sea monster, as if one blows trump trumpet and yells and makes a lot of noise as possible to scare the sea monster away, the same advice they give you for a bear or a cougar. Right, you are absolutely right. And one wonders

about the circumstances under which this was tried. Another one that caught my attention in the book were the it was the focal or about the nest of the Abyss and the entrance to Hell. I think this is related to the St. Brendan legend. Yes, this is and Bianco's map Amudia fourteen thirty six. Um, yeah, it's that. That's another one where it's it's very difficult to to try and get at the source of this idea that there's um that there's an entrance to the Abyss at the

south pole, which is what he's basically saying. Um, and there was there was a myth that at the North Pole there was a great vortex. Well, first of all, there was a huge mountain of magnetic stone, which was the explanation for why a compass points north. But then there was this huge vortex into which the waters of the Earth's oceans were continually being sucked. And I wish I knew where this idea of the abyss at the South Pole came from, whether it had any relation to

this myth about this vortex at the North Pole. Um. I it's it's difficult to be sure, and there's there's a lot of difficulty being sure with medieval and Renaissance maps, we don't have a journal that the cartographer left explaining why he or she put the things on the map that he or she did and what the sources were. Um. And sometimes it's possible to find the sources, but other times it's not. Um. Is it possible, you think to talk about the relationship between maps and sea monsters in

the history of science. Do you see developing scientific ideas playing a role or being manifested in the way sea monsters show up on maps over time? Yes? Uh, And it's it's it's a rich subject. Uh, So, as I was saying, on early maps, let's say, before the middle of the sixteenth century, I think there often was an attempt to convey scientific information with sea monsters, that is, to show what was actually in living in the oceans. That they'd certainly also had a decorative function, there's no

denying that. But but because many of the monsters we see portrayed come from things like encyclopedias, illustrated encyclopedias. Uh, this, this was what people at the time would have regarded as scientific information. Around the middle of the sixteenth century, one starts to see on maps sea monsters that were merely invented by the cartographer. As far as I or anyone else has been able to tell, that is, there

is no earlier work that shows this same creature. And it's they seem to be assembled from parts of different creatures. You know, it has the head of a bird, and the trunk of an elephant, and the tail of a fish,

things like that. And when that starts to occur, Uh, the scientific function of sea monsters, the the information conveying function, the natural history information conveying function of sea monsters starts to go away, and sea monsters become more purely decorative, and that that change, first of all, did not happen all at once, and second of all, did not happen

for all cartographers. Uh. Some continued after the middle of the sixteenth century to to show creatures that came from what would have been called something like scientific sources at the time. But then uh, sea monsters on maps began to decline. So they made a transition towards being more purely decorative, and then they began to decline as maps

began to be thought of in a different way. Maps began to be thought of as more purely scientific instruments in a more modern sense of the word um, that is,

something more purely utilitarian rather than an artistic creation. And so uh yes, in in the course of particularly the seventeenth century, UH, sea monsters on maps declined, um, which for someone writing a book about sea monsters on maps, it is a little bit sad, um, but but it is part of the historical process, and it relates exactly to to what you're you're talking about, this relation between sea monsters and science, that that sea monsters, I mean,

people began to understand that these fantastical creatures were not real. But at the same time, I think it wasn't the case that the fantastic creatures began to be replaced with real fish. Um, that happens a little bit, but not as a general pattern. And so somehow maps began to be conceived purely as device, as instruments, scientific instruments for for helping you get from point A to point B,

and less as artistic creations. It's it interests me what you're saying though about Um there being a sort of counterintuitive or inverted process that as scientific knowledge advances and we get a clearer picture of what animals are real and what animals are not real, there's actually, for a short period an increase in the mythologizing, right, So you're saying that that's when like these new fanciful creatures are are totally conjured up out of nowhere by the map makers. Yes, yeah,

that's interesting. It is interesting. It's a it's a very interesting moment in the history of cartography and the history of see creatures on maps. It almost reminds me of a thing we've talked about on other episodes of the show before, about increase in interest in like witchcraft and demonology. Actually is sort of going up as uh as the Enlightenment was coming around before it before it faded away.

That's a fascinating analogy. Alright, time for a quick break, but we'll be right back with more of the interview. Thank and we return well before we before we surrender sea monsters to the onslaught of realism, Maybe we could go back and talk about a couple more of them. Uh, do you do you want to talk a little bit about the idea of whales being mistaken for islands. So there was a mythical story uh that goes back to a work called the Physiologists, um, very early medieval work

that that contains this story. And the Physiologist is a collection of stories about animals and stones and plants, each of them I've given a more role uh interpretation. And so in the Physiologist there's a story about sailors who find what they think is an island, and they land on the island and laid a fire on it. But it turns out that the island but they thought was an island, is actually a whale. Uh. And when the whale feels this fire on its back, uh, it plunges

into the ocean, taking the sailors with it. And the moralization is that if one places one's trust in the devil, one will be carried to hell, so that in this case the whale is associated with the devil, which is another type of monstrosity, if you will. So this uh, this story had a very long life. It was um adapted from the physiologist and incorporated into medieval best areas, medieval animal books, and and had a wide, very wide diffusion.

And this uh, this story is illustrated uh not only on best stories and in various other sources, but also

on maps several times, UH and in different ways. And what One of the one particularly appealing illustration of it on a map is on a map by pd Dice, who was a Turkish admiral, And on his map he has a long text in which he says that he composed his map based on information from twenty other maps, which is one of the few times we get some insight into how maps were created in the early sixteenth century,

and he illustrates this story. So there's a ship with a whale and the two sailors on the back of the whale who've lit a fire, and the text nearby tells this story and he says, if I recall correctly, he says, he copied it from a Portuguese map. So this, uh, this story is not one we hear every day. It sounds familiar when we do hear it, I think, but it is something important in looking at images of whales on early maps. Uh, speaking of sea monsters so large

they're mistaken for land masses. Could you also talk a bit about the kracking. Yeah, the cracking doesn't figure in my book. Uh so it's it's I really confined my attention to maps, and as far as I have been able to find, there's no early map that depicts the cracking as such. Um. Shame, it's a shame. Um. And it may be that may be in part because uh, we we don't have any uh medieval Scandinavian maps. Well, it's not quite true. We don't have we don't have any let me put it this, so we don't have

any um, medieval navigational charts from Scandinavia. And so one might be tempted to imagine that the cracking might have been depicted on such a chart, but such charts do not survive. And now let's see, I do remember it coming up somehow in your book. I guess it was a reference to the King's Mirror. Was that used as a source for some other legend on a Scandinavian map? Yes, the cracking does appear in the in the text The

King's Mirror, and I'm not recalling the details. So I I think that the name kraken Um don't appear on a map, but it's the creature. The creature depicted is not what we think of as the kracking, so it's it's not the same when we think about the crack, and I think we have a quite specific, terrifying image and that's not what's on this map. Well, one last question, Chet, if you don't mind, uh, do you want to talk

any about what you've been working on more recently? I know I believe this book we've been talking about was from you've recently been working on, uh something about imaging

for damaged maps. Yes, uh so. I work with a group at the University of Rochester and the Rochester Institute of Technology called the Lazarus Project and Archive, so two different groups, and we use a technology called multi spectral imaging to recover information from damaged manuscripts, books and maps, and one of our projects was to use this technology on a important world map made in about one by a German cartographer who was working in Florence named Enricus Martellas.

And it is a large world map UM at Yale University.

And it appeared in the late nineteen fifties and was sold and then anonymously donated to Yale, and it's important was recognized, but at the same time it was sort of this great unstudiable object because most of the text on it had faded to eligibility UM and so I I was interested in studying the map, and UH did some research as to what technologies might be able to help with that and got in touch with Gregory Hayworth, who is now at the University of Rochester and we

UH we worked together to image this map in two thousand fifteen, and we were able to recover a great a large proportion, not all, but almost all of the text on the map and many of the images as well. And thus UH turn what had been this unstudiable object into something that's studiable in all its aspects. And late last year I published a book based on this research. And when we we generated these images of the map,

UH I came to the map with my questions. But one of the exciting things about the project is that all the images will be made freely available online, and anyone can now approach this map with his or her own questions and write his or her own book or article about other aspects of the map that I never thought about. So with with the right object and in this this case, this map was a great candidate for multi spectral imaging. It's like magic text suddenly appears where

it was totally invisible to the naked eye before. Wow. I love that. That's uh. I mean, of course, there's always the appeal of the idea of a lost document even more maddening. I'm sure it's the idea of an old document or text that you have but you can't read. Yes, yes, it was. It was very tantalizing. But at least in this case and in in various others. Uh, there's now a solution. There's now the possibility to make these documents

legible and accessible again, which is very exciting. Yeah, that's fantastic. All right, Well, I think we have to call it there, but Chet, thank you so much for joining us today. It's been great talking to you. Thank you, Joe, I've really enjoyed this very much. All Right, that wraps up today's episode, but big thanks again to Chet van Deuser for joining us, and if you want to see more of his talks more of his work, we'll post some links on the landing page to this episode. It's Stuff

to Blow your Mind dot com uh. In the meantime, if you want to get in touch with us, of course, Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com is the mother ship. You can check out all of our podcasts. There. Let's go see the other episodes from October. We've been talking about monsters all month. If you are not subscribed to Invention yet, that's our other podcast. It's about guess what inventions, but we bring the Stuff to Blow your Mind spin

to it. We try to explore the things we made and how they made up, the influences of inventions on human culture and history, and the circumstances that lead to UH to inventions such as escaped coffins, escape hatch coffins we've been talking about all month, as well as coffins to prevent grave robbery and the theft of bodies by the resurrection men who worked for the anatomists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. That's been a lot of fun.

So if you haven't checked out Invention yet, now is a great time jump over there and see what it's all about. Huge thanks, as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback about this episode or any other suggest a topic for the future, just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeart Radios. How stuff Works.

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