Category: Other Page 141 of 177

Historians have conjectured the “Devils” of Satanazes might be a reference to the Skraelings (indigenous peoples of Greenland and Vinland) reported in the Norse sagas, notably the Grœnlendinga saga and the saga of Erik the Red, which began to filter south around this time. Pizzigano may have constructed Satanazes island to capture their rough geographic location.[6]

The possible connection between the Satanazes and the Skraelings was first proposed by Nordenskiöld (1889), his attention drawn by an inscription on some islands between Newfoundland and Greenland in the 1508 map of Johannes Ruysch, which notes how ‘devils’ located there attacked sailors (See Isle of Demons).[7] The connection need not require direct knowledge of the Norse sagas themselves, e.g. Fridtjof Nansen has drawn attention to how Norse encounters with North American ‘demons’ were adopted in Irish immrama,.[8] Given the tendency of the legends of Atlantic seafarers – Norse, Irish, Arab and Iberian – to move quickly and cross-fertilize each other,[9] the news of an Isle of Devils out in the North Atlantic may have arrived to Italian cartographers via several channels.

Source: Satanazes – Wikipedia

The island gained wide media and public attention in November 2012 when the R/V Southern Surveyor, an Australian research ship,[2] passed through the area and “undiscovered” it. […]

During the voyage, they noticed a discrepancy between different maps and decided to sail to the supposed location to investigate. The crew found no island and recorded depths never less than 1,300 metres (4,300 feet) […]

However, it became apparent that a land mask was applied to these data sets during pre-processing to differentiate between land and water. Since the World Vector Shoreline Database (WVS) has become the standard global coastline data set used by the scientific community, errors that existed in WVS propagated into data sets that use a land mask. Therefore, rather than providing independent evidence for the existence of an island, the appearance of Sandy Island in bathymetry and satellite imagery data sets originated from spurious digitized geometries derived from the WVS database.[10]

Source: Sandy Island, New Caledonia – Wikipedia

Phantom settlements, or paper towns, are settlements that appear on maps but do not actually exist. They are either accidents or copyright traps. […]

Agloe, New York, was invented on a 1930s map as a copyright trap. In 1950, a general store was built there and named Agloe General Store, as that was the name seen on the map. Thus the phantom settlement became a real one.[2]

Source: Phantom settlement – Wikipedia

When it last rose above sea level after erupting in 1831, a four-way dispute over its sovereignty began, which was still unresolved when it disappeared beneath the waves again in early 1832. During its brief life, French geologist Constant Prévost was on hand, accompanied by an artist, to witness it in July 1831; he named it Île Julia, for its July appearance, and reported in the Bulletin de la Société Géologique de France.[5][6] Some observers at the time wondered if a chain of mountains would spring up, linking Sicily to Tunisia and thus upsetting the geopolitics of the region.[3]

Source: Graham Island (Mediterranean Sea) – Wikipedia

The Kingdom of Opona is a mythical kingdom in Russian folklore, envisioned by Russian peasants as lying at the edge of the flat earth. Here, it was believed, the peasants lived happy lives undisturbed by the state or the gentry,[1] under a ‘White Tsar’ who ruled ‘truly and justly’.[2] It was also known under the names of the Golden Land, Land of Chud, and Belovodye.[2] […]

Groups of peasants were even known to have gone on expeditions in the far north of Russia to find the mythical utopia.[1] Dubbed ‘Wanderers’, they spent their lives trying to discover the hidden paradise, which it was said could be reached by those who searched ‘diligently enough’.[2]

Source: Kingdom of Opona – Wikipedia

In the Dove Book and other medieval Russian books, Buyan (Russian: Буя́н, sometimes transliterated as Bujan[1]) is described as a mysterious island in the ocean with the ability to appear and disappear using tides. Three brothers—Northern, Western, and Eastern Winds—live there, and also the Zoryas, solar goddesses who are servants or daughters of the solar god Dazhbog.[2]

It figures prominently in many famous myths; Koschei the Deathless keeps his soul or immortality hidden there, secreted inside a needle placed inside an egg in the mystical oak-tree; other legends call the island the source of all weather, created there and sent forth into the world by the god Perun.

Source: Buyan – Wikipedia

Carcosa is a fictional city in Ambrose Bierce’s short story “An Inhabitant of Carcosa” (1886). The ancient and mysterious city is barely described and is viewed only in hindsight (after its destruction) by a character who once lived there. Its name may be derived from the medieval city of Carcassonne in southern France, whose Latin name was “Carcaso.”

American writer Robert W. Chambers borrowed the name “Carcosa” for his stories, inspiring generations of authors to similarly use Carcosa in their own works.

Source: Carcosa – Wikipedia

The Nameless City of the story’s title is an ancient ruin located somewhere in the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula, and is older than any human civilization. In ancient times, the Nameless City was built and inhabited by an unnamed race of reptiles with a body shaped like a cross between a crocodile and a seal with a strange head common to neither, involving a protruding forehead, horns, lack of a nose, and an alligator-like jaw. These beings moved by crawling; thus, the architecture of the city has very low ceilings and some places are too low for a human being to stand upright. Their city was originally coastal, but, when the seas receded, it was left in the depths of a desert. This resulted in the decline and eventual ruin of the city.[…]

Another identified source is the 9th Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, whose description of “Irem, the City of Pillars” he copied into his commonplace book: “which yet, after the annihilation of its tenants, remains entire, so Arabs say, invisible to ordinary eyes, but occasionally, and at rare intervals, revealed to some heaven-favoured traveller.”[3]

Source: The Nameless City – Wikipedia

There are several explanations for the reference to “Iram – who had lofty pillars”. Some see this as a geographic location, either a city or an area, others as the name of a tribe. Those identifying it as a city have made various suggestions as to where or what city it was, ranging from Alexandria or Damascus to a city which actually moved or a city called Ubar.[4] As an area it has been identified with the biblical Aram, son of Shem and the biblical region known as Aram.[5] It has also been identified as a tribe, possibly the tribe of ʿĀd, with the pillars referring to tent pillars.[1]

Source: Iram of the Pillars – Wikipedia

To the surprise of the Mongols, the town had no fortifications whatsoever. Its citizens didn’t even intend to defend themselves and were engaged in fervent praying, asking God for their salvation. On seeing this, the Mongols rushed to the attack, but then stopped. Suddenly, they saw countless fountains of water bursting from under the ground all around them. The attackers fell back and watched the town submerge into the lake. The last thing they saw was a glaring dome of a cathedral with a cross on top of it. Soon only waves remained.

Source: Kitezh – Wikipedia