What lies at the edge of the known world?
Here be (insert your preferred being here). Whether you finished the previous sentence with unicorns, dragons, centaurs, or another mythical or fearsome being, the phrase ‘here be dragons’ has infiltrated history and popular culture.
The popularity of the phrase ‘here be dragons’ in movies, fantasy stories and other fictions isn’t by accident; the phrase plays into our human fascination with what exists in the unknown and the thrilling presence of legendary monsters.
How did medieval mapmakers mark unknown lands on maps?
Starting with Roman times and extending into medieval times, cartographers would often use the inscription HIC SVNT LEONES to mark areas of unexplored territories on maps, the Latin phrase translates to mean “Here are Lions”).
Distant and unexplored lands on the edges of maps were marked by medieval mapmaker with drawings of legendary monsters such as dragons, sea serpents, and other ominous looking fictional animals and ferocious creatures. The addition of dangerous beasts and mythical sea creatures on these maps invoked the harm that sailors feared to encounter when entering previously uncharted and unexplored waters.
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Terra Incognita
The less dramatic notation was the Latin phrase “Terra incognita” or “terra ignota” which stands for land unknown. The first documented use of Terra incognita was in 150 with Ptolemy’s Geographia.
Ptolemy’s atlas warned of (then) mythical and dangerous creatures such as elephants, hippos and cannibals in unknown areas. The phrase died out in the 19th century as global cartography completed its documentation of coastlines and most areas of the continents.
While the phrase about dragons has become a popular way of referring to such maps, no English language maps ever bore that phrase, and only one map has been documented with that phrase in Latin.
The origins of the phrase “Here be dragons” to popularly refer to the unknown edges of map extents is unknown.
The Only Known Maps with “Here Be Dragons”
Although the commonality of the phrase ‘here be dragons’ seems to speak to some frequency of historical use, only two surviving maps of the world include the inscription ‘here be dragons.’
The Hunt-Lenox Globe of circa 1510 bears the phrase “HC SVNT DRACONES” (here are dragons) near the coast of eastern Asia. Now housed in the Rare Book Division of the New York Public Library (NYPL), the Hunt-Lenox Globe is a small globe about 5″ in diameter.
According to the NYPL’s web site, the globe is a copper engraving by an unknown creator and is the earliest such surviving engraving from the period right after the discovery of the New World.
A zoomed in look at that section of Eastern Asia shows the Latin phrase for “Here be dragons”.
The only other known map that depicts the Latin phrase for “here be dragons” is the prototype created for the Hunt-Lenox Globe around 1504.
Made from the halves of the lower portion of two ostrich eggs joined together, the “Ostrich Egg Globe” is the first known globe to show the New World. The conjoined eggs is engraved with Latin text and shows North America as two islands.
Above the coast of Southeast Asia is the inscription, “Hic Sunt Dracones.”
Maps with Dragons on Them
Listed here are some examples of maps that contain dragons, sea creatures, and other mythical creatures. Erin Blake of the MapHist discussion list compiled a list of maps with creatures from a discussion about the origins of “Here be dragons” in 1999.
First Known Depiction of a Dragon on a Map
Discovered in a German convent in Ebstorf, this T-O Mappa Mundi was created by Gervase of Ebstorf around 1232. The map shows dragons in the south-eastern part of Africa.
The Ebstorfer map is the first known depiction of a dragon on a map.
A detailed look at the Africa section of the Ebstorfer map shows dragons, asp, balisks, along with other exotic animals for the remote section of southern Africa
Mapping the unknown
Hic Sunt Dracones, Hic Sunt Leones (here be lions), and terra incognita (land unknown) all denoted areas on the earliest surviving maps of the world that were unknown to the explorers of the time. These blank spaces on the map provoked fascination, fear, and uncertainty in those who were on the front lines of exploration and for those who viewed the maps back at home.
Early sailors were often the first to come across lands and waters unknown, and their travels provided the information that would be used by cartographers to push the boundaries of the known world further and further.
Governments were interested in this data not only because they often paid for these expeditions, but because mapping new territories gave them a perceived claim over those areas and the resources like gold, rare minerals, or spices that they contained.
While some of the stories told by the sailors proved to be true, plenty of other facts and fictions made their way around the world as ships were lost, strange creatures were seen through the fog, and new and (presumably) terrifying things were witnessed by people who relied on superstition to keep them safe thousands of miles away from everything they knew.
Many early maps depicted what was known at the center and the periphery contained uncharted territory. The religious beliefs at the time influenced the direction of the map; for instance, south was at the top of the map in Al-Sharif al-Idrisi’s 1154 depiction of Africa and the Mediterranean region, as south was the direction of Mecca in Muslim mapmakers’ tradition. His maps contained no monsters and were more concerned with representing the world as it was without the influence of politics, religion or mathematics.
Around this same time, Christian maps often put east at the top. This referenced the Christian sites in modern day Israel/Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, and Syria. The Mappa Mundi, created around 1300 by England’s Hereford Cathedral, put Jerusalem at its center, God above and Africa to the right. The unknown places at the edges of the map are filled with monsters, giving us insight into the worldview of the medieval Christians who commissioned and created this map.
The legendary monsters in maps
From the earliest surviving maps written on cave walls and carved into ivory to Google Maps and satellite imagery, maps tell stories that go far beyond simple geography. How a map is drawn, what is depicted on a map, and when the map was created paints a picture of the religion, politics, and worldview of the surrounding culture at the time.
One of the most famous historical maps is Ptolemy’s Geographia, which warned of ‘elephants, hippos, and cannibals’ in the far reaches of the known world. Unlike other maps, these are very real things to be scared of, unless you’re a dedicated anthropologist or a zookeeper.
There are many examples of the use of map monsters in cartography.
Olaus Magnus’ 1539 map of Scandinavia, the Carta Marina, was not only the first highly detailed map of that region but depicted sea monsters and other terrifying beings off the coast of these northern latitudes.
Earliest Map with Detail About Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden
For twelve years, Swedish cartographer Olaus Magnus meticulously worked in his highly detailed map, Carta Marina (full Latin title: Carta marina et descriptio septemtrionalium terrarum ac mirabilium rerum in eis contentarum diligentissime eleborata anno dni 1539 which translates as “A marine map and description of the northern countries and their remarkable features, meticulously made in the year 1539”).
The map, first printed in Venice in 1539, is the earliest map with detailed features and placenames of the northern countries of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, and shows roaming sea creatures.
Dragons, sea creatures, and other mythical beasts were often drawn in and around maps as decoration and as a warning about exploring parts unknown.
The Mappa Mundi by Gervase of Ebsdorf created around 1234-1240 was the oldest surviving map depicting dragons. The T-O map has an east orientation with the head of Jesus Christ at the top of the map, hands point to the north and south, and feet at the bottom of the map.
While the original map was destroyed during World War II, replicas were made based on black and white photos taken in the late 19th century.
A close examination of the Africa area of the Ebstorfer map reveals a fire breathing dragon, asps, basilisks, and other strange animals along with more recognizable animals such as a cheetah.
Jishin-no-ben
The 19th century Japanese map Jishin-no-ben shows a dragon encircling the map as an ouroboros. This map shows the beast not as an indication of unknown lands but as a suggestion for the cause of the earthquakes.
The map was created in 1855 shows areas devastated by two earthquakes and a tidal in 1854 and 1855. The yellow markings denotes the areas damaged by earthquake in Kaei 7 (4 November 1854), the blue shows the coasts inundated by the tidal wave of that year, and red the areas devastated by the earthquake of Ansei 2 (2 October 1855).
These monsters were as much a product of reality as they were the cartographers’ imaginations. What existed beyond the boundaries of human knowledge and understanding could truly be anything, and the stories and tales brought home by travelers from far away lands and waters took on mythical proportions as they were passed from person to person.
The decline of showing monsters in maps
As mapmaking technologies improved over the course of the 18th and 19th centuries, fewer and fewer cartographers took artistic liberties on their maps or in the margins. With the advent of latitude and longitudinal instruments, satellite data, and highly tuned scientific methods, fewer and fewer locations seem to be unknown to humanity.
In the age of Google Maps and satellite imagery, it can be tempting to think that everything has been discovered that can be discovered here on Earth. The edges of the map aren’t as scary, and our grasp on Earth’s geography leaves little to be concerned about. Yet, even with our incredible advances in technology and cartography, maps are still subjective.
Despite many efforts, we have yet to create a map that is 100% accurate in scale and perspective. Even today, our maps may not be as accurate as we assume- even in my small town in Alaska, some of our existing streets don’t exist according to Google.
We can take our methods of analyzing historical maps and use those same skills to consider how technologies like Google Maps speak about how we view the world in 2022. Taken from a bird’s eye view, we have mapped the world in unprecedented detail. Zooming in, however, we start to understand just how much we still don’t know about the world.
The many advances in cartography throughout history haven’t dispelled humanity’s fascination with the unknown. What lies beyond the horizon still takes up space in our imaginations, whether the horizon lies in our backyard or on another planet.
Current uses of “Here be dragons”
The phrase “Here be dragons” is now relegated to fantasy maps popular in role playing games.
The term has also been adopted by programmers to comment on code that is unintelligible but still works. The phrase is intended to serve as a warning for other programmers to not tweak the code in fears of breaking it.
Read next: What is “Horror Vacui” in Cartography?
References
Danforth, Nick. “How the north ended up on top of the map.” Aljazeera America. 16 February, 2014. america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/2/maps-cartographycolonialismnortheurocentricglobe.html
Friedman, Uri. “12 Maps that Changed the World.” The Atlantic. 30 December, 2013. www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/12/12-maps-that-changed-the-world/282666/
Ghosh, Iman. “The Shape of the World, According to Old Maps.” Visual Capitalist. 12 July, 2019. www.visualcapitalist.com/shape-of-the-world-ancient-maps/
“Here Be Dragons.” National Geographic. 28 May, 2020. www.nationalgeographic.org/article/here-be-dragons/
Kim, M. (2013, August 19). Oldest globe to depict the New World may have been discovered. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/oldest-globe-to-depict-the-new-world-may-have-been-discovered/2013/08/19/503b2b4a-06b4-11e3-a07f-49ddc7417125_story.html
Pischke, G. (2014). The Ebstorf Map: tradition and contents of a medieval picture of the world. History of Geo-and Space Sciences, 5(2), 155-161. https://doi.org/10.5194/hgss-5-155-2014
Van Duzer, C. “Bring on the Monsters and Marvels: Non-Ptolemaic Legends on Manuscript Maps of Ptolemy’s Geography.” Viator, 45(2), 303-334. DOI: 10.1484/J.VIATOR.1.103923
This article was originally written on October 12, 2012 and has since been updated.
