Tag Archives: vikings

Blog

Z Marks the Spot: A List Of Lost Cities

1 Comment

Ever since Plato first wrote about it, people have been searching for proof of the lost city of Atlantis. The tale has survived centuries and become a staple of Western fiction and popculture. But the spectacular city sunk beneath the waves in a single day and night is far from the only lost city of old.

In 2016, The Lost City of Z debuted in theaters, chronicling Col. Percy Harrison Fawcett’s search for a lost city he believed existed in the jungles of Brazil. Percy had come up with the idea of such a lost city based on his many travels in the region—he believed there had to be ruins of a lost civilization somewhere in the jungle. Like Atlantis, Z remained lost after Percy’s death, although some believe other sites, embellished by native tales, may have been what the British explorer was really after.

Somewhere between Atlantis and Z, between lost and found, there have been many other “lost cities” on our Earth:

El Dorado, the City of Gold

A mythical city that enticed European explorers for two centuries, El Dorado’s origins are more murky than its location. A gleaming city of gold, the fabled location has been suggested by some to be a fabricated tale used as a diversion to send treasure hunters on fruitless quests while the real riches of the Central American region were hidden away.

Madoc’s Settlement

During the Elizabethan era, a tale of a Welsh prince setting forth in the 11th Century on a fantastic sea voyage reached the zenith of its popularity. In the legend, Madoc sails for the New World, not once, but twice, taking settlers with him to the New Wolrd long before Columbus. While many have scoffed at this idea, it was eventually discovered that the Mandan Indians of North America shared many words with that of the Welsh language. Further, ruins were found near Louisville, KY of what might have been an ancient Welsh settlement, long abandoned and forgotten.

North American Vikings

Long before Christopher Columbus stumbled across the Caribbean islands searching for a new trade route to India, Vikings settled in North America, leaving behind settlements in Greenland and Nova Scotia that outlived them and were lost to time. In the 1960s, remains of such settlements were discovered in Newfoundland by the husband and wife team of Helge Ingstad and Anne Stine Ingstad. Since their initial discoveries, a number of sites have been found, establishing that the Norsemen did indeed at least attempt to settle in the New World.

The Bimini Road

Large, submerged stone blocks set in the sea bed not far from Florida were discovered in 1968 by off the coast of North Bimini island. Many theories have been proposed to account for the megalithic structure, including one theory that the structure was actually an ancient Phoenecian port. Archaeologist William Donato and his team put this forth in May 2005, after cataloging and photographing more than a thousand additional stones beyond those previously appearing on shows such as “In Search of…” and “Unsolved Mysteries”

Pompeii

Buried by volcanic ash from Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D., the Roman town of Pompeii was lost to history for centuries, its location and even existence forgotten. Digging in the area in 1592 and again in 1738 eventually led to the city’s re-discovery and this snapshot of what life, and death is still studied today, Pompeii and its inhabitants preserved in grisly effigy due to the heat of a pyroclastic cloud from the volcano’s eruption.

Sodom and Gomorrah

Believed by many to be a fictional tale of God’s wrath in the Bible, the towns of Sodom and Gomorrah were confirmed in 2015 when Sodom’s ruins were discovered in modern-day Jordan.

Teotihuacan

Some lost cities aren’t lost at all, but their origins are. Located twenty-five miles northeast of Mexico City, the sprawling complex of Teotihuacan was discovered by the Nahua people as they emigrated south, in the early twelfth century. Estimated to have been in ruins for more than a thousand years, the repopulated site became one of the first three cities to ally and form the Aztec Empire. But Teotihuacan’s origins, despite being only 25 miles from what today is Mexico City, still remain uncertain.

Troy

Once believed to be a fictional city from early Greek literature, the ancient lost city of Troy was discovered in modern day Turkey in the 1860s. Excavations that continued into the 21st Century eventually revealed that Troy had been destroyed and rebuilt many times, each new version built atop the ruins of the last.

Ubar

A fabled trading outpost in the middle of the Arabian desert, Ubar was believed by many to be a work of fiction until NASA discovered it with satellite scans of the region. Thriving hub of trade in the region, the city was apparently abandoned at some point and buried by the sands, earning it the name “The Atlantis of the Sands”.

Yonaguni

Located off the shores of the Japanese island of Yonaguni lie immense structures submerged below the surface of the sea. While many claim these are nothing more than naturally-occurring geologic formations, there are many who believe the sites to be remnants of a long-lost civilization that existed at a time when the world’s ocean levels were much lower. Backing up this claim that the ruins are indeed manmade are what appear to be carved features, including a dolphin and a human face.

Blog

U Is For Unicorn: Origins Of A Mythical Creature

Despite saving the human race, Noah often gets a bad rap when it comes to the Unicorn–people blame their absence in the world on him not bringing any aboard the ark. I think this is typically done in jest, particularly by folks that don’t believe in the account of the biblical Flood, or in unicorns. Rest assured, though, the Unicorn did survive the Flood and is even mentioned in later books of the Old Testament:

God brought them [Jews] out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn.

Numbers 23:22

His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth: and they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh. 

Deuteronomy 33:17

Save me from the lion’s mouth: for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.

Psalms 22:21

It should be noted that these verses are from the King James Version of the Bible–most other translations use “Wild ox”, rather than “Unicorn”. This is even more interesting—why exactly do unicorns appear in the King James Bible?

King James’ bible translation began in 1604 and was completed by 1611. But by the time of the translations commissioning, Unicorns were well-known in Europe, appearing on heraldry, while the mythical creatures’ horns (alicorns) were sold and traded, used in scepters, thrones, and ground up for medicinal purposes. Unicorns predate the King James bible by centuries–but just how far? 

Pliny, the Greek philosopher, wrote about the Unicorn: “The unicorn is the fiercest animal, and it is said that it is impossible to capture one alive. It has the body of a horse, the head of a stag, the feet of an elephant, the tail of a boar, and a single black horn three feet long in the middle of its forehead. Its cry is a deep bellow.”

In the 7th Century, the scholar Isidore of Seville described the unicorn as “very strong and pierces anything it attacks. It fights with elephants and kills them by wounding them in the belly.” He further went on to add that “The unicorn is too strong to be caught by hunters, except by a trick: If a virgin girl is placed in front of a unicorn and she bares her breast to it, all of its fierceness will cease and it will lay its head on her bosom, and thus quieted is easily caught.”

Pierces an elephant in the belly… feet like an elephant. Wait a minute…

Pop culture is not alone in its depiction of the unicorn as a sleek equine. But what if there is a more grounded reality for the creature? What if Unicorns were not only real, but considerably different than the artistic expressions usually made by people who had never seen one? What if… the unicorn is a rhinoceros?

The Indian rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis) is a mono-horned version of the animal so often found in zoos today. It sports a single, white horn on its nose, rather than its forehead. And around the time Pliny described the “unicorn” in his writings, the Greeks were venturing into the Indian Rhino’s native lands…

At this point, you might be thinking “wasn’t the unicorn seen around the world—not just in India?” Well, yes and no. One-horned creatures have been described around the world, not just by the Greeks and Europeans. But that doesn’t mean they were the horny equines so often described. Other creatures can have single horns.

In 2008,  a one year old deer was discovered near Florence, Italy with only one horn—believed to be a genetic defect, as it’s twin had two horns. Could historical unicorns be mutants?

What about the fossil record? Were there ever any unicorns? As it turns out, there was once something more rhino-like, but with a more traditional mono unicorn horn in what is today Siberia: the Elasmotherium sibiricu.  Co-existing with the mammoth, it’s entirely possible carcasses of these creatures were once found and described–or maybe they survived into the modern era, as some claim the Mammoth has? 

And what about those unicorn horns? Where did they come from? They came from Vikings, who were accomplished sailors who often journeyed into the seas of the Narwhal, another one-horned creature that remained generally unknown until the 16th Century, allowing the trade in faux alicorns to spread far and wide, with specimens even presented to Popes and some horns remaining on display in museums into the modern era.

Whether they were mutants, monsters or just misunderstood, one thing is certain, the folklore of the unicorns will probably outlive the endangered Rhinoceros it was most likely inspired by.