The biggest mistakes in mapmaking history - Kayla Wolf

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  • Опубліковано 9 тра 2022
  • Travel through the history of mapmaking and discover what big mistakes cartographers made about the world’s geography.
    --
    For thousands of years, people made both functional maps and what are known as cosmographies, illustrating the earth and its position in the cosmos, often including constellations, gods, and mythic locations. These maps were meant to depict the world's geography, but weren't necessarily useful for navigation and contained some glaring mistakes. Kayla Wolf shares mapmaking’s biggest blunders.
    Lesson by Kayla Wolf, directed by Serin İnan, Kozmonot Animation Studio.
    Tabula Rogeriana image from Konrad Miller: bit.ly/KonradMiller
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КОМЕНТАРІ • 593

  • @janmelantu7490
    @janmelantu7490 2 роки тому +2665

    Honestly, a giant magnetic rock at the North Pole isn’t the worst explanation for magnetic compasses. It’s certainly more understandable than the electromagneto-thermo-hydrodynamics of a molten iron core to the earth

    • @markmuller7962
      @markmuller7962 2 роки тому +33

      But it's wrong

    • @earthling_parth
      @earthling_parth 2 роки тому +222

      Reminds me of the quote "Reality is stranger than fiction" 😁

    • @enacrt
      @enacrt 2 роки тому +111

      "He's a little confused but he got the spirit."

    • @janmelantu7490
      @janmelantu7490 2 роки тому

      @@markmuller7962 Wrong, yes, but entirely rational. Say you lived in the Middle Ages. You know that compasses point north, unless there’s a magnet nearby. In that case, a compass points toward the magnet. You’re no dummy, you know the earth is round, and so it has a North Pole. Maybe there’s a giant lodestone there? Remember, you don’t have seismometers to tell you that the earth’s core is liquid metal. If neither you nor anyone you know or have even heard of has been to the North Pole, there’s no evidence this polar lodestone doesn’t exist.
      It’s like thinking the earth is the center of the solar system. If you don’t have telescopes, you can’t see the phases of Venus and you can’t measure stellar parallax. Your observations seem to indicate the earth is in the center of the universe. It’s not hard to construct a working mathematical model of a geocentric solar system. In fact, our planetarium projection equipment still runs on epicyclic gear systems

    • @KoiYakultGreenTea
      @KoiYakultGreenTea 2 роки тому +38

      They must’ve figured out there’s a strong magnetic force but not sure what it was 🧐

  • @alphabulblax1649
    @alphabulblax1649 2 роки тому +1208

    4:09 Now I'm just imagining someone hearing about that and traveling to Australia hoping to find a paradise, only to find a nightmare desert filled with the most dangerous animals on Earth.

    • @syabilaazri7834
      @syabilaazri7834 2 роки тому +56

      Maybe that how dragon is made. With how Kangaroo look like and with how many dangerous animals on Australia, that might explain the dragon

    • @anushk7157
      @anushk7157 2 роки тому +19

      Most of their original inhabitants died because of these travellers.

    • @GThe-su9kl
      @GThe-su9kl 2 роки тому +8

      There's a book exploring this very concept, but for South America. If I remember well, it's premise is roughly that the paradise is very close to the hellish.

    • @plantbro1239
      @plantbro1239 2 роки тому +3

      THERE be dragons.

    • @JP-br4mx
      @JP-br4mx 2 роки тому +4

      I mean that's still Australia, so they were not totally wrong

  • @l.n.3372
    @l.n.3372 2 роки тому +1282

    Mapmakers have always fascinated me. To tour the world by oceans and seas and land and also somehow map out everything they encounter into fairly accurate maps before things like GPS was invented. It's so difficult to fathom as we live in this modern century, as we benefit from the maps that exist already.

    • @l.n.3372
      @l.n.3372 2 роки тому +15

      @@josephmagliocca3628
      I agree for sure. It's very cool and impressive.

    • @romanski5811
      @romanski5811 2 роки тому +5

      I hate that it's tainted by all the genocide and violence against native people.

    • @sineadcarty7256
      @sineadcarty7256 Рік тому +1

      You'd love the book "the phantom atlas"

  • @DB-me7ol
    @DB-me7ol 2 роки тому +541

    There is something extraordinarily flattering about the mapmakers believing our ancestors coexisted with dragons and beasts.

    • @l.n.3372
      @l.n.3372 2 роки тому +14

      Either they assume our ancestors tamed the dragons and the mythical creatures. Or the dragons tamed the humans into thinking they were the top dogs xD

    • @DB-me7ol
      @DB-me7ol 2 роки тому +22

      How to train your local human 💀

    • @l.n.3372
      @l.n.3372 2 роки тому +24

      @@DB-me7ol
      "Remember that there are different types of humans. The flogpuff is very gentle and likes to play with animals. But beware the snovbo, because they think they're better than us dragons."

    • @jimmytimmy3680
      @jimmytimmy3680 2 роки тому +14

      People still believe in imaginary deities today. Think about what future humans will think of today's humans.

    • @l.n.3372
      @l.n.3372 2 роки тому +4

      @@jimmytimmy3680
      Well there's stuff like the tooth fairy, etc.

  • @andrewhengy7631
    @andrewhengy7631 2 роки тому +375

    "Here be dragons": the greatest "fill in the homework while the teacher isn't looking" excuse in history.

    • @roguishpaladin
      @roguishpaladin 2 роки тому +2

      Y'know, I've been musing about it and...what if it wasn't? What if someone miscommunicated the concept of, say, dragon boats to Middle Eastern and European mapmakers? I know the assumption is that the mapmakers were just superstitious idiots, but perhaps there's a seedling of truth from which their depiction arose?

    • @tpilot_error404
      @tpilot_error404 2 роки тому +2

      I believe they found remains of dinosaurs. Footprints , weird creatures .Some today Crocs are still impressive.

    • @komiks42
      @komiks42 23 дні тому

      I always understood it as "we have no fucing clue whats there" but it looked better for the mapmaker to put SOMETHING there.

  • @kaydubsthekoifish
    @kaydubsthekoifish 2 роки тому +452

    This also raises an interesting question.
    What maps did said cultures have, and how did they look?
    Cause I doubt the Native Americans, Australians and other cultures didn't use some form of mapmaking themselves, just in a different format than the Europeans did.

  • @vido7027
    @vido7027 2 роки тому +162

    "There weren't really dragons anywhere on Earth."
    Komodo dragons: Am I a joke to you?

    • @mikelor84
      @mikelor84 2 роки тому +3

      LOL

    • @robertfaler1947
      @robertfaler1947 2 роки тому +4

      I think that they are a joke. It's funny to see a komodo dragon vomit, poop, and then run away when they sense danger.

    • @whyiseverysinglehandletaken2
      @whyiseverysinglehandletaken2 2 роки тому +1

      @@robertfaler1947 wtf aren't they like the apex of the island why would they just run away

    • @robertfaler1947
      @robertfaler1947 2 роки тому +1

      @@whyiseverysinglehandletaken2 They are apex predators but they are scared of humans, according to a National Geographic article I read years ago.

    • @jakepullman4914
      @jakepullman4914 2 роки тому +4

      @@robertfaler1947 Clever girls. Even if you're the most badass thing around, it's wise to be wary of something you've never seen before.

  • @damedesuka77
    @damedesuka77 2 роки тому +163

    I'm curious about how people of the past created these maps. How can they predict/guess the shape of a continent? They only had ships and could only see limited length of an island's coastline from it. No photography, no air balloon, so how did they do it?

    • @antonioscendrategattico2302
      @antonioscendrategattico2302 2 роки тому +89

      Maths, mostly. Using accounts of sailors and explorers and computing travel times, positions of stars in the sky, notable landmarks and even direct observation they could approximate the shape and position of lands.
      Needless to say, they often got things wrong, but that's just how it is.

    • @Cin9999
      @Cin9999 2 роки тому +38

      Well this video answered your question lol: They could not. All the maps back then were really really bad.
      Very educated ppl could do approximations based on math and overlay of different maps of different perspectives (i.e. maps made by ppl from different countries) but even that was terribly inaccurate.

    • @enacrt
      @enacrt 2 роки тому +21

      If you take maps of this period (1400-1700), you'll see that the Mediterranean is quite accurate, being traveled and chartes over and again since the Phoenicians, and that it gets progressively weirder and wonkier from there: the British Isles are deformed, Scandinavia is often shown as an island, and much of Africa south of the Sahara is just plain wrong (some maps show the Niger flowing into the Nile through Lake Chad!)

    • @maxithalo7796
      @maxithalo7796 2 роки тому +5

      I know theres a LOT of math involved, but I'm not nearly smart enough to know how lol

    • @gantoniopatriarca9520
      @gantoniopatriarca9520 2 роки тому +1

      The first iteration of maps were just drawn as they look from the ground, if the lake looks round, draw it round. The second iteration we learned how to use sextants and the sun and stars to accurately measure latitude. These maps were accurate north and south, but east and west were a hot mess. The third iteration did not come until timekeeping had been invented. Finally east and west were accurate. Today we have refined the process, and we now have an airplane/satellite top down view to go off of.

  • @adriank8676
    @adriank8676 2 роки тому +221

    Went from calm map analyzing to “oh yeah there was genocide” so frickin fast.

    • @Mystixor
      @Mystixor 2 роки тому +8

      Yeah right?

    • @blossomentrails3398
      @blossomentrails3398 2 роки тому +12

      I know right? Shocking. Imagine how the people experiencing it must have felt.

    • @uanime1
      @uanime1 2 роки тому +15

      Got to shove the woke ideology somewhere. Though I can think of somewhere else they can shove it.

    • @adriank8676
      @adriank8676 2 роки тому +52

      @@blossomentrails3398 yeah but sometimes I just want to learn about maps. Everyone knows what happened but it loses its value the more you bring it up.

    • @JP-br4mx
      @JP-br4mx 2 роки тому

      just like those colonisers. from wanting spice to commit mass genocide

  • @alperkures5268
    @alperkures5268 2 роки тому +40

    I think the video should have included Ottoman admiral, navigator, geographer and cartographer Piri Reis. His maps were inspiring for history of cartography.

  • @angrygoose23
    @angrygoose23 2 роки тому +205

    Imagine a medieval mapmaker talking to someone from today:
    “How do you guys deal with the dragons in Asia?
    “Uh… there are no dragons.”
    “Wha- seriously? What about the sea serpents in the Pacific Ocean?”
    “No sea serpents either.”
    “What about sirens? There’s gotta be sirens!”
    “Nope, never heard of them.”
    *”my whole life is a lie…”*

  • @jessical4866
    @jessical4866 2 роки тому +40

    This makes me excited to think about how people hundreds of years from now look back on OUR maps. What have they discovered since then? How has the format changed? Who will they remember from our time?

    • @Username-le4eq
      @Username-le4eq 2 роки тому +11

      Prob not much about the earth, but probably about the universe.

    • @jessical4866
      @jessical4866 2 роки тому +13

      @@Username-le4eq I was actually thinking about the ocean! There’s still a lot of unexplored seafloor, so it’s not like we can’t improve our maps of Earth.

    • @setcheck67
      @setcheck67 2 роки тому +3

      @@Username-le4eq You'd be surprised considering how current maps still get the scale wrong in terms of actual land area. Many places are misrepresented to be larger than they should be(like the British Isles, which get beaten by Florida+Georgia alone).

    • @kobewankenobi8926
      @kobewankenobi8926 2 роки тому +5

      @@setcheck67 that’s not a problem that can be improved on… 500 years from now maps will have the same problem as no flat map can accurately display areas.

    • @monicabrandhuber1228
      @monicabrandhuber1228 2 роки тому +3

      One of the most interesting map mistakes recently noticed: After the launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1957, people realized that the supposed positions of certain islands were off by a few miles/kilometers. This was discovered because scientists had calculated when Sputnik was supposed to fly over different places on earth (so people could go out and see it). However, the timings of the sightings over these islands were off. Since the timings were correct in other places, clearly the math around the speed/trajectory/etc. of Sputnik was correct, and so therefore the recorded geographic positions of the islands were wrong.
      With the ubiquity of photographic satellites in the modern day, it's safe to say we have a pretty good idea of what the terrestrial landscape looks like, although any map (not globe) is always going to be distorted because it's simply impossible to accurately project a 3D surface on a 2D object.

  • @DoomFinger511
    @DoomFinger511 2 роки тому +15

    The reason the myth of the Dragon is so prevalent in Asia is because of the high concentration of dinosaur bones there. When they found partial dinosaur skeletons or skulls they used their imagination to fill in the rest and thus created the legendary dragons.

    • @MysteryMonarch
      @MysteryMonarch 2 роки тому +2

      This is wrong. Maybe just maybe the so-called science of carbon dating is highly flawed. The reason dragon tales exist in every culture worldwide is that simply humans lived with them. Dragons demanded sacrificial animals and humans or they would torch your village or spew water on it. Knights were known to slay dragons as well, they didn't just find bones and make this up. Dinosaur is just a modern renaming of the very real dragon.

    • @DoomFinger511
      @DoomFinger511 2 роки тому +2

      @@MysteryMonarch I appreciate your dedication to that troll reply.

    • @MysteryMonarch
      @MysteryMonarch 2 роки тому +2

      Every culture on Earth from europe to the Mayans represent dragons. Many had no contact with each other. You believe that they all found bones and made them a huge part of their religions , art, and culture uniformly. Read the story of the Wawel dragon in Poland. They were real and even intelligent.

  • @aarspar
    @aarspar 2 роки тому +42

    Southeast Asian here. Want to know why Southeast Asia isn't really well-known in the world stage today? The answer is in the first part of the video, here be dragons, and we're doing our best to keep them a secret. Those early Europeans knew too much.

    • @angrygoose23
      @angrygoose23 2 роки тому +5

      *is that where the plague came from?*

    • @nunyabiznes33
      @nunyabiznes33 2 роки тому

      We keep our's locked inside mountains to keep them away from the prying eyes of the foreigners.

    • @taosamundo
      @taosamundo Рік тому +2

      Shh! Make sure to just pretend this is a joke

    • @mewmew8932
      @mewmew8932 Рік тому +1

      Let it be known that we've shrunken down the dragons to make them seem less deadly

  • @stuartsaint4581
    @stuartsaint4581 2 роки тому +41

    Probably most accurate to describe most of these as "history's best possible maps given current context and knowledge."

  • @jimmymarrs1556
    @jimmymarrs1556 2 роки тому +81

    I don’t think it’s fair to criticize these mapmakers for not being 100% accurate all the time. They did the best they could with what they had and probably did a better job than any of us could do with their limited information.

    • @averageday
      @averageday 2 роки тому +8

      She sounds so condescending too

    • @gfhit7520
      @gfhit7520 2 роки тому +3

      @@averageday very

    • @jens-kristiantofthansen9376
      @jens-kristiantofthansen9376 2 роки тому +2

      Yes, I found her tone frankly grating. The dismissiveness of the German mapmaper who marked the Americas as a thin sliver of land where the east coast would be. He was entirely right to do so - he mapped according to what was understood at the time and as such took a fairly scientific approach to that; We know it's there, but not how much of it there is.
      It's one of the poorer videos of this type, sadly, as it mostly displayed that whoever is behind it may know maps but has what appears to be a very thin sliver of understanding of historical context.

  • @MegaDurvin
    @MegaDurvin 2 роки тому +7

    My favorite one is “a Mapp of Virginia Discouered To Ye Hills”, a detailed 1651 map of the Chesapeake Bay area depicting the Pacific as being right on the other side of the Appalachians

  • @adorablegodzilla5628
    @adorablegodzilla5628 2 роки тому +11

    That blob isn't a correctly shaped Sub-Sahara Africa. I assume the makers of this video believe dangling bit next to it is also a super accurate version of India too.

  • @DqwertyC
    @DqwertyC 2 роки тому +19

    Regarding California, I once saw a map in a museum with a note next to the "Iland of California" that stated: "This California was in times past thought to beene a part of the Continent and so made in all maps, buy by further discoveries was found to be an Iland long i700 legues".

  • @youtubehistorywonjae
    @youtubehistorywonjae 2 роки тому +38

    I am Korean translator of this video, and I had some very meaningful time with learning about what was strength and weaknesses of mapmaking progresses. Thanks to TED-Ed team for giving me an opportunaties to translate this awesome video!

  • @Twas-RightHere
    @Twas-RightHere 2 роки тому +5

    2:10 The original Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

  • @agamer5953
    @agamer5953 2 роки тому +6

    Ah yes utopia, filled with creature that want to drop the beat of your heart to zero

  • @l.o.b.2433
    @l.o.b.2433 2 роки тому +21

    "There weren't really dragons anywhere on earth"
    You really gotta do us like this, huh? This is the saddest thing someone ever told me without realising the tragedy.

  • @martijn3151
    @martijn3151 2 роки тому +3

    Just imagine making a world map without being able to make use of satellites or even airplanes. Even with all the mistakes they made, it was an extraordinary feat.

  • @syneffo9942
    @syneffo9942 2 роки тому +86

    This is eye-opening, I'm surprised on how far cartography has gone and how maps became more accurate as time passed, if only this video existed when I was doing a project about it ;-;

  • @micahbush5397
    @micahbush5397 2 роки тому +8

    2:35 Judging by the scale, the Chinese apparently thought Japan was much larger than Africa.

    • @DogseatDogs
      @DogseatDogs 2 роки тому +4

      And no one mentioned that as a mistake. While European maps were seemingly depicted as the most primitive of the bunch.

    • @russiasgreatestspinmachine4096
      @russiasgreatestspinmachine4096 2 роки тому +1

      "It replicates the curvature of the Earth by compression of areas farthest away from China (most obviously the extreme horizontal squeeze of Europe), their reduced size making both a geographical and a political statement." The scaling was intentional dude, the focus is on East Asia, so they inflate it on purpose.

    • @micahbush5397
      @micahbush5397 2 роки тому

      @@russiasgreatestspinmachine4096 If that's the case, then why is Japan (or is it supposed to be Korea?) so massively inflated relative to China? If the point is to centralize China, then one would expect it to be smaller or equal to its actual size, not exaggerated.

    • @russiasgreatestspinmachine4096
      @russiasgreatestspinmachine4096 2 роки тому

      @@micahbush5397 "by compression of areas farthest away from China " it is also based on distance. Since Korea and Japan are closer they are obviously bigger. Perhaps it is to help detail those two places, as the bigger a map is, the more accurate a point on that map would be. The sizing wouldn't matter as we have established that it was intentional.

  • @noix666dezephir
    @noix666dezephir 2 роки тому +3

    Those violins in the background make this wonderful video feel both epic and nostalgic

  • @alexginger1948
    @alexginger1948 2 роки тому +83

    “We are the middle children of history. Born too late to explore earth, born too early to explore space.” -Anonymous

    • @runswithraptors
      @runswithraptors 2 роки тому +5

      Spoiler: ain't nobody exploring space besides our probes

    • @phuonganh149
      @phuonganh149 2 роки тому +7

      Internet be like, "and where did you discover that quote, biatch?"

    • @DiMadHatter
      @DiMadHatter 2 роки тому +4

      Born just in time to explore tge internet

    • @sakshamsrivastava2178
      @sakshamsrivastava2178 2 роки тому +1

      Omg!! This literally blew my mind!!!!

    • @iphoneUser564
      @iphoneUser564 2 роки тому +7

      We can explore the ocean

  • @xmichael8238
    @xmichael8238 2 роки тому +27

    A rock sorrounded by a whirlpool...
    That sounds a like Antartica...
    A continent surrounded by the raging vortex that is the antarctic circumpolar current

    • @frostincubus4045
      @frostincubus4045 2 роки тому +5

      They just depict the wrong pole😂

    • @darksecret965
      @darksecret965 2 роки тому

      @@frostincubus4045 and a wrong hole

    • @poggers213
      @poggers213 Рік тому

      @@darksecret965 Thats what she said

  • @renafielding945
    @renafielding945 2 роки тому

    I have always been fascinated by maps and mapping my environment. Translating the tactile world onto paper.

  • @nenenindonu
    @nenenindonu 2 роки тому +40

    Turkish admiral Piri Reis, according to historians, was the first cartographer to give an accurate description of America along with a deep insight on circumnavigation of Africa as he presented his work to the Ottoman Sultan Selim I.

    • @alexginger1948
      @alexginger1948 2 роки тому +9

      Not Turkish rather Ottoman. No Turkish nationality existed at this point and his ethnic background is not necessarily turkic

    • @nenenindonu
      @nenenindonu 2 роки тому +7

      @@alexginger1948 Nonsense the concept of Turkish and Turkey existed since the middle ages whereas Ottoman is the dynastic name...
      Turkish power had become a reality , to the extent that a chronicler of the Third Crusade already gave the name " Turchia ' to Seljuk Asia Minor .
      The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Middle Ages Volume 2. 950-1250 pp.465

    • @papazataklaattiranimam
      @papazataklaattiranimam 2 роки тому +6

      @@alexginger1948 his nationality was Ottoman and ethnicity was Turkic

    • @alexginger1948
      @alexginger1948 2 роки тому +3

      @@nenenindonu The name of the realm is the Ottoman empire both by governments and commoners , one chronicle isn’t enough to change historical facts and his ethnicity is not even known.
      You are just assuming he is turkic based on wrong ideas or maybe wishful thinking

    • @nenenindonu
      @nenenindonu 2 роки тому +4

      @@alexginger1948 Another illogical sentence, China was mostly named after its ruling dynasties like the Ming, Tang, Han yet China was still 'China' and its people Chinese, you seem to have a poor knowledge about this topic I suggest you to do some basic research before getting into an argument

  • @luisandrade2254
    @luisandrade2254 2 роки тому

    The history of cartography is absolutely amazing

  • @Weissenschenkel
    @Weissenschenkel 2 роки тому +2

    I love the narrator pronunciation when she says "Waldseemüller" (forest-sea-miller.)
    Second, it's impossible to depict a spherical shape in a plain surface. The Mercator although heavily misrepresenting land size was somewhat accurate regarding distances. Vikings also had a good map from the Americas since they crossed the Pacific and the Atlantic way before anybody else on big vessels.

  • @cassieperalta7859
    @cassieperalta7859 2 роки тому +1

    TED ED: "Here Be Dragons"
    SCP fans: starts sobbing uncontrollably

  • @jorgesoberon6866
    @jorgesoberon6866 2 роки тому +2

    All the xvi century Spanish maps depict baja California as a peninsula. The first time Baja California was shown as an Island is in Herrera's Historia (1601), an error corrected by Kino (1705).

  • @teawrecks1243
    @teawrecks1243 2 роки тому +1

    to be fair australia is filled with things that may as well be mythic beasts to the people of yore. a bird that laughs like a human? a beast that leaps on two legs as tall as a man that carries its young in a pocket? a creature with the beak of a duck, the tail of a beaver and the fur of an otter that laid eggs and was venomous?

  • @ippolit23
    @ippolit23 2 роки тому +2

    The first Australians probably met the giant lizard Megalania - look it up! - a real-life dragon if ever there was one.

  • @gailaltschwager7377
    @gailaltschwager7377 2 роки тому

    Thank you! ❤️

  • @stuffes3495
    @stuffes3495 2 роки тому +2

    Trippiest quote Ted Ed ever put out 0:02

  • @MrTeknotronic
    @MrTeknotronic Рік тому

    I've never personally feared death by lobster but i will now reconsider my position on the matter.

  • @Aninkovsky
    @Aninkovsky 2 роки тому +2

    Actually, it's true, since Komodo Dragons are indeed in Southeast Asia, in Indonesia...

  • @vivanakashbeere2854
    @vivanakashbeere2854 2 роки тому +8

    All progress comes through mistakes and primitive experiments, what leads to truth is actually the will to change vision to reality, though vision doesn't match reality, surely enough will lead to progress, or help in progress.

    • @DogseatDogs
      @DogseatDogs 2 роки тому +2

      They highlight all the Europeans' mistakes while not mentioning other mistakes of the other nations and cultures. How unbiased of them.

    • @DrastikTrap
      @DrastikTrap Рік тому +1

      This video does exactly the opposite of what it was meant to do - educate. Instead used as a smear campaign against the West.

  • @DionysusFTW
    @DionysusFTW 2 роки тому +2

    I'm not sure the despiction of Australia with all those tragons and absurd animals is wrong. The only thing they missed is that it's located somewhere like 10 km from the sun

  • @jamiegreenberg8476
    @jamiegreenberg8476 2 роки тому

    it would be kinda cool if we still had little doodles like that on maps today tbh

  • @dynamosaurusimperious2718
    @dynamosaurusimperious2718 2 роки тому

    Well this video was just so interesting and I love it

  • @daltonmichelsen6046
    @daltonmichelsen6046 2 роки тому +5

    Beautiful animation ❤️

  • @gfhit7520
    @gfhit7520 2 роки тому +3

    I don't see many mistakes in any of the maps shown... they actually were pretty accurate with the information available to them, plus it must be remarked that the purpose of maps was not necessarily the same of today (if rulers needed a decent visualisation of their surroundings, nobody travelled through the whole world like today), it made perfect sense to introduce Here be dragons (incidentally, a nice way to admit ignorance) or features like the Eden garden.
    I think the title of the video is incorrect and misleading.

  • @halepauhana153
    @halepauhana153 2 роки тому +1

    If you were transported back in time by 500 years or more, no GPS, no satellite imagery, no accurate time-pieces, only the most rudimentary equipment for measuring latitude by sun and star sightings, and working with the anecdotal reports of boastful captains and superstitious sailors, let's see you do any better. As a qualified Cartographer myself, I am in awe of what mapmakers of the era were able to do, and the steady progress over the years.

  • @thetruecrimeshow6882
    @thetruecrimeshow6882 2 роки тому

    Maybe this explains the Perrie Reis map, which I'm sure I misspelled. A map of roads under the Antarctic ice.

  • @trempire7514
    @trempire7514 2 роки тому

    Our Ancestors worked so hard for future generations! Can't even imagine it!

  • @owenmersk4626
    @owenmersk4626 2 роки тому

    Thank you for this

  • @BS-vx8dg
    @BS-vx8dg 2 роки тому

    At 1:44 there's an error. The T-O map shown is fine, but the narrator describes it as "the world's landmass divided roughly in the shape of a "T" and surrounded by a ring of ocean". Well, the last part is correct, but the "T-O" map is named for the shape of its prominent bodies of water. The vertical staff of the T is the Mediterranean Sea, the right "wing" of the T is the Nile River, and the left "wing" of the T is usually regarded as the Don River (though I have seen others suggested). So the land is not in the shape of a T, the land is divided into three parts, with Asia at the top, above the full bar of the T, Africa at the right of the vertical Mediterranean staff, and Europe on the left. Here's a crude, but very famous, simplification: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/70/T_and_O_map_Guntherus_Ziner_1472.jpg/330px-T_and_O_map_Guntherus_Ziner_1472.jpg

  • @ancientpear6780
    @ancientpear6780 2 роки тому +1

    The song that plays towards the end is really nice, anyone know where I could find it?

  • @DogseatDogs
    @DogseatDogs 2 роки тому +4

    Man, if this video doesn't have some narrative to support. Very objective facts, Ted.

    • @valentinaciccarelli7228
      @valentinaciccarelli7228 2 роки тому

      So you believe in flat Earth, dragons or that Europeans didn't steal land from natives. I'm curious about which one it is

    • @DogseatDogs
      @DogseatDogs 2 роки тому

      @@valentinaciccarelli7228 So you *actually* think I believe any of those three "facts" you listed. I'm flattered. You just demonstrate my point through and through. Thank you, "kind" stranger.

    • @DogseatDogs
      @DogseatDogs 2 роки тому

      @@valentinaciccarelli7228 Thank you for debasing yourself before me.

    • @flanderstruck3751
      @flanderstruck3751 2 роки тому

      Muh genocide

  • @illyasvielemiya9059
    @illyasvielemiya9059 2 роки тому +2

    the drawing in this video are so beautiful

  • @okeanos2100
    @okeanos2100 2 роки тому

    If you look at modern political maps from various countries around the world, you can see differences in the names and boundaries because there are nations not recognized as if those peoples do not exist.

  • @teoengchin
    @teoengchin 2 роки тому +1

    There used to be dragons in South East Asia. We used to hunt them for food when I was very young. Unfortunately they were too delicious and were hunted to extinction before the Europeans arrived

  • @sergioperez1543
    @sergioperez1543 2 роки тому +2

    Why are people disliking this?

    • @DogseatDogs
      @DogseatDogs 2 роки тому +3

      Because it reeks of wokeness to them?

  • @cesar.leyvag
    @cesar.leyvag 2 роки тому +2

    I kind of would like we keep drawing dragons and other cool creatures on maps

  • @overhistory5184
    @overhistory5184 2 роки тому

    WOW! Interesting video !!!

  • @dakumasuta1303
    @dakumasuta1303 2 роки тому +2

    thanks to scp whenever i hear "here be dragons" i start crying

  • @spencercochran3908
    @spencercochran3908 2 роки тому +3

    I like how the globe spins on a flat plane, and not on the axis of the stand, in a video about bad maps hah

  • @johnnicholas1657
    @johnnicholas1657 2 роки тому +1

    In fairness there are Komodo dragons there. So the mapmakers were spot on

  • @atriagotler
    @atriagotler 2 роки тому

    "A Guide to Plesant Journeys into Faraway Lands" sounds like a medival version of hitchhikers guide to the galaxy xD

  • @havock76
    @havock76 2 роки тому +1

    "Without Geography, you're nowhere"
    -Unknown

  • @limerence8365
    @limerence8365 2 роки тому

    While everyone was getting maps hilariously wrong, Polynesian were put there traversing half the globe with nothing but maps in their minds (and stars)

  • @basantprasadsgarden8365
    @basantprasadsgarden8365 2 роки тому +1

    Everybody was a gangster
    Until a *Sea* was declared a *River* and a *River* was declared a *Sea*
    In the Map....

    • @scythal
      @scythal 2 роки тому +1

      Caspian -Lake- Sea: *sweats*

  • @st0ox
    @st0ox 2 роки тому

    "Here be Dragons" actually never was written on a historical map. The phrase was "Here be Lions" or to be more specific: "here lions abound".

  • @jackal25301
    @jackal25301 2 роки тому

    the map of the moroccan mapper al idrisi was suprisingly accurate for its era

  • @windyplaysgacha1511
    @windyplaysgacha1511 2 роки тому

    "Here be dragons"
    **sobs in scp 1762**

  • @Jake-isCool
    @Jake-isCool 2 роки тому +14

    Love you ted ed, keep making fantastic videos

  • @TheFrozenblaze_
    @TheFrozenblaze_ 2 роки тому +13

    Let us not also forget that those same native people killed each other over those same lands constantly throughout history. We are just the people who won.

    • @Lark88
      @Lark88 2 роки тому +1

      Yep, and most of the deaths were caused by disease, not war. The explorers has no idea that the illnesses they were used to would affect isolated people so harshly.

    • @Cuuniyevo
      @Cuuniyevo 2 роки тому

      @@Lark88 At first, that was true, but later on there are records of intentional infections to incapacitate indigenous people before attacking them. Not all explorers and colonists were monsters, but some were. History is messy.

  • @CookedMeat
    @CookedMeat 2 роки тому +8

    Born too late to explore the continent, born too early to explore the seas, but born just in time to create fan fiction of the planet we live in and publish as official work because no one bothers or have the ability to debunk!

    • @DoomFinger511
      @DoomFinger511 2 роки тому

      How were you born to early to explore the seas?

    • @CookedMeat
      @CookedMeat 2 роки тому

      @@DoomFinger511 Take a look at these abominations created by the people who thought they are born to explore the seas.

    • @zandrewmorano4747
      @zandrewmorano4747 2 роки тому

      @@DoomFinger511 He's probably talking millions of years ago

  • @friendlyspacedragon7250
    @friendlyspacedragon7250 2 роки тому

    Someone spots you once and suddenly you're on every map for centuries. Sheesh. I'm glad we have more privacy laws today.

  • @TheIsaacShin
    @TheIsaacShin 2 роки тому

    Would be dope to see maps based on the size of land/sea and not to help people navigate the waters~ (Now that we got all the exploration of land done)

  • @gomez7166
    @gomez7166 2 роки тому

    “Here be dragons.”
    *Me remembering those paper dragons coming out of a box...*

  • @elliotyong2331
    @elliotyong2331 2 роки тому +1

    As a Southeast Asian I can confirm that here do be dragons.

  • @promiscuous5761
    @promiscuous5761 2 роки тому

    Thank you.

  • @altinmares8363
    @altinmares8363 2 роки тому

    Please post more videos about
    - Presocratics
    - Aristotle rhetoric
    - Cicero (On the Ideal Orator)

  • @BigattckFirecat
    @BigattckFirecat 2 роки тому +2

    "Every map is wrong"
    Even google maps

  • @Minicheche250
    @Minicheche250 2 роки тому

    I believe some maps were accurate but some lake , islands and more dissapear or appears over time

  • @michi4575
    @michi4575 2 роки тому

    Seriously, I could listen to her voice all day

  • @ireacttoeverythingeverythi4833
    @ireacttoeverythingeverythi4833 2 роки тому

    3:48 Lol he didn't speculate. He got it from a now lost book called "Itinerarium," which described the north pole.

  • @CarthagoMike
    @CarthagoMike 2 роки тому

    Honorable mention to modern maps with the so-called '9 dash line'.

  • @koriw1701
    @koriw1701 2 роки тому +2

    2:00 ~ ibn Hawqal is not the name of a man, it is the name of a man's *son.* In Arabic, 'Ibn' stands for "son of," so essentially Ibn Hawqal means "son of Hawqal."

    • @rayanbakhtiar8440
      @rayanbakhtiar8440 2 роки тому +1

      ye bro no -offence i understand how pronounication of different langauges can be hard , but they really did mispronounce that name

    • @koriw1701
      @koriw1701 2 роки тому

      @@rayanbakhtiar8440no offense taken.
      🤜🤛❗️

  • @mc4ndr3
    @mc4ndr3 2 роки тому

    Blank spots can't support many fantastical beasts, because the environment is bereft of the resources to sustain the beasts' prey, and the prey's prey, and so on down the food chain. This is why the non-coastal open ocean areas are so empty.

  • @carealoo744
    @carealoo744 2 роки тому

    What a quote

  • @randomobserver8168
    @randomobserver8168 2 роки тому

    I know the Chinese and Indians didn't fare as far by sea, but they did do a lot of regional work plus Zeng He's voyages. Do we have a lot of information on what navigational tech they used and what if any physical mapping they may have done or used of lands they explored, traded to, exported culture to, or sent migrants [at least the Chinese did]? Similarly, the Mongols fared wider and farther than even previous steppe people, established the most widespread and durable of steppe polities in terms of institutions like mail service, internal security, and law codes. Did they use physical maps at any point, landsmen though they were? What did these peoples call places they discovered, and what did they know and record of lands beyond their eventual borders? Did the Mongols, for example, possess maps of Europe west of Poland and Hungary? Did they know the shape of the British Isles or Iberia or Scandinavia?

  • @dr.sandersonwoods4128
    @dr.sandersonwoods4128 2 роки тому +2

    One of the scps is called here be dragons and then it changes in to here were dragons the intro remained me of this fact by the way 😁

  • @jorgeraminhos4133
    @jorgeraminhos4133 2 роки тому +2

    I'm really disappointed with TedEd, this video promotes ignorance. Ancient world maps give us a way of glimpsing into the perspective and worldview of our ancestors. This "mistakes" are what makes them so interesting and important to preserve and learn from. The best way of appreciating this old maps is to understand the mastery behind them, but also to view them from their perspective of the age when they here made. To compare these old maps to modern ones in an attempt to ridiculise them is just sad.

  • @plumeater1
    @plumeater1 2 роки тому

    "There aren't any dragons in South East Asia"
    Komodo Dragons: *Adios*

  • @Prometosermejor
    @Prometosermejor 2 роки тому +2

    Mercator map showed California as a peninsula and it was finished on 1569.
    How can Spaniards be wrong for 100 years?

  • @Exalted-
    @Exalted- 2 роки тому

    Why was I trying to figure out what game they were talking about

  • @jayakrishnamalla2592
    @jayakrishnamalla2592 2 роки тому

    Can't believe this mistake

  • @hamelconsultancyllc
    @hamelconsultancyllc 2 роки тому +7

    I thought this video was going to be about actual mistakes not just poor maps due to insufficient knowledge… poor click bait title

    • @brimstoner982
      @brimstoner982 2 роки тому

      They did tho

    • @DogseatDogs
      @DogseatDogs 2 роки тому +2

      It was never about actual knowledge. It was about supporting a "woke" narrative.

  • @gunshi_18E
    @gunshi_18E 2 роки тому +1

    正確な地図を描いてくれた伊能忠敬には感謝せねば……

  • @v.miguel.almeida
    @v.miguel.almeida 2 роки тому +4

    Talking about ancient cartography without referencing the Portuguese and their advanced and top-secret maps is unbelievable and a symptom of general world ignorance of portugueses history, the discoveries and birth of globalisation.

  • @SquareFoil31362
    @SquareFoil31362 2 роки тому

    **Sees "hear be dragons"**
    **cries**

  • @mureithikivuti
    @mureithikivuti 2 роки тому

    They are trying so hard to believe in magical creatures, only for their dreams to be crushed instantly

  • @sherlock1854
    @sherlock1854 2 роки тому +1

    I wonder when one will be able to draw a map of the universe........