March 14, 2019 • 10 mins
Our tour today will reveal an object designed to show us where to go, and a place no one knew how to get to. Hopefully all your questions will be answered inside the Cabinet!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Despite centuries of exploration,
(00:29):
there is still so much about our planet that we
simply don't know. There are lands unseen by human eyes,
sand and grass undisturbed by human footsteps. Countless explorers have
traveled across oceans and over dangerous terrain to collect information
about these unknown parts. They often catalog their journeys with
(00:50):
diaries or photographs, but the most useful information is often
found within their maps. Maps show us where we've been
and where we have yet to go. And because of that,
you won't be surprised to hear that matt making is
an art as much as it is a science. And
nobody knew that better than Turkish cartographer Peery Race. During
(01:13):
the early fift hundreds, Peery Race served as an admiral
in the Turkish Navy. His passion, though, was for something
a little less violent than war cartography. I know it
doesn't sound like a hit Netflix series, but for Race,
nothing fascinated him more than charting. The Earth. He always
had on hand at least twenty different maps from all
(01:34):
over the world and even from different time periods. Some
came from ancient Greece, while others hadn't existed for more
than a handful of years. Several were even claimed to
have originated at the Library of Alexandria, while another had
been drawn by Christopher Columbus himself. And Race used these
different charts in his own cartography. Although he had seen
(01:58):
quite a bit of the world as part of the
Turkish Navy, he still relied on the work of others
to help him with his own maps. Combining his knowledge
with that of his forefathers, Race sketched out his own
map of the world as it had been known up
to that point. It came to be known as the
Peery Race Map Creative I Know, and it featured outlines
(02:20):
of areas such as South America, the western coast of Africa,
and Europe, to name a few, all of which were
carefully drawn on gazelle skin. Sadly, though Peery Race didn't
live to see his map gain the notoriety that it
has today. After his death in fifteen fifty three, his
work was lost, including all of the old maps that
(02:42):
he kept by his side. It wasn't to tell nine
nearly four centuries later, when a German theologian named Gustav
Diceman rediscovered it with then Istanbul's tope Copy Palace library.
He'd been sorting and cataloging the library's vast collection of
books and artifacts when he stumbled upon a bundle of maps.
(03:02):
Almost immediately he took them to a local expert for confirmation.
That expert recognized a key piece of the map, one
that continues to baffle scholars today. Antarctica. Antarctica is rendering
on the map is particularly interesting for two very good reasons. First,
no one had ever stepped foot on the continent until
(03:24):
its official discovery in eighteen twenty three hundred years after
the Peri Race maps creation. But second, Race had depicted
it without its polar ice cap, showing the rocky shores
of the continent in a way that hadn't been seen
for over six thousand years, which begs the question how
did he know what it looked like so long before
(03:46):
his time. What's more, his map utilized the Mercator projection
technique that's the standard for modern nautical navigation, but Mercator
projection wasn't used in Europe until the late fifteen six
these decades after the Race map had been completed. Where
he learned to display his map in that format is
(04:06):
still a mystery. By all accounts, the Peery Race map
was ahead of its time, so much so that its
accuracy continues to stump cartographers and researchers around the world today.
For example, the Mercator projection could not be verified or
measured properly until seventeen sixty, when the chronometer was invented,
(04:27):
and yet Race managed to position the South American coast
across from Africa's western coast as though he had known
its exact measurements. His drawings are so realistic that it's
been theorized the maps he referenced for his own had
been created by an ancient civilization with advanced technology such
as flying machines for aerial surveillance. There just isn't any
(04:50):
other explanation for their precision. Today, the remaining portion of
the map resides right where they discovered it as part
of the top copy libraries collect However, due to its
age and fragility, it is no longer on display. And
you heard me correctly, the remaining portion, what we know
of as the Peery Race map, is only a quarter
(05:12):
of what he had originally drawn. Rest is out there
somewhere waiting for someone to uncover it and the secrets
it might reveal. Everything that we know about loss civilizations
(05:39):
comes from what they've left behind, and sadly, when a
rival nation invades a place, one of the first things
they do is destroy the culture they stripped the indigenous
people of their land, their language, their art, and their
very identities. Also, they can force their own culture upon them.
In many cases, the native population doesn't even have a
way to fight back, and running away was often out
(06:01):
of the question, so they stayed and were conquered, and
most of what they had was lost except the Phrygians.
During the Byzantine Era of the eighth and seventh centuries
b c e. The Phrygian people lived peaceful lives, and
darren Coo you a district in central Turkey. The people
there were farmers, teachers, wine makers, and parents, all trying
(06:25):
to live their lives while constant war raged on around them.
But let's not assume that the Phrygians were ignorant about
the fighting, even though it hadn't reached their doorsteps, yet,
they knew it was coming and that preparations had to
be made in case it reached them, and eventually it did.
So they fortified their homes, stables, chapels, and communal eating
(06:48):
spaces with volcanic rock from the nearby region. No soldier
would be able to penetrate their defenses. Within their stone walls,
the people of darren Coo you could still make their
wine ship, teach and continue their lives as if nothing
had changed, And as the war got closer, their mason
repaid off, allowing twenty thousand Phrygian men, women and children,
(07:10):
along with their livestock to sleep safely at night as
soldiers fought outside, and those soldiers certainly fought for years
they clashed while life on the other side of the
fortified city went on. The Phrygians were so successful at
protecting themselves that other cities nearby began to follow their example.
They too, barricaded themselves within stone walls to stay alive
(07:33):
during the war. The craziest part of all of this
is that these cities are still standing today, nearly three
thousand years later. In fact, they've become tourist destinations, but
don't expect to see them on an aerial map because
you want and for the same reason that the Byzantine
and Arab soldiers never saw them in the first place.
(07:55):
They were two hundred feet underground. It really is an
amazing story. Seeing no way out of the encroaching war,
the Phrygians began to dig. They dug out a village
as expansive as the one that they had lived in
above ground, with multiple levels as well as ventilation shafts
to collect air and rainwater. Their goal wasn't simply to survive,
(08:18):
but to thrive. The school was erected on one level
while the people slept on another. They ate together, prayed together,
made wine together, and raised their families, all within their
underground city and those other nearby towns that did the
same thing, moving everything underground where their existence could be
hidden for years until the fighting stopped. Well, They also
(08:40):
dug and dug. Some of these cities went four or
five levels deep, and as far as the soldiers above
them knew, everyone had left for greener pastures, unaware that
they were all still there, literally living right beneath their noses.
The Phrygians and their neighbors didn't stop there, though. They
knew their chances of survival would grow if they worked together,
(09:03):
so they eventually tunneled upwards of five miles in fact
between each of their cities. If circumstances became too dangerous
in one area, that population would seek refuge with another.
Over two hundred of these underground cities still exist today
in central Turkey. Many of them were still being used
as safe havens all the way up to the twenty century.
(09:24):
For example, the Daana massacre of nineteen o nine sent
hundreds of refugees into the underground chambers of their ancestors
to evade the attack. They stayed there for a month
until reinforcements arrived. Today the cities and the tunnels that
connect them are all abandoned. No one sleeps on the cold,
hard ground. Then that children are no longer forced to
(09:46):
study deep below the earth's surface. However, these cities still
have so much to offer. They are some of the
best kept artifacts from a resourceful civilization. If we learn
nothing else from their existence, we can at least take
away one valuable lesson. When it comes to survival, it
(10:07):
takes a village. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour
of the Cabinet of Curiosities, subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky
in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
(10:29):
winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
and television show, and you can learn all about it
over at the World of Lore dot com. And until
next time, stay curious.
Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Despite centuries of exploration,
(00:29):
there is still so much about our planet that we
simply don't know. There are lands unseen by human eyes,
sand and grass undisturbed by human footsteps. Countless explorers have
traveled across oceans and over dangerous terrain to collect information
about these unknown parts. They often catalog their journeys with
(00:50):
diaries or photographs, but the most useful information is often
found within their maps. Maps show us where we've been
and where we have yet to go. And because of that,
you won't be surprised to hear that matt making is
an art as much as it is a science. And
nobody knew that better than Turkish cartographer Peery Race. During
(01:13):
the early fift hundreds, Peery Race served as an admiral
in the Turkish Navy. His passion, though, was for something
a little less violent than war cartography. I know it
doesn't sound like a hit Netflix series, but for Race,
nothing fascinated him more than charting. The Earth. He always
had on hand at least twenty different maps from all
(01:34):
over the world and even from different time periods. Some
came from ancient Greece, while others hadn't existed for more
than a handful of years. Several were even claimed to
have originated at the Library of Alexandria, while another had
been drawn by Christopher Columbus himself. And Race used these
different charts in his own cartography. Although he had seen
(01:58):
quite a bit of the world as part of the
Turkish Navy, he still relied on the work of others
to help him with his own maps. Combining his knowledge
with that of his forefathers, Race sketched out his own
map of the world as it had been known up
to that point. It came to be known as the
Peery Race Map Creative I Know, and it featured outlines
(02:20):
of areas such as South America, the western coast of Africa,
and Europe, to name a few, all of which were
carefully drawn on gazelle skin. Sadly, though Peery Race didn't
live to see his map gain the notoriety that it
has today. After his death in fifteen fifty three, his
work was lost, including all of the old maps that
(02:42):
he kept by his side. It wasn't to tell nine
nearly four centuries later, when a German theologian named Gustav
Diceman rediscovered it with then Istanbul's tope Copy Palace library.
He'd been sorting and cataloging the library's vast collection of
books and artifacts when he stumbled upon a bundle of maps.
(03:02):
Almost immediately he took them to a local expert for confirmation.
That expert recognized a key piece of the map, one
that continues to baffle scholars today. Antarctica. Antarctica is rendering
on the map is particularly interesting for two very good reasons. First,
no one had ever stepped foot on the continent until
(03:24):
its official discovery in eighteen twenty three hundred years after
the Peri Race maps creation. But second, Race had depicted
it without its polar ice cap, showing the rocky shores
of the continent in a way that hadn't been seen
for over six thousand years, which begs the question how
did he know what it looked like so long before
(03:46):
his time. What's more, his map utilized the Mercator projection
technique that's the standard for modern nautical navigation, but Mercator
projection wasn't used in Europe until the late fifteen six
these decades after the Race map had been completed. Where
he learned to display his map in that format is
(04:06):
still a mystery. By all accounts, the Peery Race map
was ahead of its time, so much so that its
accuracy continues to stump cartographers and researchers around the world today.
For example, the Mercator projection could not be verified or
measured properly until seventeen sixty, when the chronometer was invented,
(04:27):
and yet Race managed to position the South American coast
across from Africa's western coast as though he had known
its exact measurements. His drawings are so realistic that it's
been theorized the maps he referenced for his own had
been created by an ancient civilization with advanced technology such
as flying machines for aerial surveillance. There just isn't any
(04:50):
other explanation for their precision. Today, the remaining portion of
the map resides right where they discovered it as part
of the top copy libraries collect However, due to its
age and fragility, it is no longer on display. And
you heard me correctly, the remaining portion, what we know
of as the Peery Race map, is only a quarter
(05:12):
of what he had originally drawn. Rest is out there
somewhere waiting for someone to uncover it and the secrets
it might reveal. Everything that we know about loss civilizations
(05:39):
comes from what they've left behind, and sadly, when a
rival nation invades a place, one of the first things
they do is destroy the culture they stripped the indigenous
people of their land, their language, their art, and their
very identities. Also, they can force their own culture upon them.
In many cases, the native population doesn't even have a
way to fight back, and running away was often out
(06:01):
of the question, so they stayed and were conquered, and
most of what they had was lost except the Phrygians.
During the Byzantine Era of the eighth and seventh centuries
b c e. The Phrygian people lived peaceful lives, and
darren Coo you a district in central Turkey. The people
there were farmers, teachers, wine makers, and parents, all trying
(06:25):
to live their lives while constant war raged on around them.
But let's not assume that the Phrygians were ignorant about
the fighting, even though it hadn't reached their doorsteps, yet,
they knew it was coming and that preparations had to
be made in case it reached them, and eventually it did.
So they fortified their homes, stables, chapels, and communal eating
(06:48):
spaces with volcanic rock from the nearby region. No soldier
would be able to penetrate their defenses. Within their stone walls,
the people of darren Coo you could still make their
wine ship, teach and continue their lives as if nothing
had changed, And as the war got closer, their mason
repaid off, allowing twenty thousand Phrygian men, women and children,
(07:10):
along with their livestock to sleep safely at night as
soldiers fought outside, and those soldiers certainly fought for years
they clashed while life on the other side of the
fortified city went on. The Phrygians were so successful at
protecting themselves that other cities nearby began to follow their example.
They too, barricaded themselves within stone walls to stay alive
(07:33):
during the war. The craziest part of all of this
is that these cities are still standing today, nearly three
thousand years later. In fact, they've become tourist destinations, but
don't expect to see them on an aerial map because
you want and for the same reason that the Byzantine
and Arab soldiers never saw them in the first place.
(07:55):
They were two hundred feet underground. It really is an
amazing story. Seeing no way out of the encroaching war,
the Phrygians began to dig. They dug out a village
as expansive as the one that they had lived in
above ground, with multiple levels as well as ventilation shafts
to collect air and rainwater. Their goal wasn't simply to survive,
(08:18):
but to thrive. The school was erected on one level
while the people slept on another. They ate together, prayed together,
made wine together, and raised their families, all within their
underground city and those other nearby towns that did the
same thing, moving everything underground where their existence could be
hidden for years until the fighting stopped. Well, They also
(08:40):
dug and dug. Some of these cities went four or
five levels deep, and as far as the soldiers above
them knew, everyone had left for greener pastures, unaware that
they were all still there, literally living right beneath their noses.
The Phrygians and their neighbors didn't stop there, though. They
knew their chances of survival would grow if they worked together,
(09:03):
so they eventually tunneled upwards of five miles in fact
between each of their cities. If circumstances became too dangerous
in one area, that population would seek refuge with another.
Over two hundred of these underground cities still exist today
in central Turkey. Many of them were still being used
as safe havens all the way up to the twenty century.
(09:24):
For example, the Daana massacre of nineteen o nine sent
hundreds of refugees into the underground chambers of their ancestors
to evade the attack. They stayed there for a month
until reinforcements arrived. Today the cities and the tunnels that
connect them are all abandoned. No one sleeps on the cold,
hard ground. Then that children are no longer forced to
(09:46):
study deep below the earth's surface. However, these cities still
have so much to offer. They are some of the
best kept artifacts from a resourceful civilization. If we learn
nothing else from their existence, we can at least take
away one valuable lesson. When it comes to survival, it
(10:07):
takes a village. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour
of the Cabinet of Curiosities, subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky
in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
(10:29):
winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
and television show, and you can learn all about it
over at the World of Lore dot com. And until
next time, stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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