Atlases (collections of maps), especially those made centuries ago, were not always accurate; it was not just due to a lack of proper technology, but also because of fabrications. Some cartographers would fill in empty areas with fantastical elements like sea monsters or fake islands conjured from their imaginations. An example of such a feature was “Painter’s Wife’s Island” in the Strait of Gibraltar, which was painted in by a cartographer after his wife asked him to so that she could pretend that she had an island of her own. Read full article here
Oddities
The Curious Case of the Ancient Brain
In 2008, archaeologists examining the University of York discovered something strange: the decapitated head of an Iron Age man and his very shrivelled but very much intact brain. How a centuries-old brain was preserved is still unknown, but research suggests that it could have been because of brain diseases like dementia. The Yorkshire man’s brain’s proteins were bunched up together, much like how dementia causes brain proteins to bunch up into plaques. This bunching up, or aggregation, could continue even after death, turning regions of the brain into hard masses. Read full article here
Merv
September 30, 2022
