Oct 15, 2026 · 43 min · 11 segments
There’s a mysterious, medieval map full of cryptids, creatures, and legends left over from ancient civilizations. Visit https://themetaphysical.tv for uncensored After…
So today we're going to be talking about one of the oldest and most interesting maps.
Of course, everyone knows about the Piri Reis map, which was dated to I think about the 15 or 1600s.
So this is the largest medieval map still known to exist depicting the known world at the time.
This thing is about five feet across, and when they created it, it was meant to be a part of a, of a triptych.
So this was the centerpiece of this triptych that sort of came up like a, a pyramid or a, or a triangular shape at the top, and then there are two panels to the left and the right of it, and I think it opens and closes, if I'm not mistaken.
What's really, I find really interesting about this map is, I, you know, I was thinking about this and I think that this is the first known infographic.
It has collated every interesting legend or mythology down into one really dense infographic, is the only way to explain it.
We're looking at this potentially being around 1280 when this was, when this was created.
1300s is I think a lot of people knew about it, but we're talking about the Mongol Tartarian Empire, that era, which makes this even more interesting because there is a unknown as to how much Marco Polo's adventures actually influenced the map.
Marco Polo, the reason why I'm bringing him up is because when Marco Polo traveled the world and sort of got stuck in the Mongol Empire underneath Kublai Khan, he was traveling all over the place at the, uh, request of Kublai Khan.
He was on an, [laughs] an enemy ship apparently, something like that, where it, you know, the officials there ended up catching him, the authorities, and they put him in prison.
He's in prison for, for an entire year and, uh, he meets someone in prison that he doesn't expect.
He meets a guy named Rustichello, and Rustichello, kind of indefinitely imprisoned, but he's a writer.
They're bored, so Marco Polo is just telling him about all of his adventures, and Rustichello, who he- he- he's being allowed to write while he's in prison because he's such a good writer, he ends up documenting everything that Marco Polo tells him.
So today we're going to be talking about one of the oldest and most interesting maps.
Of course, everyone knows about the Piri Reis map, which was dated to I think about the 15 or 1600s.
So this is the largest medieval map still known to exist depicting the known world at the time.
This thing is about five feet across, and when they created it, it was meant to be a part of a, of a triptych.
So this was the centerpiece of this triptych that sort of came up like a, a pyramid or a, or a triangular shape at the top, and then there are two panels to the left and the right of it, and I think it opens and closes, if I'm not mistaken.
What's really, I find really interesting about this map is, I, you know, I was thinking about this and I think that this is the first known infographic.
It has collated every interesting legend or mythology down into one really dense infographic, is the only way to explain it.
We're looking at this potentially being around 1280 when this was, when this was created.
1300s is I think a lot of people knew about it, but we're talking about the Mongol Tartarian Empire, that era, which makes this even more interesting because there is a unknown as to how much Marco Polo's adventures actually influenced the map.
Marco Polo, the reason why I'm bringing him up is because when Marco Polo traveled the world and sort of got stuck in the Mongol Empire underneath Kublai Khan, he was traveling all over the place at the, uh, request of Kublai Khan.
He was on an, [laughs] an enemy ship apparently, something like that, where it, you know, the officials there ended up catching him, the authorities, and they put him in prison.
He's in prison for, for an entire year and, uh, he meets someone in prison that he doesn't expect.
He meets a guy named Rustichello, and Rustichello, kind of indefinitely imprisoned, but he's a writer.
They're bored, so Marco Polo is just telling him about all of his adventures, and Rustichello, who he- he- he's being allowed to write while he's in prison because he's such a good writer, he ends up documenting everything that Marco Polo tells him.
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