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Dig Deep · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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