Exotic Places in Fact and Fiction
Humanity has always been fascinated by tales of distant lands populated by strange, wonderful, or horrible beings. Today, we’re going to take a look at three of these legendary places.
In the 19th Century, Augustus Le Plongeon announced that he had translated ancient Mayan writings, the contents of which revealed the existence of a lost continent: Mu.
Le Plongeon borrowed the name from another researcher, Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg. Due to a mistranslation, Brasseur believed that the Mayans were referring to a drowned land called “Mu”, which had been ravaged by disaster. Le Plongeon expanded on this, declaring that Mu was none other than the lost continent of Atlantis. He placed it in the Pacific, and theorized that Egyptian civilization was founded by a refugee from the submerged continent: Queen Moo.
It was later discovered that the Mayan codex Brasseur had so badly mistranslated was, in fact, a collection of astrological rituals and horoscopes.
Submerged is the land of Mu, the peaks only appear above the water… Before, where existed valleys, now abysses.
— Augustus Le Plongeon
In the early days of the Earth’s development, its landmass accumulated in a single, massive supercontinent called Pangaea. The ocean surrounding it was Panthalassa, from the Greek words for “all ocean”.
As Pangaea separated into smaller continents, Panthalassa became the Pacific ocean: that’s why it’s sometimes called the Paleo-Pacific Ocean.
Deeper down in Panthalassa
a eukaryote finds her way…— Nightwish, “Endless Forms Most Beautiful”
Finally, we have Pandaemonium, the mythical capital of Hell in John Milton’s famous poem, “Paradise Lost”. From the Greek for “all demons”, the city of Pandaemonium was raised by demons in less than an hour. Milton’s literary creation gave rise to the word pandemonium, a scene of chaos and wild disorder.
Pandemonium, the palace of Satan, rises, suddenly built out of the Deep: the infernal Peers there sit in council.
— John Milton, “Paradise Lost”
Hungry for more? Exotic words to appeal to any palate can be found in the Lunchbox archives!
