Reggio calabria museo nazionale mosaico da kaulon

A sea serpent is a type of

sea monster Sea monsters are beings from folklore believed to dwell in the sea and are often imagined to be of immense size. Marine monsters can take many forms, including sea dragons, sea serpents, or tentacled beasts. They can be slimy and scaly and are of ...

described in various mythologies, most notably in Mesopotamian cosmology (

Tiamat In Mesopotamian religion, Tiamat ( or , ) is the primordial sea, mating with Abzû (Apsu), the groundwater, to produce the gods in the Babylonian epic '' Enûma Elish'', which translates as "when on high". She is referred to as a woman, an ...

), Ugaritic cosmology ( Yam,

Tannin Tannins (or tannoids) are a class of astringent, polyphenolic biomolecules that bind to and Precipitation (chemistry), precipitate proteins and various other organic compounds including amino acids and alkaloids. The term ''tannin'' is widel ...

), biblical cosmology (

Leviathan Leviathan ( ; ; ) is a sea serpent demon noted in theology and mythology. It is referenced in several books of the Hebrew Bible, including Psalms, the Book of Job, the Book of Isaiah, and the pseudepigraphical Book of Enoch. Leviathan is of ...

Rahab Rahab (; ) was, according to the Hebrew Bible in Joshua 2:1-24, a Canaanite who resided within Jericho in the Promised Land and assisted the Israelites by hiding two men who had been sent to scout the city before their attack. In the New Testam ...

), Greek cosmology (

Cetus Cetus () is a constellation, sometimes called 'the whale' in English. The Cetus (mythology), Cetus was a sea monster in Greek mythology which both Perseus and Heracles needed to slay. Cetus is in the region of the sky that contains other water- ...

, Echidna, Hydra, Scylla), and Norse cosmology (

Jörmungandr In Norse mythology, Jörmungandr (, see Etymology), also known as the Midgard Serpent or World Serpent (, "worm of Midgard"), is an unfathomably large and monstrous sea serpent or worm who dwells in the world sea, encircling the Earth ( Midga ...

Mythology

Mediterranean and Western Asia

The mytheme, the chief god in the role of the hero slaying a sea serpent, is widespread both in the

ancient Near East The ancient Near East was home to many cradles of civilization, spanning Mesopotamia, Egypt, Iran (or Persia), Anatolia and the Armenian highlands, the Levant, and the Arabian Peninsula. As such, the fields of ancient Near East studies and Nea ...

and in

Indo-European mythology Proto-Indo-European mythology is the body of myths and deities associated with the Proto-Indo-Europeans, speakers of the hypothesized Proto-Indo-European language. Although the mythological motifs are not directly attested – since Proto-Ind ...

, e.g. Lotan and Hadad,

and

Yahweh Yahweh was an Ancient Semitic religion, ancient Semitic deity of Weather god, weather and List of war deities, war in the History of the ancient Levant, ancient Levant, the national god of the kingdoms of Kingdom of Judah, Judah and Kingdom ...

and

Marduk Marduk (; cuneiform: Dingir, ᵈAMAR.UTU; Sumerian language, Sumerian: "calf of the sun; solar calf"; ) is a god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of Babylon who eventually rose to prominence in the 1st millennium BC. In B ...

(see also

Labbu The Labbu Myth is an ancient Mesopotamian creation epic. Only one copy of it is known from the Library of Ashurbanipal. It is commonly dated no later than the Old Babylonian period, although recent work suggests a later composition. It is a folkta ...

, Bašmu,

Mušḫuššu The ''mušḫuššu'' (; formerly also read as or ) or mushkhushshu () is a creature from ancient Mesopotamian mythology. A mythological hybrid, it is a scaly animal with hind legs resembling the talons of an eagle, lion-like forelimbs, a long ...

Illuyanka In Hittite mythology, Illuyanka was a serpentine dragon slain by Tarḫunz (), the Hittite incarnation of the Hurrian god of sky and storm. It is known from Hittite cuneiform tablets found at Çorum-Boğazköy, the former Hittite capital Hat ...

and Tarhunt, Yammu and

Baal Baal (), or Baʻal, was a title and honorific meaning 'owner' or 'lord Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power (social and political), power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The ...

in the Baal Cycle etc. The

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Tanninim mentioned in

Book of Genesis The Book of Genesis (from Greek language, Greek ; ; ) is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its incipit, first word, (In the beginning (phrase), 'In the beginning'). Genesis purpor ...

1:21 and the "great serpent" of Amos 9:3. In the

Aeneid The ''Aeneid'' ( ; or ) is a Latin Epic poetry, epic poem that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy, Trojan who fled the Trojan War#Sack of Troy, fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Ancient Rome ...

, a pair of sea serpents killed

Laocoön Laocoön (; , , gen.: ) is a figure in Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology and the Epic Cycle. Laocoön is a Troy, Trojan priest. He and his two young sons are attacked by giant serpents sent by the gods when Laocoön argued against bri ...

and his sons when Laocoön argued against bringing the

Trojan Horse In Greek mythology, the Trojan Horse () was a wooden horse said to have been used by the Greeks during the Trojan War to enter the city of Troy and win the war. The Trojan Horse is not mentioned in Homer, Homer's ''Iliad'', with the poem ending ...

into Troy.

Claudius Aelianus Claudius Aelianus (; ), commonly Aelian (), born at Praeneste, was a Roman author and teacher of rhetoric who flourished under Septimius Severus and probably outlived Elagabalus, who died in 222. He spoke Greek so fluently that he was called "h ...

in his work ''On the Nature of Animals'' mentions a giant sea centipede, which has a tail that is similar to a crayfish and which moves using numerous feet on each side of its body. Guillaume Rondelet mentions a similar imaginary creature called centipede cetacean in his work ''L'histoire entière des poissons''.

Germanic Scandinavia

Nordic mythology Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology, is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia as the Nordic folklore of the modern period. The ...

, ''

'' (or '' Midgarðsormr'') was a sea serpent or

worm Worms are many different distantly related bilateria, bilateral animals that typically have a long cylindrical tube-like body, no limb (anatomy), limbs, and usually no eyes. Worms vary in size from microscopic to over in length for marine ...

so long that it encircled the entire world, Midgard. Sea serpents also appear frequently in later Scandinavian folklore, particularly in that of Norway, such as an account that in 1028 AD, Saint Olaf killed a sea serpent in Valldal in Norway, throwing its body onto the mountain Syltefjellet. Marks on the mountain are associated with the legend.

Natural history

An apparent eye-witness account is given by

Aristotle Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...

in his work ''Historia Animalium'' on

natural history Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

Strabo Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-si ...

makes reference to an eyewitness account of a dead sea creature sighted by Poseidonius on the coast of the northern Levant. He reports the following: "As for the plains, the first, beginning at the sea, is called Macras, or Macra-Plain. Here, as reported by Poseidonius, was seen the fallen dragon, the corpse of which was about a plethrum [] in length, and so bulky that horsemen standing by it on either side could not see one another, and its jaws were large enough to admit a man on horseback, and each flake of its horny scales exceeded an oblong shield in length." The creature was seen sometime between 130 and 51 BC.

Norway, 16th century

Swedish ecclesiastic and writer Olaus Magnus included illustrations of sea serpents and other various marine monsters on his illustrated map, the '' Carta marina''. In his 1555 work ''History of the Northern Peoples'', Olaus gives the following description of a Norwegian sea serpent: Norwegian Bishop Erik Pontoppidan (1698–1764) did not disbelieve the existence of sea serpents themselves, but doubted they would prey on ships and feed on humans, being more cautious-minded in that respect than Archbishop Olaus (of Upsala). Nevertheless, a number of reports were made by sailors at the time that sea serpents would destroy ships by wrapping the ship in coils of their body and pulling it underwater. Sailors threatened by a sea serpent were said to have thrown large objects such as paddles or shovels overboard in the path of the serpent, hoping that the serpent would take the object and leave without destroying the ship.Ráth-Végh István: ''A tengeri kígyó'', Móra Ferenc Ifjúsági Könyvkiadó, Budapest, 1980, ISBN 963-11-2161-5

Greenland in 1734

Rev. Hans Egede, a

Dano-Norwegian Dano-Norwegian (Danish language, Danish and ) was a Koine language, koiné/mixed language that evolved among the urban elite in Norwegian cities during the later years of the union between the Denmark–Norway, Kingdoms of Denmark and Norway (1 ...

clergyman who was an early explorer and surveyor of Greenland, gave an 18th-century description of a sea serpent witnessed by his party. In his journal he wrote: Lee Henry1883-Unmasked-p067-egede-squid

Egede also wrote on the same sea-monster sighting in his book, noting that the beast was spotted at the 64th degree of latitude, and was as thick or "bulky as the Ship, and three or four times as long". Egede himself did not supply a sketch in this otherwise well-illustrated book, but the missionary named Bing who was his comrade drew a sketch, which is reproduced in Henry Lee's work. Bing further described this creature as having reddish eyes, almost burning with fire. This convinced Bishop Pontoppidan that this was different from the type of sea serpent seen by others. From Bing's drawing, Pontoppidan estimated the creature to be considerably shorter than the length of a cable rope, or 100 fathoms () attested by multiple witnesses, and the pair of fins which were attached "below the waist ()" in Pontoppidan's view, was another unusual feature. Lee proposed a rational explanation that this sea-serpent was a misapprehended sighting of what was actually the exposed head and one tentacle of a giant squid (Cf. figure above left).

New York exhibition in 1845

In 1845, a long skeleton claimed as belonging to an extinct sea serpent was put on a show in the

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

by Albert C. Koch. The claim was debunked by Prof. Jeffries Wyman, an anatomist who went to see the skeleton for himself. Wyman declared that the skull of the animal had to be mammalian in origin, and that the skeleton was composed of bones of several different animals, including an extinct species of whale.

Portuguese waters, 1848

On 6 August 1848 Captain McQuhae of and several of his officers and crew (en route to St Helena) saw a sea serpent which was subsequently reported (and debated) in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

''. The vessel sighted what they named as an enormous serpent between the

Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( ) is a rocky headland on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A List of common misconceptions#Geography, common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Afri ...

and St Helena. The serpent was witnessed to have been swimming with of its head above the water and they believed that there was another of the creature in the sea. Captain McQuahoe also said that " he creaturepassed rapidly, but so close under our lee quarter, that had it been a man of my acquaintance I should have easily have recognized his features with the naked eye." According to seven members of the crew, it remained in view for around twenty minutes. Another officer wrote that the creature was more of a lizard than a serpent. Evolutionary biologist Gary J. Galbreath contends that what the crew of ''Daedalus'' saw was a sei whale. A report was published in the '' Illustrated London News'' on 14 April 1849 of a sighting of a sea serpent off the Portuguese coast by . :''"A giant snake appeared at once from the water - and the largest cetacean a boa constrictor way wrapped twice. (I note such a physeter It can grow to 20-30 meters long!) It lasted for about 15 minutes the deadly struggle, the sea was just foaming and crashing waves around us, finally the back of the whale stood out Out of the water, he sank head first into the deep where the snake must have killed him. A cold shiver ran through us a cet at the sight of his final struggle; so writhing poor in the monster's double ring, like a little bird between the claws of a falcon. View of the two rings, the snake. It could have been 160-170 feet long and 7-8 feet thick."''

Natural explanations

R.L. France proposed in a 2016 paper for the '' International Journal of Maritime History'' that a significant number of sea serpent sightings, including nineteenth century accounts of serpents attacking whales, were due to the misidentification of whales entangled in fishing gear and maritime debris. In a 2023 article for ''Fate'', Karl Brandt suggested well-known sea serpent sightings could be explained by harpooned sperm whales held fast to their hunters’ overturned rowboats. The boats would accumulate debris at the surface which could stretch for hundreds of yards while appearing to be propelled through the water by unknown means. The theory was supported by the majority of sightings in Norwegian fjords occurring ‘during the summer months of June to August when the whales are most plentiful.’

Gallery

Soe Orm 1555.jpg, Olaus Magnus's Sea Orm, 1555 Sea serpent Cape Ann 1639.jpg, The first American sea serpent, reported from Cape Ann,

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

, in 1639 Sea serpent, Ama Temple, Macao.jpg, Sea serpents, Ama Temple,

Macao Macau or Macao is a special administrative region of the People's Republic of China (PRC). With a population of about people and a land area of , it is the most densely populated region in the world. Formerly a Portuguese colony, the ter ...

Seljord komm.svg, A sea serpent depicted in the coat of arms of Seljord in Norway Maned sea serpent 1755.jpg, Maned sea serpent from Bishop Erik Pontoppidan's 1755 work ''Natural History of Norway'' 1817 Gloucester sea serpent.jpg, The Gloucester sea serpent of 1817 Sea serpent from Hart Nautical Collections.jpg, A hairy sea serpent Hydrarchos.jpg, Albert Koch's "Hydrarchos" fossil skeleton from 1845. It was found to be an assembled collection of bones from at least five fossil specimens of ''

Basilosaurus ''Basilosaurus'' (meaning "king lizard") is a genus of large, predatory, prehistoric archaeocete whale from the late Eocene, approximately 41.3 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). First described in 1834, it was the first archaeocete and prehisto ...

''. HMS Plumper sea serpent 1848.jpg, "Supposed Appearance Of The Great Sea-Serpent, From H.M.S. Plumper, Sketched By An Officer On Board", Illustrated London News, 14 April 1849 HMS Daedalus with sea serpent.jpg, The sea serpent spotted by the crew of HMS ''Daedalus'' in 1848 Daedalus sea serpent 1848.jpg, Another of the original illustrations of the HMS ''Daedalus'' encounter Giant oarfish bermuda beach 1860.jpg, Oarfish that washed ashore on a Bermuda beach in 1860. The animal was long and was originally described as a sea serpent. File:Lderry co arms.png, The arms of

County Londonderry County Londonderry (Ulster Scots dialects, Ulster-Scots: ''Coontie Lunnonderrie''), also known as County Derry (), is one of the six Counties of Northern Ireland, counties of Northern Ireland, one of the thirty-two Counties of Ireland, count ...

feature sea dragons as

supporters In heraldry, supporters, sometimes referred to as ''attendants'', are figures or objects usually placed on either side of the Escutcheon (heraldry), shield and depicted holding it up. Historically, supporters were left to an individual's fr ...

In media

C. S. Lewis Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British writer, literary scholar and Anglican lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Magdalen College, Oxford (1925–1954), and Magdalen ...

's ''

The Chronicles of Narnia ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' is a series of seven portal fantasy novels by British author C. S. Lewis. Illustrated by Pauline Baynes and originally published between 1950 and 1956, the series is set in the fictional realm of Narnia (wor ...

'' features a sea serpent as one of many obstacles in '' The Voyage of the Dawn Treader'', along with the 1989 TV serial and the 2010 film based on it. * '' Beany and Cecil'', featuring a sea sick sea serpent. Revived as '' The New Beany and Cecil Show'' by prouducer DIC Entertainment.

Explanatory notes

References

;Bibliography * * * ;(Further reading) *

External links

{{Commons category
Video of the oarfish
a creature that possibly inspired the sea serpent mythology. * https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/great-sea-serpent/ * https://www.gutenberg.org/files/36677/36677-h/36677-h.htm Ancient Near Eastern cosmology Dragons Germanic dragons Greek legendary creatures Legendary serpents Maritime folklore Sea monsters Tiamat