Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly fry Back. When
Speaker 1: we went to Paris in twenty nineteen, which just it
Speaker 1: feels like eons ago and maybe something that happened on
Speaker 1: another planet. At this point, I saw the lady in
Speaker 1: the unicorn tapestries that the muse de Cluny, and these
Speaker 1: tapestries are beautiful. After I looked at the tapestries and
Speaker 1: then I went through the entire rest of the museum,
Speaker 1: I went back into the tapestry room and just sat
Speaker 1: with them for a while. After we got back to
Speaker 1: the US, I kept trying and failing to figure out
Speaker 1: how to do an episode on these tapestries, and then
Speaker 1: it finally dawned on me that looking at unicorns more
Speaker 1: broadly might be the way to go, rather than trying
Speaker 1: to like intricately describe tapestries with our words on an
Speaker 1: audio podcastst we will be talking about the tapestries, but
Speaker 1: more of a general history of unicorns. Just a heads
Speaker 1: up though that the history of unicorn lore includes a
Speaker 1: lot of lore about people hunting them and towards the
Speaker 1: end of this episode will also be covering some modern
Speaker 1: history that touches on animal cruelty. You probably know exactly
Speaker 1: what animal we mean when we say unicorn, but spelling
Speaker 1: it out to level set is actually kind of tricky
Speaker 1: because descriptions and depictions of unicorns have shifted a lot
Speaker 1: over the millennia. Even something very very basic like saying
Speaker 1: a mythical magical quadruped that has only one horn does
Speaker 1: not necessarily always work. Case in point, the paleolithic art
Speaker 1: in Lasco Cave network in France spell seventeen thousand years old,
Speaker 1: and one particular animal depicted there has been nicknamed the unicorn,
Speaker 1: and sometimes that's described as the oldest depiction of a
Speaker 1: unicorn in the world. This is in the main chamber
Speaker 1: of those caves that's known as the rotunda or the
Speaker 1: Hall of the Bulls, and the animal in question has
Speaker 1: four legs and a sagging belly and a kind of
Speaker 1: squarish head. But in spite of its nickname and the
Speaker 1: fact that people like to say it's the oldest depiction
Speaker 1: of a unicorn, it definitely has two very long, straight horns.
Speaker 1: It is so clearly two horns rather than one that
Speaker 1: I went down a huge and unsuccessful rabbit hole trying
Speaker 1: to figure out who first called it the unicorn and
Speaker 1: why they did that? Like was there a shadow? Was
Speaker 1: the cave all art? Like? What was happening? I am
Speaker 1: not the only person to find this naming weird. French
Speaker 1: archaeologist Annette Lemming Empereire, who specialized in cave art, called
Speaker 1: the unicorn quote most inappropriately named in her book on
Speaker 1: these paintings. Even though those two horns raised some questions
Speaker 1: about the unicorn Moniker, this doesn't really look like a
Speaker 1: real animal, and it's the only animal depiction in the
Speaker 1: Lisco Caves that isn't readily identifiable as something specific like
Speaker 1: a horse or a stag or a bull. Some sources
Speaker 1: describe it as almost feline. Overall, it is not as
Speaker 1: skilled or elegant in its execution as other artwork in
Speaker 1: the cave, so it's possible that it's just an early
Speaker 1: piece of work by someone who wasn't experienced. But there's
Speaker 1: also speculation that it was intentionally obscured in some way
Speaker 1: and that it depicts a person dressed as an animal,
Speaker 1: or maybe that it shows an animal that is mythical
Speaker 1: or imaginary. Another early depiction more clearly shows a one
Speaker 1: horned animal, but there is still some speculation involved. This
Speaker 1: is found on seals from the Indus Valleys realization, also
Speaker 1: known as the Harappan Civilization. This is the earliest known
Speaker 1: civilization on the Indian subcontinent, and it existed from roughly
Speaker 1: dred b c. We talked about the civilization a bit
Speaker 1: in our episode on Mohenjo Daro, which was one of
Speaker 1: its most important cities. These seals are small, they're usually square,
Speaker 1: and they are carved from stone in a way that
Speaker 1: would leave a clear positive imprint if you press it
Speaker 1: into a soft substance like clay. One of the most
Speaker 1: common motifs on these seals is usually described as a unicorn.
Speaker 1: It's a quadruped with a body a little like an
Speaker 1: rix or an ox, and it's shown in profile with
Speaker 1: a single long horn growing from its head just in
Speaker 1: front of the ear. There's been some speculation that this
Speaker 1: is a depiction of a real animal that actually had
Speaker 1: two horns. You just can't see it on the seal
Speaker 1: because the second horn is hidden behind the other one.
Speaker 1: At the same time, though these animals usually have all
Speaker 1: four of their legs visible, and other animals on other
Speaker 1: seals do have two horns with both of the horns visible.
Speaker 1: So at this point it's generally believed that these seals
Speaker 1: depict only one horn because the animal being shown had
Speaker 1: only one horn, and also that this might be a
Speaker 1: mythical animal rather than a living one. Unfortunately, the script
Speaker 1: that's on a lot of these seals cannot help answer
Speaker 1: this question because scholars haven't figured out how to read
Speaker 1: it yet. I imagine us cracking the code and it
Speaker 1: just being like, not relevant to the nige at all.
Speaker 1: An early depiction that definitely shows an animal with only
Speaker 1: one horn is a small brass statue from the Omlash
Speaker 1: culture and what's now Iran, dating back to the eighth
Speaker 1: or ninth century BC. This is a stylized goat like
Speaker 1: quadruped with one sort of sweeping flame like horn at
Speaker 1: the center of its head. It was found among some
Speaker 1: grave goods, but we really do not know its significance.
Speaker 1: One element of unicorn lore that we will talk about
Speaker 1: more in a bit is the idea that a unicorn
Speaker 1: is a magical beast who can only be captured by
Speaker 1: a virtuous maiden. And it's possible that, like the Indus
Speaker 1: Valley seals. This lore has roots on the Indian subcontinent.
Speaker 1: The Hindu epic poem Mahabharata was composed in Sanskrit and
Speaker 1: probably written down for the first time some time between
Speaker 1: three hundred b c E and three hundred c E,
Speaker 1: although it's circulated orally before that. This is both a
Speaker 1: historical and a religious text, and it includes lots of
Speaker 1: stories and folk tales. One of these is about a
Speaker 1: rishi or an enlightened sage named Riscius Ringa, whose mother
Speaker 1: was a celestial being cursed to take the form of
Speaker 1: a dome. Riscius Ringo was born with deer horns and
Speaker 1: raised by another sage who kept him secluded, teaching him
Speaker 1: phila sofie and holy texts away from society. After a
Speaker 1: drought and a famine struck a nearby kingdom, the king's
Speaker 1: advisers told him that the only way to bring back
Speaker 1: the rain was to find a rishi who had never
Speaker 1: seen a woman, and to marry that rishi to his daughter.
Speaker 1: The king's daughter lured Rischia Sringa out of the forest,
Speaker 1: and when they arrived back at the palace, the rain began.
Speaker 1: This is really the barest outline of this story. Riches
Speaker 1: Ringa is sometimes described as having one horn and sometimes two,
Speaker 1: and sometimes his name is translated to something like gazelle horn.
Speaker 1: But some scholars trace a through line from this and
Speaker 1: other myths and stories from Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism to
Speaker 1: the unicorn hunt stories of medieval Europe in which a
Speaker 1: virgin tames or helps to capture or kill a unicorn.
Speaker 1: We should note, though, that this very basic virgin capture
Speaker 1: idea might go all the way back to one of
Speaker 1: the world's oldest works of literature, which is the epic
Speaker 1: of Gilgamesh, in which a woman seduces the wild man
Speaker 1: inky Do, although the woman in that case is not
Speaker 1: usually described as virtuous. The Chinning from Chinese mythology is
Speaker 1: sometimes called a Chinese unicorn. It has a body like
Speaker 1: a deer, covered with scales like a dragon, and a
Speaker 1: tail like an ox. These creatures are mystical and magical,
Speaker 1: described as so benevolent that they don't even harm the
Speaker 1: grass as they walk. They are associated with both the
Speaker 1: births and the deaths of sages and emperors, but the
Speaker 1: idea that they're a Chinese unicorn is something of a misnomer.
Speaker 1: While they are sometimes depicted as having only one horn,
Speaker 1: many many depictions have two horns or more. There are
Speaker 1: similar animals in the mythology of other parts of Asia
Speaker 1: with similar names, including the kirn in Japan and the
Speaker 1: guillen in Thailand. The earliest descriptions of unicorns in the
Speaker 1: Greek and Roman world also have Asian roots, which we
Speaker 1: will get to after a quick sponsor break. Many European
Speaker 1: descriptions of unicorns from the medieval period and later traced
Speaker 1: back to the work of Catisus of Natos, who was
Speaker 1: a Greek physician and historian who lived around four b C.
Speaker 1: And Ktisius's description goes back to what is now India.
Speaker 1: To be clear, Catius had not been to India. He
Speaker 1: lived in and traveled through Persia for about seventeen years
Speaker 1: while working as court physician to Achimanid kings Darius the
Speaker 1: second and Artisserxes the second. He met people who had
Speaker 1: traveled and traded along the Silk Road, and he wrote
Speaker 1: what he heard from them in his book Indica. This
Speaker 1: book is believed to be the first Greek work entirely
Speaker 1: about India. It wasn't particularly accurate Thoughts left Artisserses service
Speaker 1: around or three seven b c e and went back
Speaker 1: to Greece. That was only after that point that he
Speaker 1: wrote his Indica, along with a similar book that was
Speaker 1: on Persia. A lot of what he wrote was probably
Speaker 1: second hand at best. He learned it from people whose
Speaker 1: travels might not have taken them all that close to
Speaker 1: the Indian subcontinent. He also documented stories from myths and
Speaker 1: epic poems as though they were just straightforward fat. To
Speaker 1: make matters worse, we don't have a complete copy of
Speaker 1: the Indica today, we just have fragments and quotes from
Speaker 1: it in the work of later writers, many of whom
Speaker 1: really thought he was a crackpot. In the Indicatsias describes
Speaker 1: quote certain wild asses there as big as a horse
Speaker 1: or bigger, as well as being strong and so fast
Speaker 1: that no other animal can outrun them. Catsius describes these
Speaker 1: animals as white with a crimson head, with a horn
Speaker 1: growing from their brow that's half a cubit in length.
Speaker 1: That's works out too approximately nine inches or twenty three centimeters.
Speaker 1: The horn is white at the bottom, black in the middle,
Speaker 1: and crimson at the tip. According to Ctesius, the meat
Speaker 1: of these animals is too bitter to eat, but they
Speaker 1: are hunted for their horns and their ankle bones or talus's.
Speaker 1: If somebody drinks from a cup made out of the horn,
Speaker 1: they're immune to poison and to seizures. The animals talus bone,
Speaker 1: also called the astragolis, is exceptionally beautiful and heavy, which
Speaker 1: is important because these bones were used to make dice
Speaker 1: for both divination and gaming. In Ktisius's account, this wild
Speaker 1: ass cannot be captured alive, so people hunt them by
Speaker 1: surrounding them in a pasture when they're with their young,
Speaker 1: and then using arrows and javelins. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of opinions about exactly what animal Ktisis might have been
Speaker 1: describing here. Poet and professor O'Dell Shepherd published a book
Speaker 1: called The Lore of the Unicorn in nine that's still
Speaker 1: cited today, and he can louted that Catsius conflated three
Speaker 1: different animals, a wild ass, a rhinoceros, and a cheru
Speaker 1: also called the Tibetan antelope. Others conclude that it is
Speaker 1: just one animal, a badly described rhinoceros, and that Catsius
Speaker 1: thought the horn was multicolored because he had seen rhinoceros
Speaker 1: horn cups that were decorated that way. One of the
Speaker 1: question marks here involves that talus bone. Although Catsius did
Speaker 1: not say he had personally ever seen one of these animals,
Speaker 1: he did say he had seen it's a stragg list.
Speaker 1: He described it as looking like the astragg list of
Speaker 1: an ox. Typically, the ankle bones of hoofed animals were
Speaker 1: the ones that were used to make dice, and oxen
Speaker 1: have hooves, so that makes sense. But a rhinoceros does
Speaker 1: not have hooves, and if Catsius saw one of their
Speaker 1: talus bones, he probably would not have described it as
Speaker 1: the most beautiful as stragglers he had ever seen, which
Speaker 1: is what he said about the unicorn. But own, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, tasteberries. Writing a few decades later, Aristotle was
Speaker 1: dismissive of Catsius's work, but he's still referenced to the
Speaker 1: quote Indian ass. In his The History of Animals, he
Speaker 1: wrote quote, some animals have horns, others have none. Most
Speaker 1: of those with horns also have cloven feet, as the ox,
Speaker 1: the stag, and the goat. We have never seen an
Speaker 1: animal with a solid hoof with two horns, and there
Speaker 1: are only a few that have a solid hoof and
Speaker 1: one horn, as the Indian ass and the orix. Of
Speaker 1: all animals with a solid hoof, the Indian ass alone
Speaker 1: has a talus. It is not clear what animal Aristotle
Speaker 1: was talking about when he mentioned the orix here, since
Speaker 1: the orax is a real animal and it has two horns.
Speaker 1: But the history of animals reinforced this idea that in India,
Speaker 1: and maybe also in Africa, since Orax has lived there,
Speaker 1: there was a unique animal that had only one horn,
Speaker 1: whose horn had some special property eives. In general, one
Speaker 1: horned animals were clearly seen as remarkable and worthy of note.
Speaker 1: Julius Caesar's commentaries on the Gallic Wars, written around fifty
Speaker 1: b C, includes descriptions of the strange animals of the
Speaker 1: Hersinian forest. One is an animal that has the shape
Speaker 1: of an ox and a deer, but with one horn
Speaker 1: branched like a hand, stretching out from its forehead in
Speaker 1: between its ears. Sometimes this gets kind of distilled. To
Speaker 1: Julius Caesar said there were unicorns in Germany. Plenty of
Speaker 1: the Elder's Natural History, published in seventy seven CE, describes
Speaker 1: an Indian animal with one horn in a way that
Speaker 1: seems to have come from Catsius's earlier writing, but he
Speaker 1: goes on to say that people in India hunt quote
Speaker 1: a very fierce animal called the monocaros, which has the
Speaker 1: head of stag, the feet of the elephant, and the
Speaker 1: tail of the bore, while the rest of the body
Speaker 1: is like that of the horse. It makes a deep,
Speaker 1: lowing noise and has a single black horn which projects
Speaker 1: from the middle of its forehead two cubits in the length.
Speaker 1: This animal, it is said, cannot be taken alive. Later
Speaker 1: Roman writers returned again to Catsius's description, including alien around
Speaker 1: the second century. Aliens description is quite similar to the
Speaker 1: one of Catsius, except he describes the animal's body as
Speaker 1: red with a black horn. By about this point, an
Speaker 1: animal called the monoceros was becoming used as a symbol
Speaker 1: or allegory in Christian artwork. There are a whole lot
Speaker 1: of depictions that today we would call unicorns that are
Speaker 1: represented in mosaics and reliefs and tapestries and manuscript illuminations.
Speaker 1: Unicorns came to represent purity and chastity, as well as
Speaker 1: sometimes representing Jesus Christ. A round the year one ninety
Speaker 1: or Tullian of Carthage wrote that the unicorns horn represented
Speaker 1: the Cross. Depictions of unicorns being hunted often included wounds
Speaker 1: that were reminiscent of Jesus Christ's wounds during his crucifixion,
Speaker 1: and sometimes maidens that were depicted along with the unicorn
Speaker 1: were meant to represent the Virgin Mary. By about the
Speaker 1: third century CE, the Greek word minosterros had made its
Speaker 1: way into translations of the Christian Bible in place of
Speaker 1: the Hebrew word re m. In modern Hebrew, this is
Speaker 1: often translated as orix, although there is some argument that
Speaker 1: it references the now extinct rox. Just to be clear,
Speaker 1: since we got a lot of email the last time
Speaker 1: these came up, the rix o r y x is
Speaker 1: an antelope with long horns. It still lives today, but
Speaker 1: the rax a u r o c hs is a
Speaker 1: bovine species that is now extinct. Over time, the Greek
Speaker 1: word minosterros was translated as the Latin word unicornis way
Speaker 1: back at the beginning of this episode, we talked about
Speaker 1: epic poems in which wild men were captured by a maid,
Speaker 1: and by the fourth century this idea had also folded
Speaker 1: into the unicorn lore. Instead of being impossible to catch alive.
Speaker 1: Unicorns were depicted as approachable only by virtuous young women.
Speaker 1: One of the earliest appearances of this idea is in
Speaker 1: the collection known as the Physiologists, whose author is unknown.
Speaker 1: This is a beastiary written sometime between the second and
Speaker 1: fourth centuries, and one passage describes the unicorn as strong
Speaker 1: and fierce and capable of being caught only with the
Speaker 1: help of a maid. In his Etymologies, Spanish cleric Isadore
Speaker 1: of Seville wrote of the monoceros as a tremendously strong animal,
Speaker 1: capable of killing elephants with its horn. Isadora agreed with
Speaker 1: the author of the Physiologists. According to Isadore, that there
Speaker 1: was only one way to catch it. Quote. If a
Speaker 1: virgin girl is placed in front of a unicorn and
Speaker 1: she bears her breast to it, all of its fierceness
Speaker 1: will cease, and it will lay its head on her bosom,
Speaker 1: and thus quieted, it is easily caught past podcast subject.
Speaker 1: Hildegard of Bingen also wrote about maidens catching unicorns in
Speaker 1: the eleventh century, with various parts of the unicorn having
Speaker 1: medicinal value. Mentions of the unicorn were not exclusive to
Speaker 1: Christian texts during this period. Islamic text described an animal
Speaker 1: called the carcadan, which physically resembled a rhinoceros and could
Speaker 1: be lured by a maiden. That animal's horn was also
Speaker 1: reported to treat poisoning. During the medieval period, unicorns proliferated
Speaker 1: in stories, poems, religious writings, beast theories, illuminated manuscripts just
Speaker 1: on and on, and they were also used in heraldry,
Speaker 1: for example, as part of the royal coat of arms
Speaker 1: of Scotland, which included a lion on a golden shield,
Speaker 1: supported on either side by a white unicorn bound in
Speaker 1: a golden chain. When James the sixth of Scotland ascended
Speaker 1: to the English throne as James the First in sixteen
Speaker 1: o three, the coat of arms retained the Scottish unicorn
Speaker 1: on one side, replacing it with a lion on the other.
Speaker 1: The idea that the unicorns horn could cure or prevent
Speaker 1: poisoning went all the way back to Catsius, and by
Speaker 1: the twelfth century people were selling purported unicorn horns. These
Speaker 1: were usually off white or ivory colored. They were long
Speaker 1: and narrow and spiraled, and so valuable and rare that
Speaker 1: they were passed down within royal and noble families will
Speaker 1: come back to these later. By the fourteenth century, belief
Speaker 1: in unicorns was widespread enough in Europe that people used
Speaker 1: the term to describe very real and pretty ordinary animals.
Speaker 1: Here is something Marco Polo wrote about what he saw
Speaker 1: in Sumatra. Quote. There are wild elephants in the country,
Speaker 1: and numerous unicorns, which are very nearly as big. They
Speaker 1: have hair like that of a buffalo, feet like those
Speaker 1: of an elephant, and a horn in the middle of
Speaker 1: the forehead, which is black and very thick. They do
Speaker 1: no mischief, however, with the horn, but with the tongue alone,
Speaker 1: for this is covered all over with long and strong prickles,
Speaker 1: And when savage with anyone, they crush him under their
Speaker 1: knees and then rasp him with their tongue. The head
Speaker 1: resembles that of a wild boar, and they carry it
Speaker 1: ever bent towards the ground. They delight much to abide
Speaker 1: in Meyer and mud. 'tis a passing, ugly beast to
Speaker 1: look upon, And it's not in the least like that
Speaker 1: which our stories tell of as being caught in the
Speaker 1: lap of a virgin. In fact, is altogether different from
Speaker 1: what we fancied. This is pretty clearly a description of
Speaker 1: a Sumatran rhinoceros, although that species really has two horns,
Speaker 1: with the larger nearer to the nose and the smaller
Speaker 1: one often just a little nub behind it. It really
Speaker 1: cracks me up that for Marco Polo it was a
Speaker 1: shorter walk to Wow. Unicorns sure are ugly, and this
Speaker 1: is different some other animals. We will get to the
Speaker 1: tapestries that inspired this episode after we take another quick
Speaker 1: sponsor break. Now we are finally to the subject that
Speaker 1: prompted me to do this episode, which is tapestries, specifically
Speaker 1: mild fleur or thousand flower tapestries. These have a background
Speaker 1: that are almost totally covered in these tiny flowers and plants.
Speaker 1: This style of tapestry was popular in the late fifteenth
Speaker 1: and early sixteenth centuries in Europe, especially in France and
Speaker 1: the Low Countries. There were lots of tapestries made in
Speaker 1: this style, and there are two different sets that depict
Speaker 1: unicorns that are still in existence today and are among
Speaker 1: the greatest works of medieval artwork that we still have.
Speaker 1: One which we at the top of the show is
Speaker 1: the Lady in the Unicorn. This is a set of
Speaker 1: six tapestries made around fifteen hundred. The Music de Cluny
Speaker 1: acquired them in eighteen eighty two after they were discovered
Speaker 1: at a chateau a couple of decades before, where they
Speaker 1: were being damaged by dampness and rodents. Five of them
Speaker 1: represent the five senses touch, taste, smell, hearing, sight, and
Speaker 1: the sixth is called a Monsieur lizier or to my
Speaker 1: only desire. It's named for the words displayed on a
Speaker 1: tent shown in the tapestry. Like the name suggests, each
Speaker 1: of them depicts a lady in a unicorn. Each one
Speaker 1: also features a lion, and some also include other women
Speaker 1: or other animals, or sometimes both. The plants and animals
Speaker 1: that fill the backgrounds of these tapestries are real. They
Speaker 1: show things like oak and orange trees, holly, monkeys, rabbits, dogs,
Speaker 1: and various birds. They're also all clearly meant to be
Speaker 1: a set. They all have the same red background. The
Speaker 1: coat of arms of the Leaviste family is incorporated into
Speaker 1: each of them, and the elegant lady and the unicorn
Speaker 1: are always shown in a blue oval. Each of these
Speaker 1: tapestries has the lady doing something that's associated with the
Speaker 1: sense that is being portrayed, So in the one representing touch,
Speaker 1: she's touching the unicorn's horn, and in sight she is
Speaker 1: holding a mirror. It's really not known who wove these
Speaker 1: tapestries or where or which member of the Laviste family
Speaker 1: commissioned to them, which is presumably how they came to
Speaker 1: be made, and then there's debate about how to interpret them.
Speaker 1: Are they a meditation on the senses, is a monsour disy,
Speaker 1: a sixth sense, or some aspect that united all of
Speaker 1: the other senses, or just something else we haven't figured
Speaker 1: out yet. In that tapestry, the lady is placing some
Speaker 1: jewelry in a chest held by a maid, or perhaps
Speaker 1: removing the jewelry, and we don't know what is their significance.
Speaker 1: The other major set of unicorn tapestries is that the
Speaker 1: met cloisters in New York City, and it is a
Speaker 1: sequence depicting a hunt for the unicorn. There's some debate
Speaker 1: about what order these are meant to be shown in,
Speaker 1: as well as whether the ones that are generally listed
Speaker 1: first and last are really part of that same set.
Speaker 1: With those two included, they are the hunters enter the woods,
Speaker 1: the unicorn purifies water, the unicorn crosses a stream, the
Speaker 1: unicorn defense himself, the unicorn surrenders to a maiden, the
Speaker 1: hunters returned to the castle, and lastly, the unicorn rests
Speaker 1: in a garden, which is also called the unicorn in captivity.
Speaker 1: These were probably woven between four and fifteen o five,
Speaker 1: but they were first documented in sight in the home
Speaker 1: of Francois the six de la Rochefuco. The tapestry stayed
Speaker 1: in the La Rochuco family until the and Revolution, when
Speaker 1: they were looted but ultimately returned. John D. Rockefeller Jr.
Speaker 1: Bought them in nineteen twenty three and donated them to
Speaker 1: the met Cloisters in nineteen thirty seven. With the exception
Speaker 1: of the unicorn surrenders to the maiden, much of that
Speaker 1: one is missing, probably due to damage. After the tapestries
Speaker 1: were looted during the French Revolution. Rockefeller bought the remaining
Speaker 1: pieces separately after learning that the family still had them
Speaker 1: and that parts of them were being used to plug
Speaker 1: up drafty walls. As with the lady in the Unicorn tapestries,
Speaker 1: we don't know for sure who commissioned these or exactly
Speaker 1: where they were made, but each of them includes the
Speaker 1: letter A and a backward E, and that might be
Speaker 1: a clue. It's possible that these are made in celebration
Speaker 1: of the marriage of Anne of Brittany to Louis the
Speaker 1: twelfth in fourteen ninety nine. There's debate about how to
Speaker 1: interpret these tapestries as well. One interpretation is that the
Speaker 1: unicorn hunt is an allegory for the crucifixion of Jesus
Speaker 1: as Christ, and that if the unicorn rests in a
Speaker 1: garden is really part of the set, it's meant to
Speaker 1: represent the unicorn in a paradise or a unicorn that
Speaker 1: has been resurrected. Discussions of the symbolism in these tapestries
Speaker 1: extend not only to their subjects, but also to the
Speaker 1: plants and the animals in the militia background. These tapestry
Speaker 1: sets were made as European belief in unicorns as real
Speaker 1: magical animals was really approaching its peak, but by the
Speaker 1: late sixteenth century, more and more people were starting to
Speaker 1: express some skepticism about this. One was past podcast subject
Speaker 1: Emoise Pare, who described the unicorn as quote more imagined
Speaker 1: than real and natural in his Book of Venoms in
Speaker 1: fifteen seventy nine. His fifteen eighty two discourse on the
Speaker 1: Unicorn expressed his doubts about both unicorns as a real
Speaker 1: animal and cures that were supposedly made from their horns.
Speaker 1: An anonymously pub was Rebuttal compared Parade to the devil,
Speaker 1: and he responded by publishing retort of amboise parade to
Speaker 1: the response made against his Discourse of the Unicorn. This
Speaker 1: led to a whole huge back and forth that escalated
Speaker 1: all the way to people denouncing him to already the
Speaker 1: Third of France and Catherine de Medici. I love this
Speaker 1: idea of writing papers back and forth to yell at
Speaker 1: one another. Yeah it was. It's the slow Burn way
Speaker 1: to be angry. Yeah it was. It was like a
Speaker 1: Reddit thread. But in fifteen two. In the sixteenth and
Speaker 1: seventeenth centuries, sailors from places like Italy, Spain and Britain
Speaker 1: started voyaging farther into the Arctic searching for a passage
Speaker 1: to Asia, and they encountered an animal that people who
Speaker 1: lived in the far northern parts of the world already
Speaker 1: knew about. That was the narwhale. Narwhal's have a long,
Speaker 1: distinctive tooth, usually only one found most often but not exclusively,
Speaker 1: in males. In other words, they look like a way
Speaker 1: oh with a unicorn horn. It did not take long
Speaker 1: for people to make the connection between this long, straight,
Speaker 1: spiraling whale tooth and the alcorns or unicorn horns that
Speaker 1: had been passed down through families as remedies for poison.
Speaker 1: It's likely that some of these were made by other means,
Speaker 1: like getting a tusk of something else and like boiling
Speaker 1: it until it was soft enough to make it straighter
Speaker 1: in spirally. But in sixteen thirteen, Caspar Bartholn, the elder
Speaker 1: professor of medicine at the University of Copenhagen, started to
Speaker 1: believe that alcorns that were being held in cabinets of
Speaker 1: curiosities and other collections were really from narwhal's. His brother
Speaker 1: in law, Olivorm concluded the same after comparing narwhale skeletons
Speaker 1: with purported unicorn horns. Caspar Son Thomas compiled and synthesized
Speaker 1: their research and added his own material in sixty five,
Speaker 1: publishing it as New Observations about the unicorn. Thomas Bartolin
Speaker 1: concluded that alcorns were real and had powerfully effective medicinal uses,
Speaker 1: but that they were marine tusks, not the horns of
Speaker 1: land animals, so if you needed alcorn, you should buy
Speaker 1: it right from the source, that source being Scandinavian whalers.
Speaker 1: It cracks me up because it was really like these
Speaker 1: ones that come from an industry importance to where we live.
Speaker 1: People didn't entirely give up on the idea of unicorns
Speaker 1: as a real land animal, though. In sixteen sixty three
Speaker 1: a unicorn skeleton was purportedly discovered in a cave in Quedlburg, Germany.
Speaker 1: One of the people who believed that this skeleton was
Speaker 1: the real deal was scientist and mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz.
Speaker 1: This is the person who developed differential and integral calcul
Speaker 1: lists independently of Isaac Newton, so presumably a smart person.
Speaker 1: When writing about this find, he referenced the Bartolon's earlier
Speaker 1: work about sea creatures, but also maintained that this skeleton
Speaker 1: was credible. It's not clear who assembled these bones and
Speaker 1: whether they intentionally did it to be deceptive, but this
Speaker 1: was probably an incomplete hodgepodge of mammoth and rhinoceros bones.
Speaker 1: Also in the seventeenth century, Dutch cartographer Petrus Plantius introduced
Speaker 1: a constellation called Minoceros in the northern sky, surrounded by Oriyan,
Speaker 1: Gemini Hydra, and Canus major. Although belief in real living
Speaker 1: unicorns eventually waned, efforts to find living specimens continued well
Speaker 1: into the nineteenth century, and the scientific effort to categorize
Speaker 1: and classify animals that we talked about in our recent
Speaker 1: episode on the platypus that extended to the unicorn as well.
Speaker 1: For example, George Cuvier, that's the person who thought the
Speaker 1: platypus belonged in the same order as ant eaters and spots.
Speaker 1: He argued that unicorns were anatomically impossible because they were
Speaker 1: typically depicted as having cloven hoofs, which meant that their
Speaker 1: skull could only produce two horns, not one. By the
Speaker 1: twentieth century, some people had moved from looking for unicorns
Speaker 1: to making them. Franklin Dove, biologists at the University of Maine,
Speaker 1: published works on horn physiology in the nineteen thirties, including
Speaker 1: surgically altering animals so that they would grow only one horn.
Speaker 1: Dove had been fascinated by stories of African herders manipulating
Speaker 1: the horns of their livestock so that they had only
Speaker 1: one horn or many, or horns that grew in interesting shapes,
Speaker 1: as well as herders in Nepal who had manipulated their
Speaker 1: rams to grow only a single horn. In May of
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty six, Dove published an article in Scientific Monthly
Speaker 1: called Artificial Production of the Fabulous Unicorn. He described how
Speaker 1: goats are born with two horn buds, and for about
Speaker 1: the first week of their life, those buds are part
Speaker 1: of their skin, not attached to their skull. So it
Speaker 1: was possible to surgically move the buds from the sides
Speaker 1: of the upper head to the middle so they would
Speaker 1: be next to each other, and then they would grow
Speaker 1: with the appearance of only one horn. Oberon Zel, also
Speaker 1: known as Oberon Zell Ravenhart built on this work in
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies and eighties, applying for a patent on
Speaker 1: a surgical procedure under the name Timothy G. Z l
Speaker 1: In two. This patent was granted in nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 1: It describes a method for surgically repositioning in animal's horn
Speaker 1: buds so they grow at the appearance of only one horn.
Speaker 1: In addition to this surgical technique, Zell cross different breeds
Speaker 1: of goat so that they would have the silky hair
Speaker 1: of an angora, but with somewhat longer legs. Zell performed
Speaker 1: with the resulting animals at Renaissance Bears before signing a
Speaker 1: contract with Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus, with
Speaker 1: a goat named Lancelot and his brothers joining the show.
Speaker 1: The circus maintained that Lancelot was a real, living unicorn
Speaker 1: who had just wandered up to one of their tents
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty four, and the goat was one of
Speaker 1: the circus's main acts In and eighty six. Ringling Brothers
Speaker 1: faced huge criticism from animal rights groups, including the Humane
Speaker 1: Society and the A s p c A, as well
Speaker 1: as multiple U. S d A inspections involving these animals.
Speaker 1: In early nine six, the animals were briefly confiscated following
Speaker 1: allegations that the circus was violating animal rights laws that
Speaker 1: banned the use of disfigured animals as entertainment. Purported unicorn
Speaker 1: discovery still occasionally make headlines. In A sloppy English translation
Speaker 1: of a release from the Korean Central News Agency led
Speaker 1: to a bunch of headlines that archaeologists in Pyongyang had
Speaker 1: discovered a unicor horns layer. There's a lot about this
Speaker 1: story that's unclear, from the exact site that was being
Speaker 1: described to why the English translation was worded the way
Speaker 1: that it was. But what the announcement was really about
Speaker 1: was a place called Kieran Ghoul or Kieran's Grotto, which
Speaker 1: is associated with King Tong Young, founder of the ancient
Speaker 1: kingdom of Cogurio, not a grotto belonging to a literal
Speaker 1: Kieran or a layer of an actual unicorn. And of
Speaker 1: course there are seemingly infinite unicorns and pop culture today.
Speaker 1: Trying to cover all of them would be a whole
Speaker 1: different podcast. I have one I want to talk about
Speaker 1: in our behind the scenes just quite a unicorn. We
Speaker 1: can do that, but a take on the unicorn story
Speaker 1: and its medicinal value. Do you have listener mail though
Speaker 1: I do. It's from Katie and it's about our recent
Speaker 1: Unearthed where we talked about the ethics of DNA research,
Speaker 1: and Katie wrote to say dear ally and Tracy just
Speaker 1: wanted to write a quick note about something you mentioned
Speaker 1: in your Unearthed part one this year and your discussion
Speaker 1: of the DNA analysis of sitting bowls hair, you mentioned
Speaker 1: that an ethical code for ancient DNA research was published
Speaker 1: in October in Nature. That code, while a good first step,
Speaker 1: was not without its problems and controversies. It was drafted
Speaker 1: by a group of over sixty active ancient DNA researchers
Speaker 1: out of a virtual meeting in However, multiple active ancient
Speaker 1: DNA researchers, several of whom are indigenous and who are
Speaker 1: extremely active in the global discussion of the ethics of
Speaker 1: ancient DNA and indigenous DNA in particular. We're not invited
Speaker 1: to that meeting. Just wanted to direct your attention to
Speaker 1: some of the excellent commentary by several of those scientists
Speaker 1: on those guidelines. See this commentary in the New York
Speaker 1: Times as well as this response piece in Nature. Thank
Speaker 1: you for all of your excellent work. Love your work
Speaker 1: from me and Miriam Rouge too. It's from Katie. I
Speaker 1: think Miriam Regrew is a PETS maybe, but I have not.
Speaker 1: The picture was broken unfortunately, so yes Um, I did
Speaker 1: not actually see any of this commentary because I had
Speaker 1: been trying to figure out where whether it's to talk
Speaker 1: in more detail about the DNA Code of Ethics that
Speaker 1: was published late last year, and I wound up just
Speaker 1: including it as like a one sentence aside, and I
Speaker 1: did not look further into all of the discussion around it,
Speaker 1: which I would have done with a longer treatment. So
Speaker 1: I'm sorry for dropping the ball on that, and thank
Speaker 1: you Katie for bringing my attention to it. Um. I
Speaker 1: did read the New York Times commentary. I was gonna
Speaker 1: say the response piece in Nature is behind a paywall.
Speaker 1: Probably the commentary of the New York Times is also
Speaker 1: behind a paywall, but I have access to the New
Speaker 1: York Times, so um, I have not been able to
Speaker 1: look at the response piece in Nature yet. But yeah,
Speaker 1: the point was aid in the New York Times article
Speaker 1: that like some of the voices who would be most
Speaker 1: important to this discussion, because one of the really critical
Speaker 1: pieces of it is thoughtfully and ethically dealing with the
Speaker 1: DNA of indigenous people, like the researchers who are specifically
Speaker 1: involved with in that, we're not involved in the conversation.
Speaker 1: So thank you Katie for that note. If you would
Speaker 1: like to send us a note about this or any
Speaker 1: other podcast or a history podcast that I heart Radio
Speaker 1: dot com and we're all over social media. Missed in
Speaker 1: History and so we'll find our Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.
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Speaker 1: Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of
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