--- title: New Ancient Discoveries from 2025 description: "During the Age of Discovery, from the 15th to the 17th centuries, European explorers set out from their continent to chart every corner of the known world. Names like Magellan, Columbus, and da Gama became famous, even in their own time, for navigating uncharted waters and \"discovering\" lands previously unknown to Europeans, returning home with new trinkets and ever more fantastical stories. Yet this era was as much an age of misinformation, false credit, and fantasy as it was one of genuine discovery.\n\nTake Columbus, for example, who famously \"discovered\" a new world after having \"discovered\" the size of the Earth by studying the writings of ancient scholars. In reality, the lands he encountered were already home to millions of people, his calculations were off by as much as one-third, and he died believing he had found a direct sea route to India rather than an entirely separate continent on the opposite side of the globe, despite evidence in his own lifetime proving otherwise. And he was far from alone.\n\nEach falsified or misunderstood discovery spawned dozens of faulty maps, leading to dangerous and pointless expeditions, vast sums of money and countless lives wasted, and even more misinformation spread to the wider world. So, today, we'll take a look at five discoveries from this era that took the world by storm, only to later be revealed as exaggerated, or discredited entirely.\n\n## St. Brendan's Isle\n\nAs the oldest discovery on our list, St. Brendan's Isle predates the Age of Discovery by nearly a full millennium. Even so, it became deeply intertwined with the era, fueling both legend and real-world exploration. In Christian tradition, Saint Brendan of Clonfert was a monk born near Tralee Bay in County Kerry, Ireland, sometime around 484 AD. Widely regarded as a real historical figure, Brendan earned his reputation as a seafarer, reportedly traveling to Scotland, Wales, and Brittany to spread his faith and establish monasteries along the way. Accomplishments that ultimately earned him the title of St. Brendan the Navigator.\n\nHowever, it wasn't these journeys that ultimately secured his place in history among the great discoverers, but rather the legendary adventures first recorded in a 9th-century Latin manuscript titled *Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis*, or *The Voyages of St. Brendan the Abbot*. According to these accounts, before embarking on his real-world travels, Brendan was visited by a fellow monk who fascinated him with stories of the \"Promised Land of the Saints,\" said to lie far to the west, somewhere in the Atlantic. In later retellings, this land was sometimes equated with the Garden of Eden, but in its earliest descriptions it was a distinct paradise. One filled with lush vegetation and untouched by night or darkness. Inspired by these stories, Brendan assembled a small group of monks, with the exact number varying by version, and together they built a modest boat, stocked it with provisions, and set sail westward across the Atlantic Ocean.\n\nOver a grueling seven-year voyage, St. Brendan's crew encountered a series of strange and mysterious lands, some of which they reportedly visited multiple times. These included the Island of Sheep, the Island of Grapes, and the Island of Birds, locations often interpreted as allegorical versions of the Faroe Islands or the Hebrides. The crew also claimed to have seen a towering crystal pillar and a mountain that spewed flames, features many later readers have taken to be stand-ins for a glacier and a volcano, respectively.\n\nHowever, several of the voyage's reported discoveries are far less easily explained. Among them was a sea so clear that the travelers could supposedly see all the way to the seabed, as well as a dog that led them to an empty building containing a banquet laid out just for the crew as they were on the verge of starvation. Equally fantastical, St. Brendan and his companions were said to have stopped on a small island to make camp, only for it to begin moving beneath them. The \"island,\" it turned out, was actually a giant fish named Jasconius, who took offense to a fire being lit on its back. Eventually, the crew reached the \"Promised Land,\" where they remained for forty days, gathering gemstones and provisions before returning home to Ireland. From that point on, the mythical island became inseparably linked with St. Brendan, who was widely credited with its discovery.\n\nIn reality, the story was likely influenced by earlier Irish legends, and a 12th-century translation by the cleric Benedeit became one of the earliest surviving works of Anglo-Norman literature. By the Age of Discovery, St. Brendan's Isle was widely accepted as fact throughout Europe and appeared on maps from the 13th to the 18th centuries, often labeled as \"St. Brendan's Isle\" or \"San Borondón.\" Early maps placed the island somewhere southwest of England and Ireland and east of Newfoundland, Canada, though its exact location varied widely, appearing sporadically across the North and western Atlantic. Eventually, consensus shifted toward locating the island off the west coast of Africa near the Canary Islands, whose inhabitants embraced St. Brendan's Isle as part of their cultural heritage, depicting it in local art and literature throughout the archipelago from the 16th century onward.\n\nAs a result, many notable explorers, including Henry the Navigator and Christopher Columbus, believed in the veracity of St. Brendan's Isle, as did numerous other influential figures of the era. One such believer was Hernán Pérez de Grado, the first regent of the Royal Canary Islands Court, who in 1566 ordered an official investigation into the island. An effort that, unsurprisingly, produced no results. In the years that followed, several individuals claimed to have rediscovered or sighted the island in the distance, including sea captains, traveling monks, and local religious figures.\n\nAfter Europeans discovered and began exploring the Americas, theories emerged suggesting that St. Brendan's Promised Land was actually the New World itself, fueling speculation and claims of pre-Columbian discovery. Although the island's depiction on maps was eventually phased out, rumors of its existence have persisted well into the modern era. In 1957, photographer Manuel Rodríguez Quintero captured an image from a hillside on La Palma, one of the Canary Islands, showing what appeared to be a rocky landmass on the horizon where only open ocean should have been.\n\nDespite St. Brendan's Isle having long been dismissed as myth, the Spanish press quickly seized on the image, promoting it as evidence of the island's long-lost existence. Nearly twenty years later, in 1976, British explorer Tim Severin attempted to demonstrate that a voyage like St. Brendan's was at least possible. Building a curragh, a traditional oxhide boat, Severin successfully sailed from Ireland to Newfoundland with a small crew. While this did not prove that the legendary journey ever occurred, it demonstrated how readily people remain willing to embrace a 1,500-year-old story, especially when it offers the chance to rewrite history.\n\n## Frisland\n\nAs we've already seen, nearly everyone during this period was eager to fund, launch, or even personally join expeditions of their own. After all, each new discovery brought fame and, often, unimaginable wealth, with entire families rising to prominence based solely on their ancestors' exploits. One such family was the Zenos of Venice. In 1558, a man named Nicolò Zeno claimed to have discovered a series of letters stored in his family's home, written between his ancestors, brothers Antonio and Nicolò Zeno, local noblemen and navigators from the late 14th century. Nicolò the younger then published these letters, which immediately captured the public's imagination.\n\nIn the correspondence, the elder Nicolò describes being blown off course while en route from Venice to England in 1380. According to the letters, he became stranded on an island located between England and Iceland, which he called \"Frisland\" and claimed was larger than Ireland. After his shipwreck, Nicolò wrote that he was rescued by a local ruler named Zichmni, who invited the Venetian into his court and showed him around the island. Frisland was said to contain several towns with suspiciously Italian-sounding names, such as Vena and Neome, despite its supposed location in the North Atlantic. Zichmni, who apparently took a liking to his new guest, then invited both Nicolò and his brother Antonio to remain at court. After making the journey from Venice, Antonio joined his brother, and the two reportedly enlisted in the Frisland navy and stayed on the island for 14 years.\n\nWhile serving in the navy, the brothers were tasked with attacking neighboring islands, beginning with one known as \"Islanda.\" After the locals successfully beat them back, the Zenos turned their attention to several smaller nearby islands with names such as \"Broas,\" \"Bres,\" and \"Damberc.\" Having proven their worth to Zichmni, the brothers became close advisors and companions to the ruler, who increasingly relied on them to lead expeditions in his name. Nicolò claimed that he was later sent to Greenland, where he discovered a monastery equipped with central heating.\n\nSometime afterward, the letters describe fishermen arriving on Frisland who claimed to have been traveling for twenty-five years, sailing far to the west to lands called \"Estotiland\" and \"Drogeo,\" said to be rich in vegetation and inhabited by fearsome cannibals. By this point, Nicolò had reportedly died on Frisland, leaving Antonio as admiral of Zichmni's fleet. In this role, Antonio was tasked with sailing west in search of these fabled lands on the ruler's behalf, a journey he claimed to have completed before returning to Frisland and, eventually, Venice.\n\nIn addition to his ancestors' written accounts, the younger Nicolò Zeno also claimed to have discovered a map depicting many of the lands encountered by the brothers. Almost overnight, Europeans became infatuated with the Zeno Map and the brothers' supposed discoveries, attempting to link the map's locations to real-world geography. One popular theory suggested that the smaller islands where the brothers fought their naval battles were stand-ins for the Shetland Islands, implying that the conflict took place off the coast of Scotland. Under this interpretation, \"Islanda\" was thought to be a misspelling or misunderstanding of Iceland, while \"Estotiland\" was believed to represent North America, specifically Newfoundland and Labrador.\n\nIn this same theory, Zichmni was identified as the nobleman Henry Sinclair, Earl of Orkney and Lord High Admiral of Scotland. In reality, however, the entire story was likely a fabrication by the younger Nicolò, intended to establish a Zeno family claim to the discovery of the New World a full century before Columbus. Yet even at the time, it was not this claim that most captivated European audiences, but the idea of Frisland itself, an island that several prominent cartographers and explorers genuinely believed to exist.\n\nShortly after Nicolò's announcement, Frisland began appearing on maps of the North Atlantic, though its location, shape, and even spelling shifted frequently. It even found its way onto Gerardus Mercator's influential 1569 world map, as well as his later 1595 map of the North Pole. Likely inspired by Mercator's inclusion, Abraham Ortelius featured Frisland in his 1570 work *Theatrum Orbis Terrarum*, widely regarded as the first modern atlas.\n\nDespite the improbability of the story, and the fact that no one ever actually landed on the island after the Zenos' supposed discovery, Frisland continued to grow in notoriety. Experienced navigators even claimed to have seen it in the distance while sailing past its \"known\" locations. In 1580, Queen Elizabeth I's advisor John Dee went so far as to claim the island in the name of England, ensuring that, should Frisland ever be found, the English crown would already possess a legal claim. Over time, however, the wider world slowly came to realize that Nicolò Zeno had likely fabricated the entire story. By the mid-18th century, Frisland had quietly vanished from maps altogether.\n\n## The North Pole\n\nAlthough the Age of Discovery is most often associated with places like the New World and the Pacific Ocean, one of the most important regions of interest for cartographers and explorers was the North Pole and the surrounding Arctic. While this area remained deeply mysterious to Europeans, holding the promise of unimaginable discoveries, many were drawn to it for more practical reasons, namely, the possibility of shorter sea routes. In theory, navigating the Arctic Ocean would allow sailors to bypass entire continents, traveling between the New World, Europe, and Asia without having to sail around massive landmasses or pass through regions controlled by rival powers. As a result, the Arctic became one of Europe's greatest hopes for open global trade routes, giving rise to numerous myths and false discoveries, including the Rupes Nigra, a colossal black rock said to lie at the heart of the North Pole.\n\nAccording to Gerardus Mercator, writing in a 1577 letter to Queen Elizabeth I's advisor John Dee, the earliest mention of the Rupes Nigra appeared in the *Inventio Fortunata*, or *Fortunate Discovery*. This was supposedly a 14th-century Latin travelogue written by a Franciscan friar from Oxford, sometimes identified as Nicholas of Lynn, though this attribution remains debated among scholars. The friar was said to have been commissioned by King Edward III to undertake several voyages around the North Atlantic, documenting his observations for the English crown.\n\nHowever, the *Inventio Fortunata* itself survives only through references. It was cited by Jacobus Cnoyen in his *Itinerarium*, another lost work whose primary source appears to have been Mercator's letter. In that letter, Mercator claimed the original, now-lost text described the friar's travels around the Arctic, including a journey that allegedly reached the North Pole itself.\n\nThe North Pole was described as the meeting place of four separate continents, one of which was said to be home to a race of pygmies. At the center lay a massive whirlpool that drew water inward and funneled it into four major sea routes between the continents. From there, the water was believed to flow out to the rest of the world, supplying Earth's oceans. At the heart of this whirling sea sat a giant black magnetic rock known as the Rupes Nigra, said to measure \"33 French miles\" in circumference and to be the force that caused all compasses to point north. Mercator believed in this vision of the North Pole so strongly that he included it on his influential maps, leading most cartographers to reproduce it in their own maps and atlases well into the 18th century.\n\nYet among all the rumors and myths surrounding the North Pole, none proved as enduring or influential as the Northwest Passage, or its entrance. Both were considered essential discoveries that nearly every explorer of the era sought to find. These legendary routes promised to open global trade by providing a direct maritime link between continents. Unlike today, when the Arctic is known to be perpetually frozen and extremely treacherous, many Europeans at the time believed in the theory of an Open Polar Sea.\n\nThis theory held that warm ocean currents surrounded the North Pole, creating open, navigable waters free of glaciers or landmasses. The supposed entrance to this warm Northwest Passage was known as the Strait of Anian, which was believed to lie between two continents near the Arctic Circle. Although the origins of the strait remain unclear, it first appeared on a 1562 map by Giacomo Gastaldi. Soon after, other cartographers, likely basing their work on his, began including it in their own maps and atlases. Before long, the Strait of Anian was accepted as fact and was frequently depicted just north of the mythical Island of California, though more on that soon. As a result, many notable navigators, including Sir Francis Drake, Vitus Bering, and John Cabot, searched for the strait and the warm Northwest Passage it supposedly led to. In 1592, Greek sailor Juan de Fuca even claimed to have discovered the passage, followed in 1640 by Bartholomew de Fonte, claims that only further fueled the rumors.\n\nThen, in the late 18th century, Captain James Cook made it his mission to search for the strait and any open sea route along the North American coast. He was soon followed by explorers such as Alexander Mackenzie and George Vancouver, both of whom charted vast stretches of the North Atlantic and Pacific while surveying coastlines and potential passages. In 1771, Samuel Hearne undertook his own expedition, becoming the first European to reach the Arctic Ocean by land after traveling roughly 3,000 miles (4,800 km) from Hudson Bay to the northern coast.\n\nTogether, these expeditions demonstrated that the mythical warm passage and the Strait of Anian did not exist and that, beyond any reasonable doubt, the Arctic consisted of frigid waters and landmasses that made navigation extremely difficult. Yet doubt lingered, rumors refused to die, and not everyone was convinced. When President Thomas Jefferson dispatched Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore the newly acquired Louisiana Territory in 1804, part of their official instructions was to search for the strait and the passage. Jefferson himself believed they still existed and, remarkably, that they were connected to the United States through the Mississippi River. While a Northwest Passage does exist today, and a small number of ships traverse it each year, it bears little resemblance to the warm, open waters once promised near the Arctic Circle.\n\n## California Island\n\nLike the rest of Europe, Spain made its fair share of dubious, and at times laughable, claims during this era, particularly regarding the Pacific Ocean and California. Early on, most Europeans believed the ocean west of Europe continued directly to Asia. Even after becoming aware of the Pacific, many explorers still assumed it was a relatively narrow body of water, smaller than the Atlantic and dotted with only a handful of islands separating Asia from the New World. It was only after the discovery of the Americas and the expeditions that followed that Europeans began to grasp just how vast the Pacific truly was. As the largest body of water on Earth, measuring roughly 12,300 miles (19,800 km) at its widest point between Colombia and Indonesia, the Pacific spans nearly half of the planet's circumference. While some Europeans had encountered it through travel and trade in Asia, systematic exploration of the ocean only truly began after the Spanish had already started exploring the Americas.\n\nIn 1513, the interim governor of Darién, Vasco Núñez de Balboa, heard tales of a powerful empire with unimaginable wealth to the south, prompting him to launch an expedition across the Isthmus of Panama in search of it. Eventually, Balboa reached a mountain peak, becoming the first European to sight the Pacific from the Americas. He named it *Mar del Sur*, or the \"South Sea,\" and claimed it for Spain. Eight years later, in 1521, Ferdinand Magellan completed the first documented crossing of the ocean, calling it *Mar Pacífico*, or the \"Peaceful Sea,\" in reference to the relatively calm waters he encountered, a name that ultimately endured.\n\nOf course, these \"discoveries,\" much like Columbus's initial encounter with the New World, occurred despite the fact that millions of people already lived throughout the region, having navigated and settled the land long before Europeans arrived. Regardless, over the next 250 years Spain would come to dominate the Pacific, controlling major trade routes, establishing colonies, and claiming new discoveries in the name of the crown. Perhaps the most famous of which was the so-called Island of California.\n\nThe first mention of California as an island appeared in 1510 in Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo's novel *Las Sergas de Esplandián*. In the story, California is described as a mythical island populated by dark-skinned, Amazon-like warrior women, ruled by the powerful Queen Califia and defended by flying, man-eating griffins that served as their air force. Within just twenty years, the tale had captured the imaginations of Spanish explorers, including the famed conquistador Hernán Cortés, who personally set out in search of the legendary island.\n\nWhen Cortés landed on the Baja California peninsula on May 3, 1535, he believed he had discovered the mythical California, naming the region after the story. In reality, he had arrived at the site where one of his own mutineers, Fortún Ximénez, had been killed by local inhabitants the year before, technically making Ximénez the first European to reach California. Despite this, Cortés is often credited with the discovery. He attempted to establish a colony called Santa Cruz near modern-day La Paz, though it failed, and it would be another two centuries before Europeans permanently settled the peninsula. Four years later, Cortés sent his navigator Francisco de Ulloa to explore the supposed Island of California and the surrounding Pacific coast. Cortés was likely disappointed when de Ulloa concluded that California was in fact connected to the mainland, a belief later confirmed by expeditions led by figures such as Hernando de Alarcón.\n\nIronically, most Europeans initially believed California to be a peninsula, and it was depicted as such on maps throughout the 16th century, including those by Mercator and Ortelius. Yet following Cortés's expeditions, belief in the so-called Island of California began to grow. In 1620, the chronicler Antonio de la Ascensión published a map portraying California as an island, based on expeditions he had undertaken nearly twenty years earlier with Sebastián Vizcaíno along the west coast of the Americas. Although he attempted to send the map back to Spain, the ship carrying it was captured by Dutch pirates, who instead forwarded it to Amsterdam. Just two years later, in 1622, Dutch cartographers began producing maps that depicted California as an island, and many mapmakers across Europe soon followed suit. For more than two centuries, well into the 19th century, maps continued to portray California as a large, flat-topped, carrot-shaped island off the coast of the continental United States, despite persistent critics and mounting evidence from overland expeditions proving otherwise.\n\nCorrective maps circulated alongside these faulty depictions, including one produced in 1705 by the Jesuit friar Eusebio Kino, but they were often dismissed as fringe or speculative. In 1747, the confusion even prompted intervention from King Ferdinand VI of Spain, who issued a royal decree stating unequivocally that \"California is not an island.\" Even so, some cartographers continued to depict it as one, with the last known example appearing as late as 1865 in a map by Japanese artist Shūzō Satō, despite the presence of multiple cities and hundreds of thousands of Mexican and American inhabitants who could attest otherwise.\n\n## Strange Natives\n\nAlthough many of the false discoveries we've seen today stemmed from cartographic errors or common misconceptions, the most obvious driver of exaggerated claims during the Age of Discovery was the pursuit of funding. Most explorers, conquistadors, and adventurers traveled only with the approval, and financial backing, of their monarchs, who supported expeditions based on the promise of potential returns, whether in gold, trade goods, or prestige. As a result, stories of wonder and amazement frequently made their way back to Europe, most often involving golden cities such as \"El Dorado,\" lands overflowing with valuable spices, mythical creatures, and mysterious peoples.\n\nDuring Ferdinand Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe, his chronicler Antonio Pigafetta recorded encounters with a wide range of Indigenous peoples while sailing along the Americas. Many of these descriptions were reasonable and believable, such as his account of the Tupinambá of modern-day Brazil, whom Pigafetta described as skilled hunters, fishers, and even bakers, capable of turning cassava into flatbread that reportedly formed a staple of their diet. Other accounts, however, were far more fanciful.\n\nWhile navigating the southern coast of South America in 1520, Pigafetta claimed the crew encountered a group of giant natives said to stand between eight and ten feet tall (244 to 305 cm), with some reports placing them at more than twice the height of an average man. Magellan and Pigafetta dubbed these figures the \"Patagonian giants.\" Because Magellan was considered one of the most credible explorers of his time, many accepted the account without question, and maps soon began labeling the region of southern South America as *regio gigantum*, or \"land of giants.\" Today, the region is still known as Patagonia, derived directly from Pigafetta's accounts.\n\nIn the years that followed, several other notable explorers, including Sir Francis Drake, Commodore John Byron, the grandfather of the poet Lord Byron, and numerous Dutch sailors, also claimed to have seen the giants. Over time, however, the reported stature of these figures steadily shrank, often to around seven feet. Some historians now believe the stories were exaggerated descriptions of local peoples such as the Tehuelche, who were indeed taller than most Europeans at roughly six feet tall, but far from the towering giants Pigafetta described.\n\nYet in truth, these were among the most believable Indigenous peoples described by Europeans in the Americas. Others, such as Francisco de Orellana, relayed far more fantastical tales. Although he is credited with the very real achievement of becoming the first European to navigate the Amazon River in its entirety, both the motivations behind his journey and the accounts he produced were steeped in myth. Orellana ventured into the Amazon not out of a desire to chart the river itself, but because he had heard legends of both El Dorado and the so-called \"Land of Cinnamon,\" dedicating himself to finding them.\n\nOn June 24, 1542, Orellana reported that his crew was attacked by a group of tall, powerful female warriors who either led men into battle or fought in their place entirely. Though his descriptions were sparse, the explorer likened these warriors to the Amazons of Greek mythology and named the river *Río Amazonas* in their honor. Remarkably, Orellana's story was convincing enough to capture the imagination of prominent explorers such as Sir Walter Raleigh and Philipp von Hutten, both of whom believed in its authenticity.\n\nTales like these were not confined to South America either but emerged wherever Europeans traveled throughout the Americas and beyond. In the Appalachian region of what is now the United States, early settlers recorded stories told by the Cherokee about a group known as the \"Moon-Eyed People.\" According to Cherokee tradition, the Moon-Eyed were bearded, flat-faced, pale-skinned, blue-eyed, and notably shorter than normal people. They were said to have earned their name because daylight was too harsh for their eyes, forcing them to live in underground dwellings and caves, emerging only at night when they would clash with the Cherokee. Conflicts that, according to legend, eventually ended in the Moon-Eyed being driven away or defeated entirely.\n\nUnlike many of the other \"discoveries\" discussed today, no Europeans ever claimed to have directly encountered these enigmatic people, as most believed they had already been wiped out by the Cherokee before Europeans arrived in the Americas. Instead, the stories themselves captivated European settlers, who accepted them as fact and gradually wove them into other legends, most notably the tale of Madoc. According to this legend, Madoc was a Welsh prince who supposedly reached the Americas in the 12th century, nearly three hundred years before Columbus, making him the lands true discoverer. Before long, many settlers came to believe that the \"Moon-Eyed\" people were descendants of these early Welsh voyagers.\n\nThese beliefs were taken so seriously that, once again, when Thomas Jefferson dispatched Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on their expedition, he instructed them to watch for pale-skinned or \"Moon-Eyed\" Indigenous peoples. Despite a lack of credible evidence, such stories persisted across the Americas and gradually shifted in purpose, from convenient plot devices used to secure funding into supposed proof of European contact predating Columbus.\n\nOver time, claims emerged linking the Lumbee tribe of North Carolina to the descendants of the lost Roanoke colony, while Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye, returned from what is now North Dakota with stories of the Mandan, whom he described as an advanced society of light-skinned, fair-haired people. While a handful of these accounts may have been rooted in partial truths, most amounted to little more than deliberate exaggerations, crafted to attract funding, win prestige, or support narratives that served personal ambition. In doing so, they helped cement the period as an Age of Misinformation, rather than one based on actual discovery.\n\n## Key Takeaways\n\n- The Age of Discovery was marked by both genuine exploration and widespread misinformation, with many claims later disproven.\n- St. Brendan's Isle, a mythical island, was widely believed in during the Age of Discovery, influencing exploration and cartography.\n- Frisland, an island described in the Zeno letters, was depicted on maps for centuries despite likely being a fabrication.\n- The North Pole was the subject of many myths, including the Rupes Nigra and the Strait of Anian, which drove numerous expeditions.\n- Exaggerated tales of native peoples, such as the Patagonian giants and Amazon warriors, were often used to secure funding for expeditions.\n\n## Frequently Asked Questions\n\n### What is the Age of Discovery?\n\nThe Age of Discovery was a period from the 15th to the 17th centuries when European explorers charted every corner of the known world.\n\n### Who was St. Brendan the Navigator?\n\nSt. Brendan the Navigator was a monk born near Tralee Bay in County Kerry, Ireland, around 484 AD. He was known for his seafaring adventures and was credited with discovering St. Brendan's Isle.\n\n### What was St. Brendan's Isle?\n\nSt. Brendan's Isle was a legendary island said to lie far to the west in the Atlantic Ocean. It was described as a paradise filled with lush vegetation and untouched by night or darkness.\n\n### What was Frisland?\n\nFrisland was a supposed island in the North Atlantic, described in letters published by Nicolò Zeno in 1558. It was said to be larger than Ireland and located between England and Iceland.\n\n### What was the Rupes Nigra?\n\nThe Rupes Nigra was a colossal black rock said to lie at the heart of the North Pole. It was believed to be a giant magnetic rock that caused all compasses to point north.\n\n### What was the Strait of Anian?\n\nThe Strait of Anian was a supposed entrance to a warm Northwest Passage, believed to lie between two continents near the Arctic Circle. It was depicted on maps from the 16th century onward.\n\n### What was the Island of California?\n\nThe Island of California was a mythical island depicted on maps for over two centuries. It was described as a large, flat-topped, carrot-shaped island off the coast of the continental United States.\n\n### Who were the Patagonian giants?\n\nThe Patagonian giants were a group of giant natives said to stand between eight and ten feet tall, encountered by Ferdinand Magellan's crew in 1520. The region is still known as Patagonia today.\n\n### What was the legend of the Moon-Eyed People?\n\nThe Moon-Eyed People were a group described by the Cherokee as bearded, flat-faced, pale-skinned, blue-eyed, and notably shorter than normal people. They were said to live in underground dwellings and emerge only at night.\n\n### What was the legend of Madoc?\n\nMadoc was a Welsh prince who was said to have reached the Americas in the 12th century, nearly three hundred years before Columbus. Some settlers believed the Moon-Eyed People were descendants of these early Welsh voyagers.\n\n## Sources\n\n- [Original Side Projects video: New Ancient Discoveries from 2025](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zj9KHB3hPNQ)\n- [https://blogs.loc.gov/maps/2021/04/searching-for-saint-brendans-island/#:~:text=Saint%20Brendan%20and%20his%20crew%20finally%20reached%20The%20Promised%20Land,that%20was%20published%20in%201570](https://blogs.loc.gov/maps/2021/04/searching-for-saint-brendans-island/#:~:text=Saint%20Brendan%20and%20his%20crew%20finally%20reached%20The%20Promised%20Land,that%20was%20published%20in%201570)\n- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Brendan%27s_Island](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Brendan%27s_Island)\n- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_the_Navigator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_the_Navigator)\n- [https://www.irishfolklorecentre.com/471-2/](https://www.irishfolklorecentre.com/471-2/)\n- [https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/canary-islands-saint-brendans-phantom-island](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/canary-islands-saint-brendans-phantom-island)\n- [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/02/obituaries/tim-severin-dead.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/02/obituaries/tim-severin-dead.html)\n- [https://learnfrisian.com/the-mystery-of-frislanda-the-lost-frisian-atlantis/](https://learnfrisian.com/the-mystery-of-frislanda-the-lost-frisian-atlantis/)\n- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisland)\n- [https://blogs.loc.gov/maps/2019/10/the-mysterious-island/](https://blogs.loc.gov/maps/2019/10/the-mysterious-island/)\n- [https://etc.usf.edu/maps/pages/4100/4153/4153.htm](https://etc.usf.edu/maps/pages/4100/4153/4153.htm)\n- [https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/zeno-map-phantom-island-cartography](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/zeno-map-phantom-island-cartography)\n- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_of_the_Zeno_brothers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_of_the_Zeno_brothers)\n- [https://www.stgeorges-windsor.org/image_of_the_month/mapping-the-unknown/](https://www.stgeorges-windsor.org/image_of_the_month/mapping-the-unknown/)\n- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupes_Nigra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupes_Nigra)\n- [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015022378411&seq=11](https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015022378411&seq=11)\n- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventio_Fortunata](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventio_Fortunata)\n- [https://ia802304.us.archive.org/34/items/originofstraitof00nunn/originofstraitof00nunn.pdf](https://ia802304.us.archive.org/34/items/originofstraitof00nunn/originofstraitof00nunn.pdf)\n- [https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/strait-of-anian](https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/strait-of-anian)\n- [https://www.britannica.com/place/Northwest-Passage-trade-route](https://www.britannica.com/place/Northwest-Passage-trade-route)\n- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strait_of_Anián](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strait_of_Anián)\n- [https://libraries.usc.edu/article/cortés’-california-misadventure](https://libraries.usc.edu/article/cortés’-california-misadventure)\n- [https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/california-island-maps](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/california-island-maps)\n- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_California](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_California)\n- [https://stanfordmag.org/contents/california-dreaming](https://stanfordmag.org/contents/california-dreaming)\n- [https://sfmuseum.org/hist1/cortes.html](https://sfmuseum.org/hist1/cortes.html)\n- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_the_Pacific](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_the_Pacific)\n- [https://www.history.com/articles/vasco-nunez-de-balboa](https://www.history.com/articles/vasco-nunez-de-balboa)\n- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patagons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patagons)\n- [https://weirditaly.com/2024/11/13/the-extraordinary-travelogue-of-antonio-pigafetta-of-magellans-voyage/](https://weirditaly.com/2024/11/13/the-extraordinary-travelogue-of-antonio-pigafetta-of-magellans-voyage/)\n- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_de_Orellana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_de_Orellana)\n- [https://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/23/opinion/down-the-amazon-with-orellana-at-last.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/23/opinion/down-the-amazon-with-orellana-at-last.html)\n- [https://www.pbs.org/conquistadors/orellana/gold_02.html](https://www.pbs.org/conquistadors/orellana/gold_02.html)\n- [https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/moon-eyed-people-appalachia](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/moon-eyed-people-appalachia)\n- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon-eyed_people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon-eyed_people)\n\n## Related Coverage" url: https://sideprojects.pub/article/new-ancient-discoveries-from-2025.md canonical: https://sideprojects.pub/article/new-ancient-discoveries-from-2025 datePublished: 2026-01-14 dateModified: 2026-07-28 author: - name: Simon Whistler url: https://sideprojects.pub/author/simon-whistler publisher: Side Projects image: "https://media.sideprojects.pub/cdn-cgi/image/width=1600,height=900,fit=cover,quality=80,format=auto/articles/Zj9KHB3hPNQ/hero.jpg" type: NewsArticle contentHash: 3cabdfe345772ede7924f647b124b1ef0072dc92dd3be1d5b757a111774313fe tokens: 9279 summaryUrl: https://sideprojects.pub/article/new-ancient-discoveries-from-2025.md.summary.md --- During the Age of Discovery, from the 15th to the 17th centuries, European explorers set out from their continent to chart every corner of the known world. Names like Magellan, Columbus, and da Gama became famous, even in their own time, for navigating uncharted waters and "discovering" lands previously unknown to Europeans, returning home with new trinkets and ever more fantastical stories. Yet this era was as much an age of misinformation, false credit, and fantasy as it was one of genuine discovery. Take Columbus, for example, who famously "discovered" a new world after having "discovered" the size of the Earth by studying the writings of ancient scholars. In reality, the lands he encountered were already home to millions of people, his calculations were off by as much as one-third, and he died believing he had found a direct sea route to India rather than an entirely separate continent on the opposite side of the globe, despite evidence in his own lifetime proving otherwise. And he was far from alone. Each falsified or misunderstood discovery spawned dozens of faulty maps, leading to dangerous and pointless expeditions, vast sums of money and countless lives wasted, and even more misinformation spread to the wider world. So, today, we'll take a look at five discoveries from this era that took the world by storm, only to later be revealed as exaggerated, or discredited entirely. ## St. Brendan's Isle As the oldest discovery on our list, St. Brendan's Isle predates the Age of Discovery by nearly a full millennium. Even so, it became deeply intertwined with the era, fueling both legend and real-world exploration. In Christian tradition, Saint Brendan of Clonfert was a monk born near Tralee Bay in County Kerry, Ireland, sometime around 484 AD. Widely regarded as a real historical figure, Brendan earned his reputation as a seafarer, reportedly traveling to Scotland, Wales, and Brittany to spread his faith and establish monasteries along the way. Accomplishments that ultimately earned him the title of St. Brendan the Navigator. However, it wasn't these journeys that ultimately secured his place in history among the great discoverers, but rather the legendary adventures first recorded in a 9th-century Latin manuscript titled *Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis*, or *The Voyages of St. Brendan the Abbot*. According to these accounts, before embarking on his real-world travels, Brendan was visited by a fellow monk who fascinated him with stories of the "Promised Land of the Saints," said to lie far to the west, somewhere in the Atlantic. In later retellings, this land was sometimes equated with the Garden of Eden, but in its earliest descriptions it was a distinct paradise. One filled with lush vegetation and untouched by night or darkness. Inspired by these stories, Brendan assembled a small group of monks, with the exact number varying by version, and together they built a modest boat, stocked it with provisions, and set sail westward across the Atlantic Ocean. Over a grueling seven-year voyage, St. Brendan's crew encountered a series of strange and mysterious lands, some of which they reportedly visited multiple times. These included the Island of Sheep, the Island of Grapes, and the Island of Birds, locations often interpreted as allegorical versions of the Faroe Islands or the Hebrides. The crew also claimed to have seen a towering crystal pillar and a mountain that spewed flames, features many later readers have taken to be stand-ins for a glacier and a volcano, respectively. However, several of the voyage's reported discoveries are far less easily explained. Among them was a sea so clear that the travelers could supposedly see all the way to the seabed, as well as a dog that led them to an empty building containing a banquet laid out just for the crew as they were on the verge of starvation. Equally fantastical, St. Brendan and his companions were said to have stopped on a small island to make camp, only for it to begin moving beneath them. The "island," it turned out, was actually a giant fish named Jasconius, who took offense to a fire being lit on its back. Eventually, the crew reached the "Promised Land," where they remained for forty days, gathering gemstones and provisions before returning home to Ireland. From that point on, the mythical island became inseparably linked with St. Brendan, who was widely credited with its discovery. In reality, the story was likely influenced by earlier Irish legends, and a 12th-century translation by the cleric Benedeit became one of the earliest surviving works of Anglo-Norman literature. By the Age of Discovery, St. Brendan's Isle was widely accepted as fact throughout Europe and appeared on maps from the 13th to the 18th centuries, often labeled as "St. Brendan's Isle" or "San Borondón." Early maps placed the island somewhere southwest of England and Ireland and east of Newfoundland, Canada, though its exact location varied widely, appearing sporadically across the North and western Atlantic. Eventually, consensus shifted toward locating the island off the west coast of Africa near the Canary Islands, whose inhabitants embraced St. Brendan's Isle as part of their cultural heritage, depicting it in local art and literature throughout the archipelago from the 16th century onward. As a result, many notable explorers, including Henry the Navigator and Christopher Columbus, believed in the veracity of St. Brendan's Isle, as did numerous other influential figures of the era. One such believer was Hernán Pérez de Grado, the first regent of the Royal Canary Islands Court, who in 1566 ordered an official investigation into the island. An effort that, unsurprisingly, produced no results. In the years that followed, several individuals claimed to have rediscovered or sighted the island in the distance, including sea captains, traveling monks, and local religious figures. After Europeans discovered and began exploring the Americas, theories emerged suggesting that St. Brendan's Promised Land was actually the New World itself, fueling speculation and claims of pre-Columbian discovery. Although the island's depiction on maps was eventually phased out, rumors of its existence have persisted well into the modern era. In 1957, photographer Manuel Rodríguez Quintero captured an image from a hillside on La Palma, one of the Canary Islands, showing what appeared to be a rocky landmass on the horizon where only open ocean should have been. Despite St. Brendan's Isle having long been dismissed as myth, the Spanish press quickly seized on the image, promoting it as evidence of the island's long-lost existence. Nearly twenty years later, in 1976, British explorer Tim Severin attempted to demonstrate that a voyage like St. Brendan's was at least possible. Building a curragh, a traditional oxhide boat, Severin successfully sailed from Ireland to Newfoundland with a small crew. While this did not prove that the legendary journey ever occurred, it demonstrated how readily people remain willing to embrace a 1,500-year-old story, especially when it offers the chance to rewrite history. ## Frisland As we've already seen, nearly everyone during this period was eager to fund, launch, or even personally join expeditions of their own. After all, each new discovery brought fame and, often, unimaginable wealth, with entire families rising to prominence based solely on their ancestors' exploits. One such family was the Zenos of Venice. In 1558, a man named Nicolò Zeno claimed to have discovered a series of letters stored in his family's home, written between his ancestors, brothers Antonio and Nicolò Zeno, local noblemen and navigators from the late 14th century. Nicolò the younger then published these letters, which immediately captured the public's imagination. In the correspondence, the elder Nicolò describes being blown off course while en route from Venice to England in 1380. According to the letters, he became stranded on an island located between England and Iceland, which he called "Frisland" and claimed was larger than Ireland. After his shipwreck, Nicolò wrote that he was rescued by a local ruler named Zichmni, who invited the Venetian into his court and showed him around the island. Frisland was said to contain several towns with suspiciously Italian-sounding names, such as Vena and Neome, despite its supposed location in the North Atlantic. Zichmni, who apparently took a liking to his new guest, then invited both Nicolò and his brother Antonio to remain at court. After making the journey from Venice, Antonio joined his brother, and the two reportedly enlisted in the Frisland navy and stayed on the island for 14 years. While serving in the navy, the brothers were tasked with attacking neighboring islands, beginning with one known as "Islanda." After the locals successfully beat them back, the Zenos turned their attention to several smaller nearby islands with names such as "Broas," "Bres," and "Damberc." Having proven their worth to Zichmni, the brothers became close advisors and companions to the ruler, who increasingly relied on them to lead expeditions in his name. Nicolò claimed that he was later sent to Greenland, where he discovered a monastery equipped with central heating. Sometime afterward, the letters describe fishermen arriving on Frisland who claimed to have been traveling for twenty-five years, sailing far to the west to lands called "Estotiland" and "Drogeo," said to be rich in vegetation and inhabited by fearsome cannibals. By this point, Nicolò had reportedly died on Frisland, leaving Antonio as admiral of Zichmni's fleet. In this role, Antonio was tasked with sailing west in search of these fabled lands on the ruler's behalf, a journey he claimed to have completed before returning to Frisland and, eventually, Venice. In addition to his ancestors' written accounts, the younger Nicolò Zeno also claimed to have discovered a map depicting many of the lands encountered by the brothers. Almost overnight, Europeans became infatuated with the Zeno Map and the brothers' supposed discoveries, attempting to link the map's locations to real-world geography. One popular theory suggested that the smaller islands where the brothers fought their naval battles were stand-ins for the Shetland Islands, implying that the conflict took place off the coast of Scotland. Under this interpretation, "Islanda" was thought to be a misspelling or misunderstanding of Iceland, while "Estotiland" was believed to represent North America, specifically Newfoundland and Labrador. In this same theory, Zichmni was identified as the nobleman Henry Sinclair, Earl of Orkney and Lord High Admiral of Scotland. In reality, however, the entire story was likely a fabrication by the younger Nicolò, intended to establish a Zeno family claim to the discovery of the New World a full century before Columbus. Yet even at the time, it was not this claim that most captivated European audiences, but the idea of Frisland itself, an island that several prominent cartographers and explorers genuinely believed to exist. Shortly after Nicolò's announcement, Frisland began appearing on maps of the North Atlantic, though its location, shape, and even spelling shifted frequently. It even found its way onto Gerardus Mercator's influential 1569 world map, as well as his later 1595 map of the North Pole. Likely inspired by Mercator's inclusion, Abraham Ortelius featured Frisland in his 1570 work *Theatrum Orbis Terrarum*, widely regarded as the first modern atlas. Despite the improbability of the story, and the fact that no one ever actually landed on the island after the Zenos' supposed discovery, Frisland continued to grow in notoriety. Experienced navigators even claimed to have seen it in the distance while sailing past its "known" locations. In 1580, Queen Elizabeth I's advisor John Dee went so far as to claim the island in the name of England, ensuring that, should Frisland ever be found, the English crown would already possess a legal claim. Over time, however, the wider world slowly came to realize that Nicolò Zeno had likely fabricated the entire story. By the mid-18th century, Frisland had quietly vanished from maps altogether. ## The North Pole Although the Age of Discovery is most often associated with places like the New World and the Pacific Ocean, one of the most important regions of interest for cartographers and explorers was the North Pole and the surrounding Arctic. While this area remained deeply mysterious to Europeans, holding the promise of unimaginable discoveries, many were drawn to it for more practical reasons, namely, the possibility of shorter sea routes. In theory, navigating the Arctic Ocean would allow sailors to bypass entire continents, traveling between the New World, Europe, and Asia without having to sail around massive landmasses or pass through regions controlled by rival powers. As a result, the Arctic became one of Europe's greatest hopes for open global trade routes, giving rise to numerous myths and false discoveries, including the Rupes Nigra, a colossal black rock said to lie at the heart of the North Pole. According to Gerardus Mercator, writing in a 1577 letter to Queen Elizabeth I's advisor John Dee, the earliest mention of the Rupes Nigra appeared in the *Inventio Fortunata*, or *Fortunate Discovery*. This was supposedly a 14th-century Latin travelogue written by a Franciscan friar from Oxford, sometimes identified as Nicholas of Lynn, though this attribution remains debated among scholars. The friar was said to have been commissioned by King Edward III to undertake several voyages around the North Atlantic, documenting his observations for the English crown. However, the *Inventio Fortunata* itself survives only through references. It was cited by Jacobus Cnoyen in his *Itinerarium*, another lost work whose primary source appears to have been Mercator's letter. In that letter, Mercator claimed the original, now-lost text described the friar's travels around the Arctic, including a journey that allegedly reached the North Pole itself. The North Pole was described as the meeting place of four separate continents, one of which was said to be home to a race of pygmies. At the center lay a massive whirlpool that drew water inward and funneled it into four major sea routes between the continents. From there, the water was believed to flow out to the rest of the world, supplying Earth's oceans. At the heart of this whirling sea sat a giant black magnetic rock known as the Rupes Nigra, said to measure "33 French miles" in circumference and to be the force that caused all compasses to point north. Mercator believed in this vision of the North Pole so strongly that he included it on his influential maps, leading most cartographers to reproduce it in their own maps and atlases well into the 18th century. Yet among all the rumors and myths surrounding the North Pole, none proved as enduring or influential as the Northwest Passage, or its entrance. Both were considered essential discoveries that nearly every explorer of the era sought to find. These legendary routes promised to open global trade by providing a direct maritime link between continents. Unlike today, when the Arctic is known to be perpetually frozen and extremely treacherous, many Europeans at the time believed in the theory of an Open Polar Sea. This theory held that warm ocean currents surrounded the North Pole, creating open, navigable waters free of glaciers or landmasses. The supposed entrance to this warm Northwest Passage was known as the Strait of Anian, which was believed to lie between two continents near the Arctic Circle. Although the origins of the strait remain unclear, it first appeared on a 1562 map by Giacomo Gastaldi. Soon after, other cartographers, likely basing their work on his, began including it in their own maps and atlases. Before long, the Strait of Anian was accepted as fact and was frequently depicted just north of the mythical Island of California, though more on that soon. As a result, many notable navigators, including Sir Francis Drake, Vitus Bering, and John Cabot, searched for the strait and the warm Northwest Passage it supposedly led to. In 1592, Greek sailor Juan de Fuca even claimed to have discovered the passage, followed in 1640 by Bartholomew de Fonte, claims that only further fueled the rumors. Then, in the late 18th century, Captain James Cook made it his mission to search for the strait and any open sea route along the North American coast. He was soon followed by explorers such as Alexander Mackenzie and George Vancouver, both of whom charted vast stretches of the North Atlantic and Pacific while surveying coastlines and potential passages. In 1771, Samuel Hearne undertook his own expedition, becoming the first European to reach the Arctic Ocean by land after traveling roughly 3,000 miles (4,800 km) from Hudson Bay to the northern coast. Together, these expeditions demonstrated that the mythical warm passage and the Strait of Anian did not exist and that, beyond any reasonable doubt, the Arctic consisted of frigid waters and landmasses that made navigation extremely difficult. Yet doubt lingered, rumors refused to die, and not everyone was convinced. When President Thomas Jefferson dispatched Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore the newly acquired Louisiana Territory in 1804, part of their official instructions was to search for the strait and the passage. Jefferson himself believed they still existed and, remarkably, that they were connected to the United States through the Mississippi River. While a Northwest Passage does exist today, and a small number of ships traverse it each year, it bears little resemblance to the warm, open waters once promised near the Arctic Circle. ## California Island Like the rest of Europe, Spain made its fair share of dubious, and at times laughable, claims during this era, particularly regarding the Pacific Ocean and California. Early on, most Europeans believed the ocean west of Europe continued directly to Asia. Even after becoming aware of the Pacific, many explorers still assumed it was a relatively narrow body of water, smaller than the Atlantic and dotted with only a handful of islands separating Asia from the New World. It was only after the discovery of the Americas and the expeditions that followed that Europeans began to grasp just how vast the Pacific truly was. As the largest body of water on Earth, measuring roughly 12,300 miles (19,800 km) at its widest point between Colombia and Indonesia, the Pacific spans nearly half of the planet's circumference. While some Europeans had encountered it through travel and trade in Asia, systematic exploration of the ocean only truly began after the Spanish had already started exploring the Americas. In 1513, the interim governor of Darién, Vasco Núñez de Balboa, heard tales of a powerful empire with unimaginable wealth to the south, prompting him to launch an expedition across the Isthmus of Panama in search of it. Eventually, Balboa reached a mountain peak, becoming the first European to sight the Pacific from the Americas. He named it *Mar del Sur*, or the "South Sea," and claimed it for Spain. Eight years later, in 1521, Ferdinand Magellan completed the first documented crossing of the ocean, calling it *Mar Pacífico*, or the "Peaceful Sea," in reference to the relatively calm waters he encountered, a name that ultimately endured. Of course, these "discoveries," much like Columbus's initial encounter with the New World, occurred despite the fact that millions of people already lived throughout the region, having navigated and settled the land long before Europeans arrived. Regardless, over the next 250 years Spain would come to dominate the Pacific, controlling major trade routes, establishing colonies, and claiming new discoveries in the name of the crown. Perhaps the most famous of which was the so-called Island of California. The first mention of California as an island appeared in 1510 in Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo's novel *Las Sergas de Esplandián*. In the story, California is described as a mythical island populated by dark-skinned, Amazon-like warrior women, ruled by the powerful Queen Califia and defended by flying, man-eating griffins that served as their air force. Within just twenty years, the tale had captured the imaginations of Spanish explorers, including the famed conquistador Hernán Cortés, who personally set out in search of the legendary island. When Cortés landed on the Baja California peninsula on May 3, 1535, he believed he had discovered the mythical California, naming the region after the story. In reality, he had arrived at the site where one of his own mutineers, Fortún Ximénez, had been killed by local inhabitants the year before, technically making Ximénez the first European to reach California. Despite this, Cortés is often credited with the discovery. He attempted to establish a colony called Santa Cruz near modern-day La Paz, though it failed, and it would be another two centuries before Europeans permanently settled the peninsula. Four years later, Cortés sent his navigator Francisco de Ulloa to explore the supposed Island of California and the surrounding Pacific coast. Cortés was likely disappointed when de Ulloa concluded that California was in fact connected to the mainland, a belief later confirmed by expeditions led by figures such as Hernando de Alarcón. Ironically, most Europeans initially believed California to be a peninsula, and it was depicted as such on maps throughout the 16th century, including those by Mercator and Ortelius. Yet following Cortés's expeditions, belief in the so-called Island of California began to grow. In 1620, the chronicler Antonio de la Ascensión published a map portraying California as an island, based on expeditions he had undertaken nearly twenty years earlier with Sebastián Vizcaíno along the west coast of the Americas. Although he attempted to send the map back to Spain, the ship carrying it was captured by Dutch pirates, who instead forwarded it to Amsterdam. Just two years later, in 1622, Dutch cartographers began producing maps that depicted California as an island, and many mapmakers across Europe soon followed suit. For more than two centuries, well into the 19th century, maps continued to portray California as a large, flat-topped, carrot-shaped island off the coast of the continental United States, despite persistent critics and mounting evidence from overland expeditions proving otherwise. Corrective maps circulated alongside these faulty depictions, including one produced in 1705 by the Jesuit friar Eusebio Kino, but they were often dismissed as fringe or speculative. In 1747, the confusion even prompted intervention from King Ferdinand VI of Spain, who issued a royal decree stating unequivocally that "California is not an island." Even so, some cartographers continued to depict it as one, with the last known example appearing as late as 1865 in a map by Japanese artist Shūzō Satō, despite the presence of multiple cities and hundreds of thousands of Mexican and American inhabitants who could attest otherwise. ## Strange Natives Although many of the false discoveries we've seen today stemmed from cartographic errors or common misconceptions, the most obvious driver of exaggerated claims during the Age of Discovery was the pursuit of funding. Most explorers, conquistadors, and adventurers traveled only with the approval, and financial backing, of their monarchs, who supported expeditions based on the promise of potential returns, whether in gold, trade goods, or prestige. As a result, stories of wonder and amazement frequently made their way back to Europe, most often involving golden cities such as "El Dorado," lands overflowing with valuable spices, mythical creatures, and mysterious peoples. During Ferdinand Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe, his chronicler Antonio Pigafetta recorded encounters with a wide range of Indigenous peoples while sailing along the Americas. Many of these descriptions were reasonable and believable, such as his account of the Tupinambá of modern-day Brazil, whom Pigafetta described as skilled hunters, fishers, and even bakers, capable of turning cassava into flatbread that reportedly formed a staple of their diet. Other accounts, however, were far more fanciful. While navigating the southern coast of South America in 1520, Pigafetta claimed the crew encountered a group of giant natives said to stand between eight and ten feet tall (244 to 305 cm), with some reports placing them at more than twice the height of an average man. Magellan and Pigafetta dubbed these figures the "Patagonian giants." Because Magellan was considered one of the most credible explorers of his time, many accepted the account without question, and maps soon began labeling the region of southern South America as *regio gigantum*, or "land of giants." Today, the region is still known as Patagonia, derived directly from Pigafetta's accounts. In the years that followed, several other notable explorers, including Sir Francis Drake, Commodore John Byron, the grandfather of the poet Lord Byron, and numerous Dutch sailors, also claimed to have seen the giants. Over time, however, the reported stature of these figures steadily shrank, often to around seven feet. Some historians now believe the stories were exaggerated descriptions of local peoples such as the Tehuelche, who were indeed taller than most Europeans at roughly six feet tall, but far from the towering giants Pigafetta described. Yet in truth, these were among the most believable Indigenous peoples described by Europeans in the Americas. Others, such as Francisco de Orellana, relayed far more fantastical tales. Although he is credited with the very real achievement of becoming the first European to navigate the Amazon River in its entirety, both the motivations behind his journey and the accounts he produced were steeped in myth. Orellana ventured into the Amazon not out of a desire to chart the river itself, but because he had heard legends of both El Dorado and the so-called "Land of Cinnamon," dedicating himself to finding them. On June 24, 1542, Orellana reported that his crew was attacked by a group of tall, powerful female warriors who either led men into battle or fought in their place entirely. Though his descriptions were sparse, the explorer likened these warriors to the Amazons of Greek mythology and named the river *Río Amazonas* in their honor. Remarkably, Orellana's story was convincing enough to capture the imagination of prominent explorers such as Sir Walter Raleigh and Philipp von Hutten, both of whom believed in its authenticity. Tales like these were not confined to South America either but emerged wherever Europeans traveled throughout the Americas and beyond. In the Appalachian region of what is now the United States, early settlers recorded stories told by the Cherokee about a group known as the "Moon-Eyed People." According to Cherokee tradition, the Moon-Eyed were bearded, flat-faced, pale-skinned, blue-eyed, and notably shorter than normal people. They were said to have earned their name because daylight was too harsh for their eyes, forcing them to live in underground dwellings and caves, emerging only at night when they would clash with the Cherokee. Conflicts that, according to legend, eventually ended in the Moon-Eyed being driven away or defeated entirely. Unlike many of the other "discoveries" discussed today, no Europeans ever claimed to have directly encountered these enigmatic people, as most believed they had already been wiped out by the Cherokee before Europeans arrived in the Americas. Instead, the stories themselves captivated European settlers, who accepted them as fact and gradually wove them into other legends, most notably the tale of Madoc. According to this legend, Madoc was a Welsh prince who supposedly reached the Americas in the 12th century, nearly three hundred years before Columbus, making him the lands true discoverer. Before long, many settlers came to believe that the "Moon-Eyed" people were descendants of these early Welsh voyagers. These beliefs were taken so seriously that, once again, when Thomas Jefferson dispatched Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on their expedition, he instructed them to watch for pale-skinned or "Moon-Eyed" Indigenous peoples. Despite a lack of credible evidence, such stories persisted across the Americas and gradually shifted in purpose, from convenient plot devices used to secure funding into supposed proof of European contact predating Columbus. Over time, claims emerged linking the Lumbee tribe of North Carolina to the descendants of the lost Roanoke colony, while Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye, returned from what is now North Dakota with stories of the Mandan, whom he described as an advanced society of light-skinned, fair-haired people. While a handful of these accounts may have been rooted in partial truths, most amounted to little more than deliberate exaggerations, crafted to attract funding, win prestige, or support narratives that served personal ambition. In doing so, they helped cement the period as an Age of Misinformation, rather than one based on actual discovery. ## Key Takeaways - The Age of Discovery was marked by both genuine exploration and widespread misinformation, with many claims later disproven. - St. Brendan's Isle, a mythical island, was widely believed in during the Age of Discovery, influencing exploration and cartography. - Frisland, an island described in the Zeno letters, was depicted on maps for centuries despite likely being a fabrication. - The North Pole was the subject of many myths, including the Rupes Nigra and the Strait of Anian, which drove numerous expeditions. - Exaggerated tales of native peoples, such as the Patagonian giants and Amazon warriors, were often used to secure funding for expeditions. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is the Age of Discovery? The Age of Discovery was a period from the 15th to the 17th centuries when European explorers charted every corner of the known world. ### Who was St. Brendan the Navigator? St. Brendan the Navigator was a monk born near Tralee Bay in County Kerry, Ireland, around 484 AD. He was known for his seafaring adventures and was credited with discovering St. Brendan's Isle. ### What was St. Brendan's Isle? St. Brendan's Isle was a legendary island said to lie far to the west in the Atlantic Ocean. It was described as a paradise filled with lush vegetation and untouched by night or darkness. ### What was Frisland? Frisland was a supposed island in the North Atlantic, described in letters published by Nicolò Zeno in 1558. It was said to be larger than Ireland and located between England and Iceland. ### What was the Rupes Nigra? The Rupes Nigra was a colossal black rock said to lie at the heart of the North Pole. It was believed to be a giant magnetic rock that caused all compasses to point north. ### What was the Strait of Anian? The Strait of Anian was a supposed entrance to a warm Northwest Passage, believed to lie between two continents near the Arctic Circle. It was depicted on maps from the 16th century onward. ### What was the Island of California? The Island of California was a mythical island depicted on maps for over two centuries. It was described as a large, flat-topped, carrot-shaped island off the coast of the continental United States. ### Who were the Patagonian giants? The Patagonian giants were a group of giant natives said to stand between eight and ten feet tall, encountered by Ferdinand Magellan's crew in 1520. The region is still known as Patagonia today. ### What was the legend of the Moon-Eyed People? The Moon-Eyed People were a group described by the Cherokee as bearded, flat-faced, pale-skinned, blue-eyed, and notably shorter than normal people. They were said to live in underground dwellings and emerge only at night. ### What was the legend of Madoc? Madoc was a Welsh prince who was said to have reached the Americas in the 12th century, nearly three hundred years before Columbus. Some settlers believed the Moon-Eyed People were descendants of these early Welsh voyagers. ## Sources - [Original Side Projects video: New Ancient Discoveries from 2025](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zj9KHB3hPNQ) - [https://blogs.loc.gov/maps/2021/04/searching-for-saint-brendans-island/#:~:text=Saint%20Brendan%20and%20his%20crew%20finally%20reached%20The%20Promised%20Land,that%20was%20published%20in%201570](https://blogs.loc.gov/maps/2021/04/searching-for-saint-brendans-island/#:~:text=Saint%20Brendan%20and%20his%20crew%20finally%20reached%20The%20Promised%20Land,that%20was%20published%20in%201570) - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Brendan%27s_Island](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Brendan%27s_Island) - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_the_Navigator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_the_Navigator) - [https://www.irishfolklorecentre.com/471-2/](https://www.irishfolklorecentre.com/471-2/) - [https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/canary-islands-saint-brendans-phantom-island](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/canary-islands-saint-brendans-phantom-island) - [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/02/obituaries/tim-severin-dead.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/02/obituaries/tim-severin-dead.html) - [https://learnfrisian.com/the-mystery-of-frislanda-the-lost-frisian-atlantis/](https://learnfrisian.com/the-mystery-of-frislanda-the-lost-frisian-atlantis/) - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisland) - [https://blogs.loc.gov/maps/2019/10/the-mysterious-island/](https://blogs.loc.gov/maps/2019/10/the-mysterious-island/) - [https://etc.usf.edu/maps/pages/4100/4153/4153.htm](https://etc.usf.edu/maps/pages/4100/4153/4153.htm) - [https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/zeno-map-phantom-island-cartography](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/zeno-map-phantom-island-cartography) - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_of_the_Zeno_brothers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_of_the_Zeno_brothers) - [https://www.stgeorges-windsor.org/image_of_the_month/mapping-the-unknown/](https://www.stgeorges-windsor.org/image_of_the_month/mapping-the-unknown/) - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupes_Nigra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupes_Nigra) - [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015022378411&seq=11](https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015022378411&seq=11) - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventio_Fortunata](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventio_Fortunata) - [https://ia802304.us.archive.org/34/items/originofstraitof00nunn/originofstraitof00nunn.pdf](https://ia802304.us.archive.org/34/items/originofstraitof00nunn/originofstraitof00nunn.pdf) - [https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/strait-of-anian](https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/strait-of-anian) - [https://www.britannica.com/place/Northwest-Passage-trade-route](https://www.britannica.com/place/Northwest-Passage-trade-route) - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strait_of_Anián](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strait_of_Anián) - [https://libraries.usc.edu/article/cortés’-california-misadventure](https://libraries.usc.edu/article/cortés’-california-misadventure) - [https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/california-island-maps](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/california-island-maps) - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_California](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_California) - [https://stanfordmag.org/contents/california-dreaming](https://stanfordmag.org/contents/california-dreaming) - [https://sfmuseum.org/hist1/cortes.html](https://sfmuseum.org/hist1/cortes.html) - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_the_Pacific](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_the_Pacific) - [https://www.history.com/articles/vasco-nunez-de-balboa](https://www.history.com/articles/vasco-nunez-de-balboa) - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patagons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patagons) - [https://weirditaly.com/2024/11/13/the-extraordinary-travelogue-of-antonio-pigafetta-of-magellans-voyage/](https://weirditaly.com/2024/11/13/the-extraordinary-travelogue-of-antonio-pigafetta-of-magellans-voyage/) - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_de_Orellana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_de_Orellana) - [https://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/23/opinion/down-the-amazon-with-orellana-at-last.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/23/opinion/down-the-amazon-with-orellana-at-last.html) - [https://www.pbs.org/conquistadors/orellana/gold_02.html](https://www.pbs.org/conquistadors/orellana/gold_02.html) - [https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/moon-eyed-people-appalachia](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/moon-eyed-people-appalachia) - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon-eyed_people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon-eyed_people) ## Related Coverage