Hic sunt dracones

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Map of the Hunt-Lenox Globe , on the far right, directly below the equator, is hic sunt dracones

Here Be Dragons (in inscriptions HC SVNT Dracones ) is a Latin text phrase in German "Here are dragon " means, again indicating dangerous or unexplored areas on old sea charts.

Early world maps often illustrated the space beyond the known world with mythical animals such as sea snakes and sea monsters. On the Hunt-Lenox globe , which is one of the oldest surviving globes and is dated between 1503 and 1510, the formulation HC SVNT DRACONES is used for the areas east of Asia.

The formulation has gained numerous references in Latin and in the English translation here be dragons , especially in pop culture. The Chaos Computer Club had raised here be dragons to the motto of the 26th Chaos Communication Congress . OpenStreetMap names its servers after fictional dragons. In application source code, the phrase is often added as a comment to warn other developers about poorly written code or confusing sections. In the English original of the series Spaceship Enterprise - The Next Century in Episode 28 Where Silence Has Lease , Captain Picard comments on the coming unknown with: “Beyond this place there be dragons”. In addition, in the video game Divinity 2: Ego Draconis a parchment can be found with the writing “Hic sunt Dracones”, and in the video game Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem a document with the words “Hic sunt dracones” can be found. The wording is also used in the BBC series Sherlock : To his brother, whom he describes as a dragon slayer, Mycroft Holmes justifies his statement that Sherlock would be more useful in England than on a potentially deadly secret service mission in Eastern Europe with “Here be dragons”. . In the SyFi series "The Expanse", which was taken over by Amazon Prime, the 11th episode of the second season is "Here There be Dragons".

In the financial world, the jargon of the risk manager is interpreted with “TBD” (there be dragons) for risks that are not foreseeable.

The meaning “ Hic sunt leones ” is comparable . This variant is quoted because of the double meaning in Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose by William von Baskerville when he finds the “finis africae” (“end of Africa”).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Maphist.nl: Where Be "Here be Dragons"? ( Memento from April 1, 2018 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ Denis Cosgrove (Ed.): Mappings (=  Critical Views ). Reaction Books, London 1999, ISBN 978-1-86189-021-4 , pp. 80 .
  3. ↑ 26th Chaos Communication Congress, accessed on October 26, 2009
  4. ↑ OpenStreetMap server list accessed on October 9, 2012
  5. ↑ Heike Buchter: BlackRock . campus, Frankfurt am Main 2015, ISBN 978-3-593-50458-2 , p. 16 .