After the 1855 Edo earthquake, Japanese artists drew giant catfish grinning through the ruins

odditiesThe Public Domain Review1855 · Edo (Tokyo), Japan

After the 1855 Edo earthquake, Japanese artists drew giant catfish grinning through the ruins

the gist

Japanese folklore held that earthquakes were caused by a giant catfish, the namazu, that lived under the ground and thrashed when it moved. After the Ansei Edo earthquake of 1855 devastated the city, printmakers rushed out hundreds of woodblock prints showing the fish in comic scenes. The images show namazu being attacked by crowds, led around by its whiskers or served as a meal. Many prints show the fish grinning, while some show it distributing coins to the poor. The prints were thought to ward off harm, and they were banned by the shogunate within weeks. Artists often published anonymously to avoid censorship, which is why most of them are unnamed today. The genre turned a catastrophe into a joke about a world being set right.

how it works

In the folk belief, the namazu lived beneath the islands and its movements shook the ground. A god or a large stone was said to pin it down, which is why the image recurs in the earlier legends. After the 1855 quake, artists used the same figure to show the disaster as a rebalancing of wealth.

so what

The prints show how people in 1850s Edo made sense of disaster, by casting it as a cosmic reset and mocking greedy elites. Their anonymous, fast-moving production also reveals how censorship shaped popular art.

the bigger pattern

Japanese folklore has long connected earthquakes with supernatural forces, and the namazu appears in printed images from earlier centuries too. Disaster-themed satire also appeared in the wake of other calamities.

fun fact

A Shinto deity named Kashima was said to hold the catfish down with a stone, a legend that appears in older tales.

Hampi was once one of the world's largest cities, until its Vijayanagara capital was destroyed in 1565

the gist

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.

how it works

The city was built around a fortified core with temples, markets and water structures along the river, supplied by an extensive network of roads and waterworks. When the empire fell, the city was not rebuilt, so its stone monuments were left standing.

so what

Hampi shows how quickly a great city can vanish after a military defeat, and how a ruined capital can remain sacred. Its ruins give historians a view of medieval South Asia that few other sites can match.

fun fact

The name Hampi comes from Pampa, an old name for the Tungabhadra River.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · text CC BY-SA 4.0

Image: Wikimedia Commons

source: Wikipedia ↗

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False allegations about Singapore’s hand in Indonesia’s markets and a made-up meeting

from CNA

CNA Verify has found close to 400 posts pushing falsehoods tying Singapore to Indonesia’s stock market rout and to a secret meeting that never took place. Together, they drew nearly 12 million views, and some were circulated by accounts that appeared to be working in concert, across multiple social media platforms.

Here’s how the disinformation campaign targeting Singapore was uncovered.

on YouTube: CNA ↗