In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents by Bernard Heuvelmans

Magin even delights us with mini-findings in his footnotes, like this one: Magin also comes forth with a couple other unique discoveries, new to cryptozoology, which he made along the way and he records in this essay.

Without spoiling anything, I can say Magin says it appears Mayor made a mistake, as we discover in his cryptozoological detective story.

Magin points out that the first Sargon has no surviving inscriptions, and takes us through his investigation to come to the conclusion he makes. These are two different rulers – but which one saw the sea-serpent?” Sargon of Akkad lived around 2300 BC while Sargon II ruled in the 8th century BC. Magin notes, however, “Sargon of Akkad (or Sargon the Great) is not the same person as Sargon II of Assyria. He finds that a paper by paleocryptozoologist Adrienne Mayor in Cryptozoology, lists all ancient mentions of sea-monsters, among them – yet without any reference – a “Sargon of Akkad inscription.” Magin shows the confusion in the field, early on, when he starts to doublecheck on the sourcing of this “first” Sea Serpent sighting.

On the way to discovering the end to the mystery highlighted in the title (despite the misleading mistake that Heuvelmans never said the Sargon II sighting was anything more than the first Sea Serpent sighting, not the first cryptozoology sighting), this is a great essay. This, so far as I know, is the first mention in history of a particular sighting of the subject of this book.” This information is of particular interest, as it is generally assumed that the history of the sea-serpent starts with Olaus Magnus‘ 1539 reference to such an animal on the Norwegian coast in his “Carta Marina.“ Bernard Heuvelmans, in his In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents, writes: “Thus we learn that Sargon II, who reigned in Assyria from 722 to 705 B.C., saw a sea-serpent in the Mediterranean when sailing to Cyprus. The Assyrian King Sargon had the first ever sighting of a sea serpent. Magin gives the essence of his pursuit in his opening: I’ve always enjoyed Magin’s high-quality bibliographical and original source research, and this article does not disappoint. In the hot-off-the-press issue of The Anomalist 13, historical cryptozoologist Ulrich Magin examines, as he concisely says in the title of his article, “Sargon II’s Sea Serpent Sighting: The First Sighting in Cryptozoology?”

In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents by Bernard Heuvelmans