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Podcast: Let's Get To The Bottom of That
Episode: The Tartarian Empire | Myth or Lost Civilization
Description: The idea of a “Tartarian Empire” traces back to how European mapmakers and writers once described central and northern Asia. In the medieval and early modern period, “Tartary” or “Tartaria” was a catch-all name for Siberia and Central Asia's vast, largely unknown regions. For example, a 1700 French map by Guillaume de L’Isle labels “Great Tartary” across Central Asia, alongside divisions like “Muscovite Tartary” in Russia and “Chinese Tartary” in Manchuria. This term did not denote a single empire or unified nation, but rather a broad geographical concept used by Europeans for lands of the “Tatars” (a term often meaning Turkic and Mongol peop...