Is it a crab or is it an island?

The Saratan (or sometimes Zaratan) is a mythical giant crab from Arabic folklore. Tales tell of a crab that resembled an island and that would drag unwary sailors to a watery grave if they ventured onto its back.

My combination of an antique-style sea chart with illustrations of galleons plus a large pendant bead that seemed ideal for the crab’s body have come together in my interpretation of the tale. I have used more upcycled blue beads for the crab’s legs along with seashells and semi-precious bead chips. All the details are on the artwork’s listing in my shop.

The story of the Saratan was first mentioned by the 9th century writer Al-Jahiz in The Book of Animals. He talked of three sea monsters: a sea dragon, a whale and a crab, although he was skeptical about the Saratan’s existence.

Other tales talk of a similar creature. It is mentioned in Sinbad the Sailor’s first voyage from the book One Thousand and One Nights. It also appears in The Wonders of Creation by the 13th century geographer Al-Qazwini. And it gets a mention in the Alexander Romance, a fictionalised work about the life and times of Alexander the Great.

The image above shows an Armenian manuscript from 1538 – 44 from the Alexander Romance.

Photo by Hrair Hawk Khatcherian and Lilit Khachatryan – https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/11/18/prophets-angels-churches-of-armenia/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=94275929

Whatever the details of these sea monsters, I hope you’ll find that my mixed media box frame is an appealling interpretation. The wonderful thing about mythology is that it allows our imaginations to soar. You will find blog posts about my other artworks with a mythical theme in the index.

One other interesting thought for me is that the word for crab in Gaelic is ‘partan’ – different but quite similar to the Arabic!

Derrick