u/BornGorn

The Balena (or Physeter) is one of the most iconic sea monsters from Renaissance-era cartography. Sailors claimed its skin was so rough and covered in sand and stone that they mistook the beast for an island.

The Balena is often shown with two distinct blowholes on its head that act more like water cannons. The Balena didn't just smash ships but would also purposefully swim alongside them and rain down torrents of water through its pipes with such force that it would swamp the deck and sink vessels under the crushing weight.

It was frequently described as having massive tusks and eyes that glowed with a terrifying intensity. Olaus Magnus once described the Balena as being so large that a man could stand inside its mouth and be "no more than a tooth in its jaw."

In 1539 Swedish cartographer Olaus Magnus published the Carta Marina, a map charting the treacherous northern seas. In order to capture the terrifying reality of early exploration he populated the waters with mythological beasts from sailors' tales. Amongst the greatest of these was the Balena, a kaiju-sized, ship crushing leviathan that embodied an ultimate nightmare of 16th-century mariners… now on soft vinyl!

This sofubi was sculpted by Liz Johnson and pulled and painted in Japan.