Ancient whales washing ashore, dead or alive, in the Tagus River during the early modern period, either by casualty or in the upcoming of well-known natural disasters. In 1531, whale and earthquake converge and reflect, individually and together, human feelings and sensations that are reproduced in the most varied contemporary cultural products that cross the space of time.

This particular event allows us to explore the past of the estuarine ecosystem, writing “new thalassographies”, “historicities” or fluid humanities, and including all the actors involved – people, other animals and physical space – in understanding a shared past. In this video we approach the multiple visions about the whale – the animal, the symbolic, the other, the useful, in a joint plot that gathers ecology, seismology, history and culture.