In 1816, the Medusa floundered off the coast of west Africa, and although 200 people escaped on lifeboats with the captain 150 people where left to fend for themselves. They created a raft and where adrift of the coast for thirteen days before they where saved. The fifteen survivors had descended to cannibalism; at the time of their rescue they were described as 'lying on the boards, hands and mouth still dripping with the blood of their unhappy victims, shreds of flesh hanging from the raft's mast'

Théodore Géricault's made his seminal painting The Raft of The Medusa in 1820.