“He does… in the sort of definitive version that he produces in 1518, give us a bit of a clue, and that's a map of Utopia, which in fact does not resemble the crescent shape at all that's described… what it does resemble is a skull. And so it tells us that utopia is a memento mori… none of these things that we pride ourselves on in our society, 16th century or 21st, wealth and social standing and property, none of that matters in death.”

I think there are a number of reasons, and we've touched on some of them already. And for 500 years, people have been reading so much into this text. It almost what Cathy was describing as the difficulty approaching the island. I think it's the difficulty approaching the meaning of this text as well. But he does, I think, in the sort of definitive version that he produces in 1518, give us a bit of a clue, and that's a map of Utopia, which in fact does not resemble the crescent shape at all that's described. And I think that that really twigs us on to something there, because what it does resemble, and it's produced by Ambrosius Holbein, the elder brother of Hans Holbein the Younger, what it does resemble is a skull. And so it tells us that utopia is a memento mori, a menta mori. It is a reminder, a remembrance of death. And this essential moral or lesson that Moore always comes back to, which is that none of these things that we pride ourselves on in our society, 16th century or 21st, wealth and social standing and property, none of that matters in death. In death, we are all the same. In death, we are all equal. And so utopia, in some ways, is like the afterlife. Everyone is just like their neighbor.