The atlas statue...?

Question

just been talking to my boyfriend and he said why did people believe that the world was flat when the greeks had a god "Atlas" who was holding up the world which was a globe lol

thanks!

xo

Answer 1

As has been said, Atlas (who was a giant, not a god) held up the sky. Also, the ancient Greeks had already proved the world was round (I think it may have been Aristotle or Euclid).

Answer 2

Simply put, in the original story Atlas did not hold up the Earth - he held up the sky.  That 'globe' in classical statues is a sphere representing the heavens.

Incidentally, some Greeks knew, or at least suspected, that the Earth was round; Eratosthenes estimated its circumference with a reasonable degree of accuracy.

Answer 3

The ancient Greeks knew the world was round.  There were three ways to tell.  (1) A ship sailing over the horizon would dissapear bottom first.  (2) you could see the shadow of the earth on the moon in a lunar eclipse and (3) You could put a stick in the ground and follow the shadow and it moved in a circular path.  This was called a 'gnomon'.  One Greek (I forget who) was able to measure the circumference of the Earth by studying gnomons in two different places simultaneously, and he was closer than anyone was for the next 2000 years.

The ancient Greek model of the universe was picked up by Christians and they believed it into the 1500s.  The earth was in the center, surrounded by concentric spheres like the leaves of an onion. The moon and sun had their own spheres and moved in orbits around the earth.  The planets (five of them in those days) each moved in their own spheres, and the furthest one out was all the stars.  By the time Gallileo turned a telescope on the heavens and realized the earth revolved around the sun, the earth-centered universe had become church doctrine.  But that started with the ancient Greeks.

Greeks didn't really believe the earth was held up on the shoulders of a huge man. Atlas was a mythical figure, he was allegorical.

Answer 4

Thats not the world - its the Sky - or a Celestial Sphere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_%28my...

Answer 5

HE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE HOLDING UP THE SKY NOT THE WORLD

ATLAS WAS A TITAN, WHO WAS TURNED TO STONE BY PERSEUS WITH THE HEAD OF MEDUSA BECAUSE FELT SORRY FOR HIM

Answer 6

Atlas was a Titan and as a punishment for going against the God of all Gods Zeus, was made to hold up the Universe (Stars and planets) for ever.

Atlas holding up the Earth was a fanciful illustration in an atlas by Mercator. Totally wrong but the image has stuck.

Answer 7

Further to Poppy's answer above, that's why maps of the Earth are called Atlases.