For thousands of years, people have observed the movement of celestial bodies and natural phenomena. And they always wondered: how the Universe works. In ancient times, the picture of the structure of the universe was greatly simplified. People simply divided the world into two parts - Heaven and Earth. About how the firmament is arranged, each nation built its own ideas.
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The earth in the view of the peoples of antiquity was a large flat disk, the surface of which is inhabited by people and everything that surrounds them. The sun, moon and 5 planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn), according to ancient people, are small luminous celestial bodies attached to a sphere that continuously rotate around the disk, making a complete revolution during the day.
It was believed that the earth's firmament is motionless and is in the center of the Universe, that is, every ancient people, one way or another, came to the conclusion: our planet is the center of the world.
Such a geocentric (from the Greek word Geo - earth) view was present in almost all the peoples of the ancient world - Greeks, Egyptians, Slavs, Hindus…
Almost all theories about the world order, the origin of heaven and earth that appeared at that time were idealistic, since they had a divine beginning.
But there were differences in the representation of the structure of the universe, since they were based on myths, traditions and legends inherent in different civilizations.
There were four main theories: different, but somewhat similar ideas about the structure of the universe by the ancient peoples.
Legends of India
The ancient peoples of India represented the earth as a hemisphere, leaning on the backs of four huge elephants, standing, in turn, on a turtle, and the black snake Sheshu closed the entire near-earth space.
The idea of the structure of the world in Greece
The ancient Greeks claimed that the Earth has the shape of a convex disk, resembling a warrior's shield in shape. Around the land was surrounded by an endless sea, from which every night the stars came out. Every morning they drowned in its depths. The sun in the face of the god Helios on a golden chariot rose early in the morning from the eastern sea, made a circle in the sky and again returned to its place in the late evening. And the vault of heaven was held on its shoulders by the mighty Atlas.
The ancient Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus imagined the Universe as a liquid mass, inside of which there is a large hemisphere. The curved surface of the hemisphere is the vault of heaven, and the lower, flat surface, freely floating in the sea, is the Earth.
However, this outdated hypothesis was refuted by the ancient Greek materialists, who provided convincing evidence of the roundness of the land. Aristotle was convinced of this, observing nature, how the stars change their height over the horizon, and the ships disappear behind the swell of the earth.
Earth through the eyes of the ancient Egyptians
The people of Egypt imagined our planet in a completely different way. The planet seemed flat to the Egyptians, and the sky in the form of a huge dome rested on four high mountains located at the four corners of the world. Egypt was located in the center of the earth.
The ancient Egyptians used the images of their gods to personify spaces, surfaces and elements. The earth - the goddess Gebe - lay below, above it, bending, stood the goddess Nut (starry sky), and the air god Shu, who was between them, did not allow her to fall to the Earth. It was believed that the goddess Nut swallowed the stars every day and gave birth to them again. The sun daily passed its way through the sky on a golden boat, which was ruled by the god Ra.
The ancient Slavs also had their own idea of the structure of the world. The world, in their opinion, was divided into three parts:
Between themselves, all three worlds are connected, like an axis, by the World Tree. In the branches of the sacred tree live the stars, the Sun and the Moon, and at the roots - the Serpent. The sacred tree was considered a support, without which the world would collapse if it was destroyed.
The answer to the question of how in ancient times people represented our planet helps to find ancient artifacts that have survived to this day.
Scientists find the first prototypes of geographical maps in different countries, they are known to us in the form of images on the walls of temples, frescoes, drawings in the first astronomical books. In ancient times, man sought to pass on information about the structure of the world to subsequent generations. Man's idea of the Earth largely depended on the relief, nature and climate of the places where he lived.
Good afternoon, dear reader, today I intend to discuss the flat Earth with you (yes, you heard right), but first you need a tinfoil hat ... ahem ahem ... sorry, I got carried away. It would seem that the 21st century is in the yard, and people are enjoying the benefits of civilization with might and main, however, to this day there are flat earth societies in the world (for example, the Flat Earth Society), and videos with “evidence” that scientists are lying to us are gaining millions of likes on youtube.
Interestingly, at one time theories about various unnatural forms of the Earth were indeed considered scientific and generally accepted. Next, I will try to trace the history of the change ideas of ancient civilizations about the structure of our world(in particular - the Earth).
Representations common in the cradles of civilization
I'll start with Ancient China, one and a half thousand years BC, the inhabitants Shang State already possessed the skills of writing, and also achieved great success in cartography. In the future empire there was a belief that The earth is a flat rectangle, on the edges of which are located 4 pillars supporting the sky. Once upon a time there were 5 pillars, but the mighty dragon destroyed the central one, which caused the earth to lean to the east (the flow of rivers in those lands is directed to the east), and the sky to the west (celestial bodies move to the west).
Inhabitants Indian civilization believed in four huge elephants supporting the flat earth(there seems to be no dragon). In ancient Babylon, the earth was considered a great mountain, on the slope of which the city of the gods is located. Such an idea is associated with the geographical location of the first metropolis (the sea is located south of Babylon, and the mountains are in the east).
Great successes in understanding the surrounding world have been achieved by states that have succeeded in navigation and navigation: first Egyptians, after Phoenicians and Greeks.
Antiquity and the development of ideas about the Earth
First, I will consider the knowledge that is widespread in Ancient Greece, after I turn to the activities of philosophers, starting with Thales. Studying the ancient Greek epic (“Odyssey” and “Iliad”), we can come to the conclusion that the Greeks represented our planet with a convex hoplite shield.
Representations of ancient Greek philosophers:
- Pythagoreans suggested that The earth is spherical, in the 4th century BC evidence provided by Aristotle.
- The astronomer came closest to the answer Aristarchus of Samos who hypothesized that The earth revolves around the sun, and not vice versa.
Correct information about the Earth and its shape did not appear immediately, not at one time and not in one place. However, it is difficult to find out exactly where, when, among which people they were most correct. Very few reliable ancient documents and material monuments have been preserved about this.
One of the most ancient cultural countries on Earth is China. Several thousand years BC. e. the ancient Chinese had a written language, were able to depict the area on the map and made geographical descriptions. But, unfortunately, the ancient Chinese "drawings" (maps) and descriptions of the lands are still almost not studied. Studying them is a matter for the future, and it will undoubtedly open up many new and interesting things.
Indian culture is also very ancient. According to legend, the Indians imagined the Earth as a plane lying on the backs of elephants.
The idea of the Babylonians about the Earth
Valuable historical materials have come down to us from the ancient peoples who lived in the Middle East, in the basin pp. Tigris and Euphrates, in the Nile Delta and along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea in Asia Minor and Southern Europe.
Written documents from ancient Babylonia have survived to our time. They are about 6000 years old. The Babylonians, in turn, inherited knowledge from even more ancient peoples.
The Babylonians represented the Earth as a mountain, on the western slope of which Babylonia is located. They noticed that to the south of Babylon is the sea, and to the east there are mountains, through which they did not dare to cross. Therefore, it seemed to them that Babylonia is located on the western slope of the "world" mountain. This mountain is round, and it is surrounded by the sea, and on the sea, like an overturned bowl, rests the firm sky of the heavenly world. In the sky, as well as on Earth, there is land, water and air. The celestial land is a belt of the constellation of the Zodiac, like a dam stretching among the celestial sea. The Sun, Moon and five planets move along this belt of land.
Under the Earth there is an abyss - hell, where the souls of the dead descend; at night, the Sun passes through this dungeon from the western edge of the Earth to the eastern, in order to begin its daytime journey through the sky again in the morning.
Watching the sunset over the sea horizon, people thought that it went into the sea and that it must also rise from the sea.
The idea of the ancient Babylonians about the Earth was based, therefore, on observations of natural phenomena. However, the limited knowledge did not allow them to correctly explain these phenomena.
The peoples who lived in Palestine imagined the Earth differently from the Babylonians. The ancient Jews lived on a plain and the Earth was represented as a plain, on which mountains rise in some places. The Jews assigned a special place in the universe to the winds, which bring with them either rain or drought. The abode of the winds, in their opinion, is located in the lower belt of the sky and separates the Earth from the heavenly waters: snow, rain and hail. There are waters under the Earth, from which channels go up, feeding the seas and rivers. Apparently, the ancient Jews had no idea about the shape of the entire Earth.
It is known that the Phoenicians, Egyptians and ancient Greeks were good navigators: even on small ships they boldly embarked on distant voyages and discovered new lands.
Geography owes a lot to the Hellenes, or the ancient Greeks. This small people, who lived in the south of the Balkan and Apennine peninsulas of Europe, created a high culture.
The most ancient ideas of the Greeks known to us about the Earth are found in Homer's poems - "The Odyssey" and "Iliad" (XII-VIII centuries. BC). From these works it can be seen that the Greeks imagined the Earth as a slightly convex disk, resembling a warrior's shield. The Ocean River flows around the land from all sides. Above the Earth is a copper firmament, through which the Sun moves, rising daily from the waters of the Ocean in the east and plunging into them in the west.
One of the Greek philosophers, named Thales (6th century BC), imagined the Universe as a liquid mass, inside of which there is a large bubble shaped like a hemisphere. The concave surface of this bubble is the sky, and on the lower flat surface, like a cork, the flat Earth floats. It is easy to guess that Thales based the idea of the Earth as a floating island on the fact known to him that Greece is located on numerous islands.
The Greek Anaximander (6th century BC) represented the Earth as a segment of a column or cylinder, on one of the two bases of which we live. The middle of the Earth is occupied by land in the form of a large round island - "Ecumene" (that is, the inhabited Earth). It is surrounded by the ocean. Inside the Oikumene there is a sea basin, dividing it into two approximately equal parts: Europe and Asia. Greece is located in the center of the land, and the city of Delphi is in the center of Greece (“the navel of the Earth”).
The picture of the world according to the ideas of the ancient Egyptians: below - the Earth, above it - the goddess of the sky; left and right - the ship of the sun god, showing the path of the sun across the sky (from sunrise to sunset).
The rise of the Sun and other luminaries on the eastern side of the sky, after they disappeared behind the horizon in the west, Anaxmander explained by their movement under the Earth in a circle. The vault of heaven that we see is thus half a ball; the other hemisphere is under our feet. Anaximander believed that the Earth is the center of the universe.
The followers of another ancient scientist - Pythagoras - went further: they recognized that the Earth is a ball. The spherical shape was attributed by them not only to the Earth, but also to other planets.
The famous scientist of antiquity, Aristotle (4th century BC), not only accepted the doctrine of the sphericity of the Earth, but was also the first to scientifically prove it. Aristotle pointed out that if the Earth did not have the shape of a ball, then the shadow that it casts on the Moon during its eclipses would not be limited by an arc of a circle.
A new stage in the development of the science of the ancient Greeks was the teaching of the outstanding astronomer of the ancient world, Aristarchus of Samos (end of the 4th century - first half of the 3rd century BC). He expressed the idea that it is not the Sun together with the planets that moves around the Earth, but the Earth and all the planets revolve around the Sun.
However, he could not scientifically substantiate his thought; about 1700 years passed when the brilliant Polish scientist Copernicus managed to do this.
The ancient Greeks even tried to determine the size of the Earth. The famous writer of antiquity Aristophanes (the second half of the 5th - the beginning of the 4th century BC) in his comedy "Clouds" spoke of attempts to determine the size of the Earth. The first fairly accurate measurement of the size of the globe, which served as the basis for mathematical geography, was made by Eratosthenes of Cyrene (II century BC), an ancient Greek mathematician, astronomer and geographer. He, like Aristotle, believed that the Earth was spherical.
Thus, gradually ideas about the Earth became more and more correct.
The geographers of the ancient world tried to map the spaces known to them - the Oikumene and even the Earth and the whole. These maps were imperfect and far from the truth. More reliable maps appeared only in the last two centuries BC. e.
More than two and a half thousand years ago, the Babylonian priests already knew that the Earth was a sphere. They even calculated the circumference of the earth. According to their calculations, it was equal to 24,000 miles. To check the correctness of this figure, modern scientists tried to find out the length of the then mile. They managed to find an ancient Babylonian record, which said that a mile is equal to 4,000 camel steps. If we take the step length of a loaded camel as 80 cm, then the circumference of the earth, according to the calculations of the Babylonians, was 76,800 km, that is, it turned out to be almost twice as much as in reality.
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The ideas of the ancients about the Earth were based primarily on mythological ideas.
Some peoples believed that the Earth is flat and rests on three whales that swim in the vast world ocean. Consequently, these whales were in their eyes the main foundations, the foot of the whole world.
The increase in geographical information is associated primarily with travel and navigation, as well as with the development of the simplest astronomical observations.
Ancient Greeks imagined the earth was flat. This opinion was held, for example, by the ancient Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus, who lived in the 6th century BC. He considered the Earth to be a flat disk surrounded by a sea inaccessible to man, from which stars come out every evening and into which stars set every morning. Every morning the sun god Helios (later identified with Apollo) rose from the eastern sea in a golden chariot and made his way across the sky.
The world in the view of the ancient Egyptians: below - the Earth, above it - the goddess of the sky; left and right - the ship of the sun god, showing the path of the sun across the sky from sunrise to sunset.
The ancient Indians imagined the Earth as a hemisphere held by four elephant . Elephants stand on a huge turtle, and the turtle is on a snake, which, curled up in a ring, closes the near-Earth space.
Babylonians represented the Earth in the form of a mountain, on the western slope of which Babylonia is located. They knew that there was a sea to the south of Babylon, and mountains to the east, which they did not dare to cross. Therefore, it seemed to them that Babylonia is located on the western slope of the "world" mountain. This mountain is surrounded by the sea, and on the sea, like an overturned bowl, the firm sky rests - the heavenly world, where, like on Earth, there is land, water and air. The heavenly land is the belt of the 12 constellations of the Zodiac: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces. In each of the constellations, the Sun visits each year for about a month. The Sun, Moon and five planets move along this belt of land. Under the Earth is an abyss - hell, where the souls of the dead descend. At night, the Sun passes through this dungeon from the western edge of the Earth to the east, in order to begin its daytime journey through the sky again in the morning. Watching the sunset over the sea horizon, people thought that it goes into the sea and also rises from the sea. Thus, the ancient Babylonians' ideas about the Earth were based on observations of natural phenomena, but the limited knowledge did not allow them to be explained correctly.
Earth according to the ancient Babylonians.
When people began to make long journeys, evidence gradually began to accumulate that the Earth was not flat, but convex.
Great ancient Greek scientist Pythagoras Samos(in the VI century BC) for the first time suggested the sphericity of the Earth. Pythagoras was right. But to prove the Pythagorean hypothesis, and even more so to determine the radius of the globe, it was possible much later. It is believed that this idea Pythagoras borrowed from the Egyptian priests. When the Egyptian priests knew about this, one can only guess, since, unlike the Greeks, they hid their knowledge from the general public.Pythagoras himself, perhaps, also relied on the evidence of a simple sailor, Skilak of Karyanda, who in 515 BC. made a description of his voyages in the Mediterranean.
famous ancient greek scientist Aristotle(IV century BCe.)
He was the first to use observations of lunar eclipses to prove the sphericity of the Earth. Here are three facts:
- the shadow from the earth falling on the full moon is always round. During eclipses, the Earth is turned to the Moon in different directions. But only the ball always casts a round shadow.
- The ships, moving away from the observer into the sea, are not gradually lost from sight due to the long distance, but almost instantly, as it were, "sink", disappearing behind the horizon line.
- some stars can only be seen from certain parts of the Earth, while for other observers they are never visible.
Claudius Ptolemy(2nd century AD) - ancient Greek astronomer, mathematician, optician, music theorist and geographer. In the period from 127 to 151 he lived in Alexandria, where he carried out astronomical observations. He continued the teachings of Aristotle regarding the sphericity of the Earth.
He created his own geocentric system of the universe and taught that all celestial bodies move around the Earth in an empty world space.
Subsequently, the Ptolemaic system was recognized by the Christian church.
The universe according to Ptolemy: the planets revolve in empty space.
Finally, the outstanding astronomer of the ancient world Aristarchus of Samos(late 4th - first half of the 3rd century BC) suggested that it is not the Sun, together with the planets, that moves around the Earth, but the Earth and all the planets revolve around the Sun. However, he had very little evidence at his disposal.
And it took about 1700 years before the Polish scientist managed to prove it. Copernicus.
