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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: ARN-AUD |
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ATLAS , in Greek mythology, the " endurer," a son of the Titan Iapetus and Clymene (or Asia
Homer , in the Odyssey (i. 52) speaks of him as " one who knows the depths of the whole sea, and keeps the tall pillars which hold heaven and earth asunder." In the first instance he seems to have been a marine creation. The pillars which he supported were thought to rest in the sea, immediately beyond the most western horizon. But as the Greeks' knowledge of the west increased, the name of Atlas was transferred to a hill in the north-west of Africa. Later, he was represented as a king of that district
garden of the Hesperides, who was turned into a rocky mountain when Perseus, to punish him for his inhospitality, showed him the Gorgon's head (Ovid, Metam. iv. 627). Finally, Atlas was explained as the name of a primitive astronomer, who was said to have made the first celestial
Homer , of Calypso. In works of art he is represented as carrying the heavens or the terrestrial globe. The Farnese statue of Atlas in the Naples museum is well known.The plural form ATLANTES is the classical term
TELAMONES ).A figure of Atlas supporting the heavens is often found as a frontispiece in early collections of maps, and is said to have been first thus used by Mercator. The name is hence applied to avolume of maps (see MAP), and similarly to a volume which contains a tabular conspectus of a subject, such as an atlas of ethnographical, subjects or anatomical plates. It is also used of a large size of drawing paper .The name " atlas," an Arabic word meaning " smooth," applied to a smooth cloth, is sometimes found in English, and is the usual German word, for " satin." End of Article: ATLAS If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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