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How people of the early Middle Ages imagined the earth. Ancient people's idea of ​​the earth

Hello readers! How many of you remember being so curious about why as a child? 🙂 We were all interested in everything in the world, but what? but as? and why? We often came up with not very correct ideas about many things on Earth. But we were children, and this is typical for children, but before all people understood much of what we know now as children do in our time :) For example, let’s look at how ancient people imagined the Earth...

The correct idea of ​​ancient people about the Earth was formed by different nations not at the same time. For example, the ancient Indians imagined the Earth as a plane that lies on the backs of elephants. The Babylonians imagined it as, and on the western slope of this mountain is Babylonia.

They knew that in the east of Babylon they were showing off high mountains, and in the south - beautiful things spill out. And so they thought that Babylonia was located on the western slope of the “world” mountain. The sea splashes around this mountain and the solid sky rests on it, like an inverted bowl - this is a heavenly world in which there is air, water and land, just like on Earth.

The belt of 12 zodiac signs is the celestial land. For about a month, the Sun appears in each of these constellations every year. The Moon, Sun and 5 planets move along this land belt. Under the ground there is hell - an abyss into which the souls of the dead descend after death. The Sun passes through this underground at night from the western edge of the Earth to the eastern edge of the Earth, and again begins its daily journey across the sky.

People thought that the Sun sets in the sea and rises from it, because it seemed so to them from watching the Sun set over the sea horizon. From this we can conclude that the ancient Babylonians had an idea of ​​the Earth from observations of nature, but they were limited in this by a lack of knowledge.

Geography has a lot to thank the ancient Greeks for.

In the poems "Odyssey" and "Iliad" Homer can be found very interesting description ideas of the ancient Greeks about the Earth. They say that the Earth is like a disk that resembles a military shield. A river called Ocean washes the land from all sides. The sun floats across the copper horizon, which stretches over the Earth and every day rises from the waters of the Ocean in the east and sinks in the west.

According to the Greek philosopher Thales, it is like a liquid mass, and inside this mass there is a large bubble in the shape of a semicircle. The firmament is the concave surface of the bubble, and it floats on the flat lower surface.

The philosopher Anaximander, a contemporary of Thales, imagined the Earth as a section of a cylinder or column, and we live on one of its foundations. The large round island of Ecumene - land that occupies the middle of the Earth, is washed by . And in the middle of this island there is a large pool that divides the island into approximately even two parts, which are called: and.

In the middle of Europe is Greece, and in the center of Greece is the city of Delphi (“the navel of the Earth”). The Earth is the center of the Universe, as Anaximander believed. On the eastern side of the sky the sunrise and other luminaries are rising, and on the western side their sunset, he explained them by moving in a circle: in his opinion, the visible horizon is only half of the circle, and the other half of the circle is underfoot.

The followers of the ancient Greek scientist have already recognized the earth as round. Pythagoras. And they also considered other planets to be round.

Evidence that the Earth was round and not flat gradually began to appear after long-distance travel. Travelers noticed as they moved south that in this part of the sky the stars rose above the horizon in proportion to the distance traveled and new stars (which were not previously visible) appeared above the Earth. And vice versa, in the northern part of the sky, the stars descend and completely disappear beyond the horizon.

Also confirming that the Earth is round was the observation of receding ships. The ship gradually disappears over the horizon. Now the hull of the ship hid, and only the mast remained visible above the sea surface. And then she disappeared. From all this, people concluded that the Earth has the shape of a circle.

Aristotle (ancient Greek scientist) was the first to use observations of a lunar eclipse to prove that the Earth is round: a shadow falling on full moon from the Earth, always round. The Earth, during darkening, is turned on different sides to the Moon. But a round shadow is always formed only from a circle. Aristotle believed that everything revolves around the Earth.

Aristarchus of Samos, an outstanding astronomer, expressed the opinion that all the planets, together with the Earth, revolve around the Sun, and not the Sun, together with the planets, revolve around the Earth. This was the beginning correct presentation ancient people about the earth.

The ancient Indians imagined the Earth, which rests on the backs of 3 elephants, the elephants stand on a turtle, and the turtle stands on a snake.

The ancient Egyptians imagined that the Sun was a god called Ra, and he rode his chariot across the sky and gave them light. This is how they explained the movement of the sun across the sky. They considered the earth to be flat, and they considered the space above their heads to be a dome that rests on this plane.

Yeah, humanity... On the way to modern level it has gone through many interesting and, as it seems to us now, funny periods of development...

Since ancient times, people have watched with excitement starry sky, trying to unravel the mystery of the structure of the surrounding world. Today, humanity knows much more about how the Universe works, what elements and objects it consists of. But ancient ideas about the Universe differed significantly from modern scientific views.

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Ancient Greeks

Imagined the Earth to be 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 humans, from which the stars emerge every evening and into which they set every morning. From eastern sea The sun god Helios (later identified with Apollo) rose every morning in a golden chariot and made his way across the sky.


Egypt

The world in the minds of the ancient Egyptians: below is the Earth, above it is the goddess of the sky; to the left and to the right is the ship of the Sun god, showing the path of the Sun across the sky from sunrise to sunset.


India

The ancient Indians imagined the Earth as a hemisphere supported by four elephants. The elephants stood on a huge turtle that swam in the sea of ​​milk. All these animals were wrapped in rings by the black cobra Sheshu, and her thousands of heads propped up the Universe.


Babylon. Today's Iraq... in those parts

The inhabitants of Babylon imagined the Earth as a mountain, on the western slope of which Babylonia was located. They knew that to the south of Babylon there was a sea, and to the east there were mountains that they did not dare cross. That’s why it seemed to them that Babylonia was located on the western slope of the “world” mountain. This mountain is surrounded by the sea, and on the sea, like an overturned bowl, rests the solid sky - the heavenly world, where, like on Earth, there is land, water and air. The celestial land is the belt of the 12 constellations of the Zodiac: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces. The Sun appears in each constellation for about a month each year. 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 underground from the western edge of the Earth to the eastern, so that in the morning it will again begin its daily journey across the sky. Watching the Sun set over the sea horizon, people thought that it went into the sea and also rose from the sea. Thus, the ancient Babylonians’ ideas about the Earth were based on observations of natural phenomena, but limited knowledge did not allow them to be correctly explained.


Greeks.

The famous ancient Greek scientist Aristotle (IV century BC) was the first to use observations of lunar eclipses to prove the sphericity of the Earth. Before him, by the way, Pythagoras of Samos put forward this theory (in the 6th century BC)

Here are three facts:

* the shadow of 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.
** Ships, moving away from the observer into the sea, are not gradually lost from sight due to the long distance, but almost instantly seem to “sink”, disappearing beyond the horizon.
*** some stars can only be seen from certain parts of the Earth, but to 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 conducted astronomical observations. He continued Aristotle's teaching regarding the sphericity of the Earth.

He created his geocentric system of the universe and taught that all celestial bodies move around the Earth in empty cosmic space.

Subsequently, the Ptolemaic system was recognized Christian church.


Finally, an outstanding astronomer ancient world Aristarchus of Samos (end of the 4th - first half of the 3rd century BC) 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 had very little evidence at his disposal.

And about 1,700 years passed before the Polish scientist Copernicus managed to prove this.

Copernicus

His hypotheses refuted the theory of the ancient Greek scientist Ptolemy, which had existed for almost 1,500 years. According to this theory, the Earth rested motionless in the center of the Universe, and all the planets, including the Sun, revolved around it.

Although the teachings of Ptolemy could not explain many astronomical phenomena, the church for many centuries maintained the inviolability of this theory, since it completely suited it. But Copernicus could not be content with hypotheses alone; he needed more compelling arguments, but it was very difficult to prove the correctness of his theory in practice in those days: there were no telescopes, and astronomical instruments were primitive. The scientist, observing the sky, drew conclusions about the incorrectness of Ptolemy’s theory, and with the help of mathematical calculations he convincingly proved that all planets, including the Earth, revolve around the Sun.

The church could not accept the teachings of Copernicus, since it destroyed the theory of divine origin Universe. Nicolaus Copernicus outlined the result of his 40 years of research in the work “On the Rotation of the Celestial Spheres,” which, thanks to the efforts of his student Joachim Rheticus and like-minded person Tiedemann Giese, was published in Nuremberg in May 1543.

The scientist himself was already ill at that time: he suffered a stroke, as a result of which the right half of his body was paralyzed. On May 24, 1543, after another hemorrhage, the great Polish astronomer died. They say that already on his deathbed, Copernicus still managed to see his book printed.

In general: But still she spins!


Italian. Galileo Galilei (Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de Galilei)

Creates his own tube and calls it a telescope! By the way, I copied it from the Dutch. It seems that the invention didn’t help them, unlike Vincenzo, or they didn’t have enough brains)

After careful measurements and calculations, Galileo's telescope turns out to be incredibly accurate (for those times), but it also allows Galileo to make a lot of discoveries.

Galileo made his very first discovery after a detailed study of the surface of the Moon. He not only proved, but also described in detail the mountains that are on the surface of the Moon.

Galileo's second discovery was - Milky Way. The scientist proved that it consists of a cluster of many stars. In addition to such a cluster of stars, the scientist suggested that there are other galaxies in the world that can be located in different planes of the vast Universe.

The third most significant and significant discovery was the 4 satellites of Jupiter.

With his observations, Galileo simply and accurately proved that any cosmic body can rotate around other celestial bodies and not only around the Earth. The great astronomer examined and described in detail the spots on the Sun, of course, other people saw them, but no one was able to adequately and correctly describe them until Galileo Galilei did it.


In addition to observing the Moon, Galileo also revealed to the world the phases of the planet Venus. In his writings, he compared the phases of Venus with the phases of the Moon. All such important and significant observations boiled down to the fact that the Earth, together with other planets of our galaxy, revolves around the Sun.

Galileo described all his observations and discoveries in a scientific book called “Star Messenger”. It was after reading this book and the discoveries that Galileo made that almost all the monarchs in Europe demanded to purchase a telescope. The scientist himself gave several of his inventions to his patrons.

Of course, compared to current telescopes like Hubble, the Galileo telescope looks uncomplicated and simple. If you think about the fact that such a primitive device allowed one person to make a huge number of discoveries, then it becomes clear that it doesn’t matter whether a person’s device is supernew or old - the main thing is that the person looking at it has an extraordinary mind.

And by the way, they burned Giordano Bruno. This is such an irony...



Introduction

Despite high level astronomical information of the peoples of the ancient East, their views on the structure of the world were limited to direct visual sensations. Therefore, in Babylon there were views according to which the Earth has the appearance of a convex island surrounded by an ocean. There is supposedly a “kingdom of the dead” inside the Earth. The sky is a solid dome resting on earth's surface and separating the “lower waters” (the ocean flowing around an island on earth) from the “upper” (rain) waters. Heavenly bodies are attached to this dome; gods seem to live above the sky. The sun rises in the morning from the eastern gate and sets through the western gate, and at night it moves under the Earth.

According to the ideas of the ancient Egyptians, the Universe looks like a large valley stretching from north to south, with Egypt in the center. The sky was likened to a large iron roof, which is supported on pillars, and stars are hung on it in the form of lamps.

The original culture of Ancient Egypt has attracted the attention of all mankind since time immemorial. She aroused surprise among the Babylonian people, proud of their civilization. Philosophers and scientists learned wisdom from the Egyptians Ancient Greece. Great Rome worshiped the slender government organization countries of the pyramids.

With the help of some books about ancient Egypt, I will try to find out how the ancient Egyptians saw the world in different areas their lives.

Myths of ancient Egypt

The first myth about the creation of the world in Ancient Egypt was the Heliopolis cosmogony:

Heliopolis (biblical) has never been the political center of the state, however, from the era of the Old Kingdom until the end of the Late Period, the city did not lose its significance as the most important theological center and the main cult center of the solar gods. The cosmogonic version of Gapiopolis, which developed in the V dynasty, was the most widespread, and the main gods of the Heliopolis pantheon were especially popular throughout the country. The Egyptian name of the city - Iunu ("City of Pillars") is associated with the cult of obelisks.

In the beginning there was Chaos, which was called Nun - endless, motionless and cold water surface, shrouded in darkness. Millennia passed, but nothing disturbed the peace: the Primordial Ocean remained unshakable.

But one day the god Atum appeared from the Ocean - the first god in the universe.

The universe was still shackled by cold, and everything was plunged into darkness. Atum began to look for a solid place in the Primordial Ocean - some island, but there was nothing around except the motionless water of Chaos Nun. And then God created Ben-Ben Hill - the Primordial Hill.

According to another version of this myth, Atum was himself a Hill. The ray of the god Ra reached Chaos, and the Hill came to life, becoming Atum.

Having found the ground under his feet, Atum began to ponder what he should do next. First of all, it was necessary to create other gods. But who? Maybe the god of air and wind? - after all, only the wind can lead to motion dead Ocean. However, if the world begins to move, then whatever Atum creates after that will be immediately destroyed and will again turn into Chaos. Creative activity is completely meaningless as long as there is no stability, order and laws in the world. Therefore, Atum decided that, simultaneously with the wind, it was necessary to create a goddess who would protect and support the law established once and for all.

Having accepted this after many years of deliberation a wise decision, Atum finally began to create the world. He spewed the seed into his mouth, fertilizing himself, and soon spat Shu, the god of wind and air, from his mouth and vomited Tefnut, the goddess of world order.

Nun, seeing Shu and Tefnut, exclaimed: “May they increase!”

And Atum breathed Ka into his children.

But light had not yet been created. Everywhere, as before, there was darkness and darkness - and the children of Atum were lost in the Primordial Ocean. Atum sent his Eye to search for Shu and Tefnut. While it wandered around water desert, God created a new Eye and called it “Magnificent.” Meanwhile, the Old Eye found Shu and Tefnut and brought them back. Atum began to cry with joy. His tears fell on Ben-Ben Hill and turned into people.

According to another (Elephantine) version, not related to the Heliopolis cosmogonic legend, but quite widespread and popular in Egypt, people and their Ka were fashioned from clay by the ram-headed god Khnum, the main demiurge in Elephantine cosmogony.

The Old Eye was very angry when he saw that Atum had created a new one in its place. To calm the Eye, Atum placed it on his forehead and entrusted it with a great mission - to be the guardian of Atum himself and the world order established by him and the goddess Tefnut-Maat.

Since then, all the gods, and then the pharaohs, who inherited earthly power from the gods, began to wear the Solar Eye in the form of a cobra snake on their crowns. The Sol Eye in the form of a cobra is called by rei. Placed on the forehead or crown, the uraeus emits dazzling rays that incinerate all enemies encountered along the way. Thus, the uraeus protects and preserves the laws of the universe established by the goddess Maat.

Some versions of the Heliopolis cosmogonic myth mention the primordial divine bird Venu, like Atum, not created by anyone. At the beginning of the universe, Venu flew over the waters of Nun and built a nest in the branches of a willow on Ben-Ben Hill (therefore, the willow was considered a sacred plant).

On Ben-Ben Hill, people subsequently built the main temple of Heliopolis - the sanctuary of Ra-Atum. Obelisks became symbols of the Hill. The pyramidal tops of the obelisks, covered with sheet copper or gold, were considered to be the location of the Sun at noon.

From the marriage of Shu and Tefput a second divine couple was born: the earth god Geb and his sister and wife, the sky goddess Nut. Nut gave birth to Osiris (Egyptian Usir(e)), Horus, Set (Egyptian Sutekh), Isis (Egyptian Iset) and Nephthys (Egyptian Nebtot, Nebethet). Atum, Shu, Tefnut, Geb, Nut, Nephthys, Set, Isis and Osiris make up the Great Ennead of Heliopolis, or the Great Nine of Gods.

In the Predynastic era, Egypt was divided into two warring regions - Upper and Lower (along the Nile). After their unification by Pharaoh Narmer into a centralized state, the country continued to be administratively divided into South and North, Upper (from the second cataracts of the Nile to Ittawi) Egypt and Lower (Memphite nome and Delta) and was officially called the “Two Lands”. These are real historical events were also reflected in mythology: according to the logic of mythological stories, Egypt from the very beginning of the universe was divided into two parts and each had its own patron goddess.

The southern part of the country is under the patronage of Nekhbet (Nekhyob(e)t) - a goddess in the guise of a female kite. Nekhbet is the daughter of Ra and his Eye, the protector of the pharaoh. She is depicted, as a rule, wearing the white crown of Upper Egypt and with a lotus flower or water lily - the emblem of the Upper Reaches.

The cobra snake Wadjet (Uto) - the patroness of Lower Egypt, the daughter and Eye of Ra - is depicted in the red crown of the Lower Reaches and with the emblem of the North - papyrus stems. The name "Wadget" - "Green" - is given by the color of this plant.

Gods, under whose supervision and protection he resides government in Egypt, they wear the “United Crown of the Two Lands” - the “Pschent” crown. This crown is a kind of combination of the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt into one whole and symbolizes the unification of the country and power over it. On the Pschent crown a uraeus was depicted, rarely two uraeus: one in the form of a cobra and the other in the form of a kite; sometimes - papyri and lotuses tied together. The united crown "Pschent" was crowned with the heirs of the gods after the Golden Age - the pharaohs, the "lords of the Two Lands".

The supreme deities also wear a crown “atef” - a headdress of two tall feathers, usually blue (heavenly) color - a symbol of deity and greatness. Amon is always depicted wearing the atef crown. The "atef" crown can also crown the head of a god in combination with other crowns, most often with the crown of Upper Egypt (the most common headdress of Osiris).

Religion of Ancient Egypt.( Mummification, gods of Egypt)

1.Gods of Egypt:

During the centuries-long development of the Egyptian state, the meaning and nature of various cults changed. The beliefs of ancient hunters, cattle breeders, and farmers were mixed; they were layered with echoes of struggle and political growth or decline in different centers of the country.

From about 3000 BC. e. The official religion of Egypt recognized the pharaoh as the son of the solar god Ra and thus as the god himself. There were many other gods and goddesses in the Egyptian pantheon, who controlled everything from natural phenomena like air (the god Shu) to cultural phenomena like writing (the goddess Saf). Many gods were represented as animals or half-human-half-animals. A well-organized and powerful priestly caste created family groups of various deities, many of whom were probably originally local gods. The creator god Ptah (according to Memphis theology) was, for example, united in the war goddess Sekhmet, and the healer god Imhotep entered into the father-mother-son triad.

Usually the Egyptians gave highest value gods associated with the Nile (Hapi, Sothis, Sebek), the sun (Ra, Re-Atum, Horus), and gods helping the dead (Osiris, Anubis, Sokaris). During the Old Kingdom period, the solar god Ra was the main god. Ra was supposed to bring immortality to the entire state through the pharaoh, his son. The sun seemed to the Egyptians, like many other ancient peoples, to be clearly immortal, for it “died” every evening, wandered underground and was “born again” every morning. The sun was also important for success Agriculture in the Nile region. Thus, since the pharaoh was identified with the sun-god, the inviolability and prosperity of the state were ensured. In addition, Ra was the stronghold of the moral order of all things, Maat (Truth, Justice, Harmony) was his daughter. This created a set of life rules for the masses and an additional opportunity to please the sun god in the interests of the state and their own. This religion was not individualistically oriented; except royal family, no one could hope for an afterlife and few believed that Ra was capable of paying attention or providing service to an ordinary person.

Egyptian religious temples were not only places of religious worship: they were also centers of social, intellectual, cultural and economic life. During the Middle Kingdom and the reign of the Egyptian emperors, temples surpassed pyramids as the dominant architectural form. The large temple at Karnak was larger in area than any of the known religious buildings. Just like in the pyramids, absolute value temples embodied indestructibility, symbolically expressing the immortality of the pharaoh, the state and, finally, the soul itself.

The priests formed only a small part of the vast staff that served the temple, including guards, scribes, singers, altar servers, cleaners, readers, prophets and musicians. During the heyday of temple architecture, around 1500 BC. e. temples were usually surrounded by several massive structures, and along the wide alley that led to their territory, sphinxes stood in rows, acting as guards. Everyone could enter the open courtyard, but only a few high-ranking priests could enter the inner sanctuary, where a statue of the god was kept in a shrine kept in a boat. Daily ceremonies at the temples involved the priests burning incense on the temple grounds, then waking up, washing, anointing and dressing the statue of the deity, sacrificing fried food, then resealing the sanctuary until the next ceremony. In addition to these daily temple ceremonies, holidays and festivals dedicated to various deities were regularly held throughout Egypt. The festival was often held in connection with the completion of an agricultural cycle. The statue of the deity could have been taken out of the sanctuary and solemnly carried through the city, and perhaps she had to observe the festival. Sometimes plays were performed describing individual events in the life of the deity.

There was probably no single religion in Egypt. Each nome and city had its own especially revered god and pantheon of gods (Fayum, Sumenu - Sobek (crocodile), Memphis, She - Amon, the bull Apis, Ishgun - Thoth (ibis, a cave in which birds from all over the country were buried), Damanhur - “City of Chora”, Sanhur - “Protection of Chorus” - Horus (falcon), Bubast - Bastet (cat), Imet - Wadjet (snake) They worshiped not only gods and animals, but also plants (sycamore, sacred trees).

2.Graves and funeral rites

The ancient Egyptians believed that the dead might need the same items they used during life, partly because people, in their view, consisted of body and soul, so the continuation of life after death should have affected the body as well. This must have meant that the body had to be well prepared for revival and that useful and valuable things had to be prepared for it. Hence the need for mummification and supplying the graves with all the necessary things that can keep the body safe. Preserving the body and providing it with basic necessities was thus consistent with religious beliefs that life does not end. (Some of the ancient grave inscriptions reassured the dead that death was, after all, just an illusion: “You did not go away dead; you went away alive.”)

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Some peoples believed that the Earth was flat and supported by three whales that floated across the vast ocean. Consequently, these whales were in their eyes the main foundations, the foundation of the whole world.

Increase geographical information associated primarily with travel and navigation, as well as with the development of simple astronomical observations.


The ancient Greeks imagined the Earth to be 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 humans, from which the stars emerge every evening and into which they 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 minds of the ancient Egyptians: below is the Earth, above it is the goddess of the sky; to the left and to the right is the ship of the Sun god, showing the path of the Sun across the sky from sunrise to sunset.



The inhabitants of Babylon imagined the Earth as a mountain, on the western slope of which Babylonia was located. They knew that to the south of Babylon there was a sea, and to the east there were mountains that they did not dare cross. That’s why it seemed to them that Babylonia was located on the western slope of the “world” mountain. This mountain is surrounded by the sea, and on the sea, like an overturned bowl, rests the solid sky - the heavenly world, where, like on Earth, there is land, water and air. The celestial land is the belt of the 12 constellations of the Zodiac: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces.

The Sun appears in each constellation for about a month each year. 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 underground from the western edge of the Earth to the eastern, so that in the morning it will again begin its daily journey across the sky. Watching the Sun set over the sea horizon, people thought that it went into the sea and also rose from the sea. Thus, the ancient Babylonians’ ideas about the Earth were based on observations of natural phenomena, but limited knowledge did not allow them to be correctly explained.

When people began to travel far, evidence gradually began to accumulate that the Earth was not flat, but convex.

The great ancient Greek scientist Pythagoras of Samos

The great ancient Greek scientist Pythagoras of Samos (in the 6th century BC) first suggested that the Earth was spherical. Pythagoras was right. But to prove the Pythagorean hypothesis, and even more so to determine the radius globe succeeded much later. It is believed that Pythagoras borrowed this idea 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 may have also relied on the testimony of a simple sailor Skilacus of Karian, who in 515 BC. made a description of his voyages in the Mediterranean.

The famous ancient Greek scientist Aristotle (IV century BC) was the first to use observations of lunar eclipses to prove the sphericity of the Earth. Here are three facts:

1. The shadow of 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.
2. Ships, moving away from the observer into the sea, are not gradually lost from sight due to the long distance, but almost instantly seem to “sink”, disappearing beyond the horizon.
3. Some stars can only be seen from certain parts of the Earth, but to 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 conducted astronomical observations. He continued Aristotle's teaching regarding the sphericity of the Earth.

He created his geocentric system of the universe and taught that all celestial bodies move around the Earth in empty cosmic space.

Subsequently, the Ptolemaic system was recognized by the Christian Church.

Aristarchus of Samos

Finally, the outstanding astronomer of the ancient world, Aristarchus of Samos (late 4th - first half of the 3rd century BC) 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 had very little evidence at his disposal.

And about 1,700 years passed before the Polish scientist Copernicus managed to prove this.

People's idea of ​​the Universe

“It is not the enormity of the world of stars that inspires admiration, but the man who measured it.”
B. Pascal

Astronomy began with the idea that the whole world is the Earth and the firmament above it. We now know that there are billions of galaxies in the infinite Universe. Amazing discoveries constantly changed ideas about the world, and this process continues to this day.

Astronomy from time immemorial

We have all heard that ancient people believed that the Earth was flat, resting on three elephants, which, in turn, stood on the back of a huge turtle. The turtle swims through the endless oceans of the world, and above it there is a kind of tent to which stars are attached. This is just one of many theories about the structure of the Earth that existed thousands of years ago.

The Mayans divided the year into 18 months, 20 days each. They were the most accurate among the ancients to calculate the length of the year.

Naturally, people could not help but notice that constant changes were taking place in the sky: the sun moves throughout the day, the moon changes size and position, even the stars do not remain in one place. Even the ancient Egyptian priests, in the 3rd millennium BC, were engaged in astronomical observations and made several discoveries. For example, they learned to predict the annual flood of the Nile, noticing that it occurs immediately after the appearance of bright Star, Sirius. They managed to calculate the duration solar year. Their observations turned out to be surprisingly accurate, the year was 365 days, while according to modern updated data, the length of the tropical year is 365.242198 days.

The oldest astronomical instrument is the astrolabe. This is a flat round “plate” with degrees on the edge, a disk inside and a ruler that is raised vertically to measure the distance between the luminaries and their height above the horizon

The priests of the state of Babylon, which existed in the 2nd-1st millennia BC, learned to compile astronomical tables, gave names to most constellations, and created moon calendar and divided the year into 12 months. Astronomers in Ancient China studied the movements of the Sun and Moon so well that they could predict eclipses. They also created a model of the celestial sphere, which helped determine the positions of objects in the sky.

Problems that the ancients solved with the help of astronomy:

  • Orientation by stars
  • Making a calendar
  • Definition of time

What is at the center of the world?

For the first time, the ancient Greeks started talking about the fact that the Earth is not a flat disk, but a ball. Aristotle, watching solar eclipses, I saw that the shadow covering the luminary was round. And since only the Earth could cast this shadow, he concluded that our planet is spherical. But Aristotle, like other researchers, considered the Earth to be the center of the Universe.

Heliocentric system of the world, according to which the Earth revolves around the Sun, and not vice versa, was developed by the ancient Greek astronomer Aristarchus of Samos(III century BC).

He also hypothesized that the Earth not only moves around the Sun, but also rotates around its axis, which is why the change of night and day occurs.

But the theories of Aristarchus of Samos did not find support, and for many centuries scientists recognized the model of the world created by his compatriot Claudius Ptolemy(2nd century). What did Ptolemy's geocentric model of the world look like? The Earth was in the center, and the Sun, Moon and celestial bodies known at that time moved around it in concentric orbits.

Painting by A. Caron “Astronomers studying an eclipse” (1571)

Only in the 16th century did an astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus returned to the world system where the Sun is in the center. Soon the laws of planetary motion and the law of universal gravitation were discovered; started in astronomy new stage. The science of celestial bodies made the next breakthrough in the 19th century, when spectral analysis and photography began to be used. The 20th century, with its new research methods using radio waves and x-rays, advanced astronomy greatly. Launching artificial satellites, space flights and landing on the Moon, sending spacecraft to Mars and Venus help astronomers get closer to solving celestial mysteries.

The myths of Ancient Greece claim that our world appeared when the earth goddess Gaia emerged from the dark and boundless chaos. She gave birth to Uranus, the god of the sky, and then from their union the Titans appeared, among whom were Oceanus and the god of time Kronos

Ancient ideas about the Earth

For the most part, all the ideas of the ancients were based on the geocentric system of the world. According to legend, the ancient Indians imagined the Earth as a plane lying on the backs of elephants. Valuable ones have reached us historical information about how the ancient peoples who lived in the basin of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in the Nile delta and along the banks imagined the Earth Mediterranean Sea- in Asia Minor and Southern Europe. For example, written documents from ancient Babylonia dating back about 6 thousand years have been preserved. The inhabitants of Babylon, who inherited their culture from even more ancient peoples, imagined the Earth in the form of a mountain, on the western slope of which Babylonia is located. They knew that to the south of Babylon there was a sea, and to the east there were mountains that they did not dare cross. That’s why it seemed to them that Babylonia was located on the western slope of the “world” mountain. This mountain is surrounded by the sea, and on the sea, like an overturned bowl, rests the solid sky - the heavenly world, where, like on Earth, there is land, water and air. The celestial land is the belt of the 12 constellations of the Zodiac: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces. The Sun appears in each constellation for about a month each year. 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 underground from the western edge of the Earth to the eastern, so that in the morning it will again begin its daily journey across the sky. Watching the Sun set over the sea horizon, people thought that it went into the sea and also rose from the sea. Thus, the ancient Babylonians’ ideas about the Earth were based on observations of natural phenomena, but limited knowledge did not allow them to be correctly explained.

The ancient Jews imagined the Earth differently. They lived on a plain, and the Earth seemed to them to be a plain, with mountains rising here and there. 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, was located in the lower zone of the sky and separated the Earth from the celestial waters: snow, rain and hail. Under the Earth there are waters, from which canals run up, feeding seas and rivers. The ancient Jews apparently had no idea about the shape of the entire Earth.

Geography owes a lot to the ancient Greeks, or Hellenes. This small people, who lived in the south of the Balkan and Apennine peninsulas of Europe, created a high culture. We find information about the most ancient Greek ideas about the Earth known to us in Homer’s poems “Iliad” and “Odyssey”. They speak of the Earth as a slightly convex disk, reminiscent of a warrior's shield. The land is washed on all sides by the Ocean River. A copper firmament stretches above the Earth, along which the Sun moves, rising daily from the waters of the Ocean in the east and plunging into them in the west.

The peoples who lived in Palestine imagined the Earth differently than the Babylonians. they lived on a plain, and the Earth seemed to them to be a plain, with mountains rising here and there. They 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 zone of the sky and separates the Earth from the celestial waters: snow, rain and hail.


17th century image of the earth, note that the navel of the earth is in Palestine.

In the ancient Indian book called "Rigveda", which means "Book of Hymns", you can find a description - one of the very first in the history of mankind - of the entire Universe as a single whole. According to the Rig Veda, it is not very complicated. It contains, first of all, the Earth. It appears as a limitless flat surface - “vast space.” This surface is covered on top by the sky. And the sky is a blue vault dotted with stars.

Between the sky and the Earth is “luminous air.”

In ancient China, there was an idea according to which the Earth had the shape of a flat rectangle, above which a round convex sky was supported on pillars. The enraged dragon seemed to bend the central pillar, as a result of which the Earth tilted to the east. Therefore, all rivers in China flow to the east. The sky tilted to the west, so all the heavenly bodies move from east to west.

The ideas of the pagan Slavs about the earthly structure were very complex and confusing.

Slavic scholars write that he seemed to them similar to big egg, in the mythology of some neighboring and related peoples, this egg was laid by a “cosmic bird”. The Slavs have preserved echoes of the legends about the Great Mother - the parent of Earth and Sky, the foremother of Gods and people. Her name was Zhiva, or Zhivana. But not much is known about her, because, according to legend, she retired after the birth of Earth and Heaven. In the middle of the Slavic Universe, like a yolk, is the Earth itself. The upper part of the “Yolk” is our living world, the world of people. The lower "underside" side is the Lower World, the World of the Dead, the Night Country. When it's day there, it's night here. To get there, you need to cross the Ocean-Sea that surrounds the Earth. Or dig a well right through, and the stone will fall into this well for twelve days and nights. Surprisingly, whether it is an accident or not, the ancient Slavs had an idea about the shape of the Earth and the cycle of day and night. Around the Earth, like egg yolks and shells, there are nine heavens (nine three times three is a sacred number among various peoples). That's why we still say not only "heaven" but also "heavens." Each of the nine heavens Slavic mythology has its own purpose: one for the Sun and stars, another for the Moon, another for clouds and winds. Our ancestors considered the seventh to be the “firmament,” the transparent bottom of the heavenly Ocean. There are reserves of living water stored there, inexhaustible source rains. Let's remember how they talk about heavy rain: “The abysses of heaven opened up.” After all, the “abyss” is the abyss of the sea, the expanse of water. We still remember a lot, we just don’t know where this memory comes from or what it relates to.

The Slavs believed that you can get to any sky by climbing the World Tree, which connects the Lower World, the Earth and all nine heavens. According to the ancient Slavs, the World Tree looks like a huge spreading oak tree. However, on this oak tree the seeds of all trees and herbs ripen. This tree was a very important element of ancient Slavic mythology - it connected all three levels of the world, extended its branches to the four cardinal directions and with its “condition” symbolized the mood of people and Gods in various rituals: a green tree meant prosperity and a good share, and a dried one symbolized despondency and used in rituals where evil Gods participated. And where the top of the World Tree rises above the seventh heaven, in the “heavenly abyss” there is an island. This island was called "irium" or "virium". Some scientists believe that the current word “paradise”, which is so firmly associated in our life with Christianity, comes from it. Iriy was also called Buyan Island. This island is known to us from numerous fairy tales. And on that island live the ancestors of all birds and animals: “elder wolf”, “elder deer”, etc. The Slavs believed that they fly to the heavenly island in the fall migratory birds. The souls of animals caught by hunters ascend there and answer to the “elders” - they tell how people treated them. Accordingly, the hunter had to thank the animal for allowing him to take his skin and meat, and in no case mock him. Then the “elders” will soon release the beast back to Earth, allow it to be born again, so that fish and game will not be transferred. If a person is guilty, there will be no trouble... (As we see, the pagans did not at all consider themselves “kings” of nature, who were allowed to plunder it as they pleased. They lived in nature and together with nature and understood that every living creature has no less right to life than that of a person.)

Greek philosopher Thales(VI century BC) represented the Universe in the form of a liquid mass, inside of which there is a large bubble shaped like a hemisphere. The concave surface of this bubble is the vault of heaven, and on the lower, flat surface, like a cork, it floats flat earth. It is not difficult to guess that Thales based the idea of ​​the Earth as a floating island on the fact that Greece is located on islands.

Contemporary of Thales - Anaximander imagined the Earth as a segment of a column or cylinder, on one of the bases of which we live. The middle of the Earth is occupied by land in the form of a large round island of Oikumene (“inhabited Earth”), surrounded by the ocean. Inside the Ecumene there is a sea basin that divides it into two approximately equal parts: Europe and Asia. Greece is located in the center of Europe, and the city of Delphi is in the center of Greece (“the navel of the Earth”). Anaximander believed that the Earth was the center of the Universe. He explained the rise of the Sun and other luminaries on the eastern side of the sky and their sunset on the western side by the movement of the luminaries in a circle: the visible vault of heaven, in his opinion, constitutes half of the ball, the other hemisphere is underfoot.

The world in the minds of the ancient Egyptians: below is the Earth, above it is the goddess of the sky; left and right - ship
the sun god, showing the path of the sun across the sky from sunrise to sunset.

Followers of another Greek scientist - Pythagoras(b. c. 580 - d. 500 BC) - already recognized the Earth as a ball. They also considered other planets to be spherical.

The ancient Indians imagined the Earth as a hemisphere supported by elephants.
The elephants are standing on a huge turtle, and the turtle is on a snake, which,
curled up in a ring, it closes the near-Earth space.

The ideas of the ancients about the Earth were based primarily on mythological ideas.

Some peoples believed that the Earth was flat and supported by three whales that floated across the vast ocean.

The ancient Greeks imagined the Earth as a flat disk surrounded by a sea inaccessible to humans, from which the stars emerge every evening and into which they set every morning. The sun god Helios rose every morning from the eastern sea in a golden chariot and made his way across the sky.

The ancient Indians imagined the Earth as a hemisphere held by four elephants. The elephants are standing on a huge turtle, and the turtle is on a snake, which, curled up in a ring, closes the near-earth space.


Old Norse Land.

The inhabitants of Babylon imagined the Earth as a mountain, on the western slope of which Babylonia was located. They knew that to the south of Babylon there was a sea, and to the east there were mountains that they did not dare cross. That’s why it seemed to them that Babylonia was located on the western slope of the “world” mountain. This mountain is surrounded by the sea, and on the sea, like an overturned bowl, rests the solid sky - the heavenly world, where, like on Earth, there is land, water and air.


The Old Testament Land in the form of a tabernacle.


Seven heavenly spheres according to Muslim ideas.


View of the Earth according to the ideas of Homer and Hesiod.


Plato's Spindle of Ananka - The sphere of light connects earth and sky
like the hull of a ship and permeates heaven and earth through and through in the form
a luminous pillar in the direction of the world axis, the ends of which coincide with the poles.


Universe according to Lajos Ami.

When people began to travel far, evidence gradually began to accumulate that the Earth was not flat, but convex. So, moving south, travelers noticed that in the southern side of the sky the stars rose above the horizon in proportion to the distance traveled and new stars appeared above the Earth that were not visible before. And in the northern side of the sky, on the contrary, the stars descend down to the horizon and then completely disappear behind it. The bulge of the Earth was also confirmed by observations of receding ships. The ship gradually disappears over the horizon. The hull of the ship has already disappeared and only the masts are visible above the surface of the sea. Then they disappear too. On this basis, people began to assume that the Earth was spherical. There is an opinion that before the completion of the expedition of Ferdinand Magellan, whose ships sailed in one direction and unexpectedly arrived with reverse side there, that is, until September 6, 1522, no one suspected the sphericity of the Earth.

Among the questions that primitive man posed to himself, obviously, there were questions about the properties of the surrounding nature. Curiosity gave rise to the desire to find out what was behind the nearest hills, behind the forest or river. The world that opened up to a person was reflected in her mind, and the knowledge so necessary for survival was passed on from generation to generation. Over time, people began to sketch, and with the advent of writing, they began to write down what they saw and heard, and they learned to diagrammatically depict the area. Thus, knowledge about the Earth gradually accumulated. Where the information ended, fantasy turned on.

IN different times and different peoples’ ideas about our planet were quite diverse and differed significantly from modern ones. Thus, the ancient Indians believed that the Earth is a hemisphere, which is held by four elephants, which stand on a huge turtle.

Residents of the ocean coast imagined the Earth as a disk placed on the backs of three whales floating in the vast ocean. In the imagination of the ancient Chinese, the Earth was shaped like a giant cake. At one time, the Egyptians were sure that the Sun traveled across the sky on a ship, supported by the sky goddess, and the Babylonians depicted the Earth as a mountain surrounded by the sea.

However, as knowledge about the world around them accumulated, people began to wonder why ships gradually disappear over the horizon, the horizon itself expands as it rises, and during lunar eclipses the earth's shadow takes on a round shape. These and other observations were systematized by the ancient Greek scientists Pythagoras of Samos (6th century BC) and Aristotle (c. 384-322 BC), who were the first to suggest that the Earth is spherical. Pythagoras justified his opinion as follows: everything in nature must be harmonious and perfect; The most perfect of geometric bodies is the ball; The earth must also be perfect, which means it is spherical! In the 3rd century. BC. The famous ancient Greek mathematician and geographer Eratosthenes of Cyrene (c. 275-194 BC) was the first to calculate the size of our planet and introduced the concept of “parallels” and “meridians”. It was also the first time, although arbitrarily, that he plotted these lines on a map he concluded of the inhabited land. This map was used for almost 400 years - until the end of the 1st century. 27 maps of the ancient Greek scientist Claudius Ptolemy (c. 90-160 AD) from the Egyptian city of Alexandria have survived to this day, which he added to his scientific work"Geography". In this work, he described how to lay out maps, listed about 8 thousand names of various terrain objects, including several hundred with geographical coordinates, defined behind the Sun and stars. Ptolemy was the first to use a grid of meridians and parallels, which was not much different from the modern one.

In the Middle Ages, when the church objected to the spherical shape of the Earth, the achievements of ancient scientists were forgotten, and the Earth was depicted as a circle or rectangle, in the center of which holy places were often placed, in the extreme east - heaven, and in the west - hell. Back in the 6th century. one of these maps was created by the Byzantine monk Cosmas Indicoplova. The system of the world he depicted, despite its obvious absurdity, spread throughout Europe at that time. Even in the 13th century. On the English map of the world placed in the Psalter, Jerusalem is located in the “center of the world” - a sacred place for Christians.

The geographical globe, as a model of the globe, was first created by the German geographer Martin Beheim in 1492. The coast of Africa was mapped based on the information of the Portuguese navigator Bartolomeu Dias, who in 1487 was the first European to circumnavigate Africa from the south, discovering the Cape of Good Hope. The information on the globe was greatly distorted: where America should actually be, it was depicted East Coast Asia and many non-existent islands. After all, Europeans did not yet know about the existence of America, although in the same year when Behaim created his globe, the expedition of Christopher Columbus reached the shores of the New World.

Much time has passed until, thanks to the efforts of brave sailors and travelers, geographical maps"white spots" disappeared. Even in the 19th century. the vast spaces around the Northern and South Pole planets.

Therefore, it is quite understandable why on the map of the hemispheres from the atlas of Gerardus Mercator, published in 1606, the “Unknown Land” is shown in place of Antarctica, and North America extends to the North Pole.

Slide 3

Our planet Earth is part of the vast Universe, one of countless celestial bodies

Slide 4

For thousands of years, people have admired the starry sky, watched the movement of the Sun, Moon, and planets. And we always asked ourselves the question: how does the Universe work?

Modern ideas about the structure of the Universe developed gradually. In ancient times they were completely different from what they are now. For a long time The Earth was considered the center of the Universe.

Slide 5

Ancient India

  • Slide 6

    The picture of the world according to the ancient Egyptians: below is the Earth, above it is the goddess of the sky, to the left and right is the ship of the Sun god, showing the path of the Sun across the sky (from sunrise to sunset).

    Slide 7

    Ancient Babylon

    The Babylonians imagined the Earth as a mountain, on the western slope of which Babylonia was located. They noticed that to the south of Babylon there was a sea, and to the east there were mountains that they did not dare cross. That’s why it seemed to them that Babylonia was 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 solid sky - the heavenly world. In the sky, as on Earth, there is land, water and air. The celestial land is the belt of the constellations of the Zodiac, like a dam stretching among the celestial sea. The Sun, Moon and five planets move along this belt of land.

    Slide 8

    This is how the Slavs imagined the universe. Presumably, the world of the Slavs consists of 9 layers - the underworld, the world of people, and the seven celestial spheres. Let's start our short description from the Underworld - Pekla. Among the southern and western Slavs, the lower kingdom was hot and fiery. However, the underground world was often aquatic; in its dark depths lived the Lizard - a crocodile, the owner of the monastery of departed ancestors. The world of people, the White Light, towered above him. It is nourished by fertile arable land - the Mother of Cheese, the Earth. People - men and women - spend their time working and fighting, being born and dying. They thank the Earth, Water and Sun, Fate and Military Power, Birth and Death, pay attention to everything so as not to accept gifts without any response to them.

    The celestial spheres rise above the White Light. They are filled with heavenly waters - abysses, the Sun - Dazhbog - walks on them, and at the very top, in the seventh heaven, is the bright Iriy - paradise.

    Slide 9

    Ancient Greek scientists did a lot to develop views about the structure of the Universe. One of them is Pythagoras (about 580 - 500 BC)

    He was the first to suggest that the Earth is not flat, but spherical.

    Slide 10

    The correctness of this assumption was proven by another great Greek - Aristotle (384 - 322 BC)

    Slide 11

    Aristotle's model of the universe