Belief in flat Earth Near East '' Babylonian map, the oldest known world map, 6th century BC
Babylonia. In early
Egyptian and
Mesopotamian thought, the world was portrayed as a disk floating in the ocean. A similar model is found in the
Homeric account from the 8th century BC in which "Okeanos, the personified body of water surrounding the circular surface of the Earth, is the begetter of all life and possibly of all gods." The
Pyramid Texts and
Coffin Texts of ancient Egypt show a similar cosmography;
Nun (the Ocean) encircled ("dry lands" or "islands"). The Israelites also imagined the Earth to be a disc floating on water with an arched
firmament above it that separated the Earth from the heavens. The sky was a solid dome with the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars embedded in it.
Greece Poets Both
Homer and
Hesiod described a disc cosmography on the
Shield of Achilles. This poetic tradition of an Earth-encircling (
gaiaokhos) sea (
Oceanus) and a disc also appears in
Stasinus of Cyprus,
Mimnermus,
Aeschylus, and
Apollonius Rhodius. Homer's description of the disc cosmography on the shield of Achilles with the encircling ocean is repeated far later in
Quintus Smyrnaeus'
Posthomerica (4th century AD), which continues the narration of the Trojan War.
Philosophers Several
pre-Socratic philosophers believed that the world was flat:
Thales (c. 550 BC) according to several sources, and
Leucippus (c. 440 BC) and
Democritus (c. 460–370 BC) according to Aristotle. Thales thought that the Earth floated in water like a log. It has been argued, however, that Thales actually believed in a spherical Earth.
Anaximander (c. 550 BC) believed that the Earth was a short cylinder with a flat, circular top that remained stable because it was the same distance from all things.
Anaximenes of Miletus believed that "the Earth is flat and rides on air; in the same way the Sun and the Moon and the other heavenly bodies, which are all fiery, ride the air because of their flatness".
Xenophanes (c. 500 BC) thought that the Earth was flat, with its upper side touching the air, and the lower side extending without limit. Belief in a flat Earth continued into the 5th century BC.
Anaxagoras (c. 450 BC) agreed that the Earth was flat, and his pupil
Archelaus believed that the flat Earth was depressed in the middle like a saucer, to allow for the fact that the Sun does not rise and set at the same time for everyone.
Historians Hecataeus of Miletus believed that the Earth was flat and surrounded by water.
Herodotus in his
Histories ridiculed the belief that water encircled the world, yet most classicists agree that he still believed Earth was flat because of his descriptions of literal "ends" or "edges" of the Earth.
Northern Europe The ancient Norse and Germanic peoples believed in a flat-Earth cosmography with the Earth surrounded by an ocean, with the
axis mundi, a world tree (
Yggdrasil), or pillar (
Irminsul) in the centre. In the world-encircling ocean sat a snake called
Jormungandr. The Norse creation account preserved in
Gylfaginning (VIII) states that during the creation of the Earth, an impassable sea was placed around it: The late Norse
Konungs skuggsjá, on the other hand, explains Earth's shape as a sphere:
East Asia In
ancient China, the prevailing belief was that the Earth was flat and square, while the heavens were round, an assumption virtually unquestioned until the introduction of European astronomy in the 17th century. The English
sinologist Cullen emphasizes the point that there was no concept of a round Earth in ancient Chinese astronomy: The model of an
egg was often used by Chinese astronomers such as
Zhang Heng (78–139 AD) to describe
the heavens as spherical: This analogy with a curved egg led some modern historians, notably
Joseph Needham, to conjecture that Chinese astronomers were, after all, aware of the Earth's sphericity. The egg reference, however, was rather meant to clarify the relative position of the flat Earth to the heavens: This was preconceived by the 4th-century scholar
Yu Xi, who argued for
the infinity of
outer space surrounding the Earth and that the latter could be either square or round, in accordance to the shape of the heavens. When Chinese geographers of the 17th century, influenced by European cartography and astronomy, showed the Earth as a sphere that could be
circumnavigated by sailing around the globe, they did so with formulaic terminology previously used by Zhang Heng to describe the spherical shape of the Sun and Moon (i.e. that they were as round as a crossbow bullet). As noted in the book
Huainanzi, in the 2nd century BC, Chinese astronomers effectively inverted
Eratosthenes' calculation of the curvature of the Earth to calculate the height of the Sun above the Earth. By assuming the Earth was flat, they arrived at a distance of (approximately ). The
Zhoubi Suanjing also discusses how to determine the distance of the Sun by measuring the length of noontime shadows at different latitudes, a method similar to Eratosthenes' measurement of the circumference of the Earth, but the
Zhoubi Suanjing assumes that the Earth is flat.
Alternate or mixed theories Mesopotamia Although Mesopotamian cosmology is usually depicted as a flat disc of land floating in water, some texts describe a complex structure composed of vertical layers. For instance, KAR 307, a cuneiform text, depicts three layered earths. The "Upper Earth" is the land inhabited by mankind, the "Middle Earth" are subterranean Apsu waters ruled by
Enki, and the "Lower Earth" is the underworld which has 600
Anunnaki. While none of the ancient Mesopotamian models were spherical, Professor
Wayne Horowitz documents "significant variety" in different Mesopotamian cosmological texts, noting "disagreement between texts from different periods, of different genres, and even among texts from the same period and genre." and this view spread rapidly in the Greek world. Around 330 BC,
Aristotle maintained on the basis of physical theory and observational evidence that the Earth was spherical, and reported an estimate of
its circumference. The Earth's
circumference was first determined around 240 BC by
Eratosthenes. By the 2nd century AD,
Ptolemy had derived
his maps from a globe and developed the system of
latitude,
longitude, and
climes. His
Almagest was written in Greek and only translated into Latin in the 11th century from Arabic translations.
Lucretius (1st century BC) opposed the concept of a spherical Earth, because he considered that an infinite universe had no center towards which heavy bodies would tend. Thus, he thought the idea of animals walking around topsy-turvy under the Earth was absurd. By the 1st century AD,
Pliny the Elder was in a position to say that everyone agreed on the spherical shape of Earth, though disputes continued regarding the nature of the
antipodes, and how it is possible to keep the
ocean in a curved shape.
South Asia (near the Belgian coast) with the lower parts of the more distant towers increasingly hidden by the horizon, demonstrating the curvature of the Earth The
Vedic texts depict the cosmos in many ways. One of the earliest Indian cosmological texts pictures the Earth as one of a stack of flat disks. In the Vedic texts,
Dyaus (heaven) and
Prithvi (Earth) are compared to wheels on an
axle, yielding a flat model. They are also described as bowls or leather bags, yielding a concave model. According to Macdonell: "the conception of the Earth being a disc surrounded by an ocean does not appear in the
Samhitas. But it was naturally regarded as circular, being compared with a wheel (10.89) and expressly called circular (parimandala) in the
Shatapatha Brahmana." By about the 5th century AD, the
siddhanta astronomy texts of South Asia, particularly of
Aryabhata, assume a spherical Earth as they develop mathematical methods for quantitative astronomy for calendar and time keeping. The medieval Indian texts called the
Puranas describe the Earth as a flat-bottomed, circular disk with concentric oceans and continents. This general scheme is present not only in the Hindu cosmologies, but also in
Buddhist and
Jain cosmologies of South Asia.
Early Christian Church During the early period of the Christian Church, the spherical view continued to be widely held, with some notable exceptions. Until the mid-fourth century AD, virtually all Christian authors held that the Earth was round.
Athenagoras, an eastern Christian writing around the year 175 AD, said that the Earth was spherical.
Methodius (c. 290 AD), an eastern Christian writing against "the theory of the Chaldeans and the Egyptians" said: "Let us first lay bare ... the theory of the Chaldeans and the Egyptians. They say that the circumference of the universe is likened to the turnings of a well-rounded globe, the Earth being a central point. They say that since its outline is spherical, ... the Earth should be the center of the universe, around which the heaven is whirling." Some historians do not view Augustine's scriptural commentaries as endorsing any particular cosmological model, endorsing instead the view that Augustine shared the common view of his contemporaries that the Earth is spherical, in line with his endorsement of science in
De Genesi ad litteram. C. P. E. Nothaft, responding to writers like Leo Ferrari who described Augustine as endorsing a flat Earth, says that "...other recent writers on the subject treat Augustine's acceptance of the Earth's spherical shape as a well-established fact". While it always remained a minority view, from the mid-fourth to the seventh centuries AD, the flat-Earth view experienced a revival, around the time when
Diodorus of Tarsus founded the exegetical school known as the
School of Antioch, which sought to counter what he saw as the pagan cosmology of the Greeks with a return to the
traditional cosmology. The writings of Diodorus did not survive, but are reconstructed from later criticism. This revival primarily took place in the East Syriac world (with little influence on the Latin West) where it gained proponents such as
Ephrem the Syrian and in the popular
hexaemeral homilies of
Jacob of Serugh. Chrysostom, one of the four Great Church Fathers of the
Eastern Church and
Archbishop of Constantinople, explicitly espoused the idea, based on scripture, that the Earth floats miraculously on the water beneath the
firmament.
Christian Topography (547) by the Alexandrian monk
Cosmas Indicopleustes, who had traveled as far as
Sri Lanka and the source of the
Blue Nile, is now widely considered the most valuable geographical document of the early medieval age, although it received relatively little attention from contemporaries. In it, the author repeatedly expounds the doctrine that the universe consists of only two places, the Earth below the firmament and heaven above it. Carefully drawing on arguments from scripture, he describes the Earth as a rectangle, 400 days' journey long by 200 wide, surrounded by four oceans and enclosed by four massive walls which support the firmament. The spherical Earth theory is contemptuously dismissed as "pagan".
Severian, Bishop of Gabala ( 408), wrote that the Earth is flat and the Sun does not pass under it in the night, but "travels through the northern parts as if hidden by a wall".
Basil of Caesarea (329–379) argued that the matter was theologically irrelevant.
Europe: Early Middle Ages Early medieval Christian writers felt little urge to assume flatness of the Earth, though they had fuzzy impressions of the writings of Ptolemy and Aristotle, relying more on Pliny. Still, many textbooks of the Early Middle Ages supported the sphericity of the Earth in the western part of Europe. representing the inhabited world as described by
Isidore of Seville in his
Etymologiae (chapter 14, ) Europe's view of the shape of the Earth in
Late Antiquity and the
Early Middle Ages may be best expressed by the writings of early Christian scholars:
Bishop Isidore of Seville (560–636) taught in his widely read encyclopedia, the
Etymologies, diverse views such as that the Earth "resembles a wheel" resembling Anaximander in language and the map that he provided. This was widely interpreted as referring to a disc-shaped Earth. An illustration from Isidore's
De Natura Rerum shows the five zones of the Earth as adjacent circles. Some have concluded that he thought the
Arctic and
Antarctic zones were adjacent to each other. He did not admit the possibility of antipodes, which he took to mean people dwelling on the opposite side of the Earth, considering them legendary and noting that there was no evidence for their existence. Isidore's
T and O map, which was seen as representing a small part of a spherical Earth, continued to be used by authors through the Middle Ages. At the same time, Isidore's works also gave the views of sphericity, for example, in chapter 28 of
De Natura Rerum, Isidore claims that the Sun orbits the Earth and illuminates the other side when it is night on this side. Other researchers have argued these points as well. "The work remained unsurpassed until the thirteenth century and was regarded as the summit of all knowledge. It became an essential part of European medieval culture. Soon after the invention of typography it appeared many times in print." However, "The Scholastics – later medieval philosophers, theologians, and scientists – were helped by the Arabic translators and commentaries, but they hardly needed to struggle against a flat-Earth legacy from the early middle ages (500–1050). Early medieval writers often had fuzzy and imprecise impressions of both Ptolemy and Aristotle and relied more on Pliny, but they felt (with one exception), little urge to assume flatness." Some authorities have suggested that the sphericity of the Earth was among the aspects of Vergilius's teachings that Boniface and Zachary considered objectionable. Others have considered this unlikely, and take the wording of Zachary's response to indicate at most an objection to belief in the existence of humans living in the antipodes. In any case, there is no record of any further action having been taken against Vergilius. He was later appointed
bishop of Salzburg and was
canonised in the 13th century. ) A possible non-literary but graphic indication that people in the Middle Ages believed that the Earth (or perhaps the world) was a sphere is the use of the orb (
globus cruciger) in the regalia of many kingdoms and of the Holy Roman Empire. It is attested from the time of the Christian late-Roman emperor
Theodosius II (423) throughout the Middle Ages and in western Europe, the use of a physical orb is attested since at least the time of
Emperor Henry II (d. 1024). A contemporary chronicler describes the imperial orb given to Henry II by
Pope Benedict VIII as shaped like a golden apple surmounted by a cross and representing the earth with its rotundity. Such a
Reichsapfel was likewise used in 1191 at the coronation of
emperor Henry VI. There is, however, no record of a cartographical globe in the Middle Ages before the
Erdapfel of
Martin Behaim from 1492. Additionally the imperial orb could also represent of the entire "world" or
cosmos. A recent study of medieval concepts of the sphericity of the Earth noted that "after the eighth century the Globe became part of the world picture of medieval Christians without much more debate." From the ninth century, we likewise find discussion of Eratosthenes' method for calculating the sphericality of the earth in Carolingian commentaries on
Martianus Capella. By the turn of the eleventh century,
Hermann of Reichenau (1013–1054) includes a new method for replicating Eratosthenes' measurement using an astrolabe. For the wider population, however, it is difficult to say what they may have thought of the shape of the Earth if they considered the question at all.
Europe: High and Late Middle Ages '', the most influential
astronomy textbook of 13th-century Europe The approximate sphericality of the Earth was universally accepted among scholastic authors of the High and Late Middle Ages. Evidence of its sphericality was discussed in standard university textbooks like
John of Sacrobosco's
On the Sphere of the World and flat earth theories played no role in discussions of the Earth's shape at medieval universities. The commonplace nature of this knowledge is illustrated by the highly influential theologian
Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), who uses it as an example of a fact that can be proved by two different sciences.
Portuguese navigation down and around the coast of
Africa in the latter half of the 1400s gave wide-scale observational evidence for Earth's sphericity. In these explorations, the Sun's position moved more northward the further south the explorers travelled. Its position directly overhead at noon gave evidence for crossing the equator. These apparent solar motions in detail were more consistent with north–south curvature and a distant Sun, than with any flat-Earth explanation. The ultimate demonstration came when
Ferdinand Magellan's expedition completed the first global circumnavigation in 1521.
Antonio Pigafetta, one of the few survivors of the voyage, recorded the loss of a day in the course of the voyage, giving evidence for east–west curvature.
Middle East: Islamic scholars Prior to the introduction of Greek cosmology into the Islamic world, Muslims tended to view the Earth as flat, and Muslim traditionalists who rejected Greek philosophy continued to hold to this view later on while various theologians held opposing opinions. Beginning in the 10th century onwards, some Muslim traditionalists began to adopt the notion of a spherical Earth with the influence of Greek and Ptolemaic cosmology. In
Quranic cosmology, the Earth (
al-arḍ) was "spread out." Whether or not this implies a flat Earth was debated by Muslims. Some modern historians believe the Quran saw the world as flat. On the other hand, the 12th-century
commentary, the
Tafsir al-Kabir (al-Razi) by
Fakhr al-Din al-Razi argues that though this verse does describe a flat surface, it is limited in its application to local regions of the Earth which are roughly flat as opposed to the Earth as a whole. Others who would support a ball-shaped Earth included
Ibn Hazm. As late as 1595, an early
Jesuit missionary to China,
Matteo Ricci, recorded that the
Ming-dynasty Chinese say: "The Earth is flat and square, and the sky is a round canopy; they did not succeed in conceiving the possibility of the antipodes." Matteo Ricci, in collaboration with
Chinese cartographers and translator
Li Zhizao, published the
Kunyu Wanguo Quantu in 1602, the first Chinese
world map based on
European discoveries. The astronomical and geographical treatise
Gezhicao () written in 1648 by Xiong Mingyu () explained that the Earth was spherical, not flat or square, and could be circumnavigated. that there was a long-lasting and essential
conflict between science and religion. Some studies of the historical connections between science and religion have demonstrated that theories of their mutual antagonism ignore examples of their mutual support. Subsequent studies of medieval science have shown that most scholars in the Middle Ages, including those read by Christopher Columbus, maintained that the Earth was spherical. ==Modern flat Earth beliefs==