Why a Book of Maps is called an Atlas

On this post, I'm going to briefly explain to you why a book of maps is now called an atlas. I meant to stay away from mythology, but alas, here it is again. Ha-ha! Anyway, Atlas (per the ancient Myths & Legends) ruled a large island kingdom called Atlantis. To make a short story even shorter, the guy was punished by the Gods and the city was destroyed by a great flood and it ultimately sank beneath the sea. Atlas then led the Titans into the great Cosmic War. When he was defeated by the Gods, they punished Atlas by making him hold the sky on his shoulder forever.

Now, as depicted above, you can see how the celestial globe he was holding, could have easily been misinterpreted as the Earth. Well, from there, comes 2 major flaws in the interpretation. First of all, many people still make the mistake and say "Atlas holds the world on his shoulders." Secondly, when enough people misconstrue this notion, they end up naming the book of maps for planet Earth after Atlas, since they thought of him as holding up the planet. You see how that happened now?

As a side note, I doubt there are many people growing up in today's world that even know what in the hell an atlas is. I mean, how quaint would it be for somebody living in the digital era to pull out a large book of maps when they can simply get on their cell phone or home computer and use the google maps and/or google satellite function to see whatever aspect of land or water they desire. Either way, it was supposed to be just a fun, short post about ancient tidbits anyway; cheers!

Image Credit: It is in the Public Domain and is not under copyright protection.

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