Farnese Atlas

The Farnese Atlas is a 2nd-century CE Roman marble sculpture of Atlas holding up a celestial globe. It is thought to be a copy of an earlier work from the Hellenistic period, making it the oldest statue of Atlas, a Titan from Greek mythology.

The statue was made around the year CE 150, during the time of the Roman Empire. It was created after the famous book called the Almagest by Claudius Ptolemy. Atlas holds up the globe because, in the myth, Zeus had sent him to carry the sky forever. The globe shows the night sky and has carvings of some of the classical Greek constellations.

The statue is called the Farnese Atlas because it was bought by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese in 1562 and later displayed in the Villa Farnese. Today, this amazing sculpture can be seen at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples in Italy.

Dating the original

In 2005, a professor named Bradley E. Schaefer studied the Farnese Atlas. He thought the constellations on it might have come from a lost star catalog by the ancient astronomer Hipparchus. He believed the constellations were very accurate for their time and looked like the stars around 129 BCE.

But, we do not know exactly when the globe was made. The constellations are not perfect and were probably carved by a sculptor, not drawn by an astronomer. Some experts do not agree with Schaefer's ideas. They say the constellations on the globe are different from Hipparchus's known work.