Flat Earth

This article is about ancient cosmologies in which the 1.1

Earth was regarded as at. For the modern misconception that belief in a at Earth was responsible for a major
source of opposition to Christopher Columbus, see Myth
of the at Earth. For other uses, see Flat Earth (disambiguation).
The at Earth model is an archaic conception of the

Ancient Near East

The Flammarion engraving (1888) depicts a traveler who arrives at the edge of a at Earth and sticks his head through the
rmament.
Imago Mundi Babylonian map, the oldest known world map, 6th
century BC Babylonia

Earth's shape as a plane or disk. Many ancient cultures

subscribed to a at Earth cosmography, including Greece
until the classical period, the Bronze Age and Iron Age
civilizations of the Near East until the Hellenistic period,
India until the Gupta period (early centuries AD) and
China until the 17th century. That paradigm was also typically held in the aboriginal cultures of the Americas, and
the notion of a at Earth domed by the rmament in the
shape of an inverted bowl was common in pre-scientic
societies.[1]

In early Egyptian[6] and Mesopotamian thought the world

was portrayed as a at disk oating in the ocean. A similar model is found in the Homeric account of the 8th
century BC in which Okeanos, the personied body of
water surrounding the circular surface of the Earth, is the
begetter of all life and possibly of all gods.[7] The Israelites likely had a similar cosmology, with the earth as
a at disc oating on water beneath an arced rmament
The idea of a spherical Earth appeared in Greek philosseparating it from the heavens.[8]
ophy with Pythagoras (6th century BC), although most
Pre-Socratics retained the at Earth model. Aristotle The Pyramid Texts and Con Texts reveal that the anaccepted the spherical shape of the Earth on empirical cient Egyptians believed Nun (the Ocean) was a circugrounds around 330 BC, and knowledge of the spherical lar body surrounding nbwt (a term meaning dry lands
Earth gradually began to spread beyond the Hellenistic or Islands), and therefore believed in a similar Ancient
Near Eastern circular earth cosmography surrounded by
world from then on.[2][3][4][5]
water.[9][10][11]

Historical development

1.2 Ancient Mediterranean

1

1 HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT

1.2.1

Poets

that the Sun does not rise and set at the same time for
everyone.[34]

Both Homer[12] and Hesiod[13] described a at disc

cosmography on the Shield of Achilles.[14][15] This
1.2.3 Historians
poetic tradition of an earth-encircling (gaiaokhos)
sea (Oceanus) and a at disc also appears in Stasinus
Hecataeus of Miletus believed the earth was at and surof Cyprus,[16] Mimnermus,[17] Aeschylus,[18] and
rounded by water.[35] Herodotus in his Histories ridiculed
[19]
Apollonius Rhodius.
the belief that water encircled the world,[36] yet most clasHomers description of the at disc cosmography on the sicists agree he still believed the earth was at because
shield of Achilles with the encircling ocean is repeated far of his descriptions of literal ends or edges of the
later in Quintus Smyrnaeus' Posthomerica (4th century earth.[37]
AD), which continues the narration of the Trojan War.[20]

1.3 Ancient India

Philosophers

RI
VE

1.2.2

BLACK
SEA

MEDITERRANEAN

IVER
NILE R

LIBYA

ASIA

OCEAN

OCEAN

PH

AS
IS

EUROPE

Possible rendering of Anaximanders world map[21]

Several pre-Socratic philosophers believed that the world

was at: Thales (c. 550 BC) according to several
sources,[22] and Leucippus (c. 440 BC) and Democritus
(c. 460 370 BC) according to Aristotle.[23][24][25]

Ancient Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist cosmology held

that the Earth is a disc consisting of four continents
grouped around a central mountain (Mount Meru) like
the petals of a ower. An outer ocean surrounds these
continents.[38] This view of traditional Buddhist and Jain
cosmology depicts the cosmos as a vast, oceanic disk
(of the magnitude of a small planetary system), bounded
by mountains, in which the continents are set as small
islands.[38]

1.4 Norse and Germanic

The ancient Norse and Germanic peoples believed in a
at Earth cosmography with the Earth surrounded by an
ocean, with the axis mundi, a world tree (Yggdrasil),
or pillar (Irminsul) in the centre.[39][40] The Norse believed that in the world-encircling ocean sat a snake called
Jormungandr.[41] In the Norse creation account preserved
in Gylfaginning (VIII) it is stated that during the creation
of the earth, an impassable sea was placed around the
earth like a ring:
...And Jafnhrr said: Of the blood, which
ran and welled forth freely out of his wounds,
they made the sea, when they had formed and
made rm the earth together, and laid the sea in
a ring round. about her; and it may well seem
a hard thing to most men to cross over it.[42]

Thales thought the earth oated in water like a log.[26] It

has been argued, however, that Thales actually believed
in a round Earth.[27][28] Anaximander (c. 550 BC) believed the Earth was a short cylinder with a at, circular The late Norse Konungs skuggsj, on the other hand,
top that remained stable because it was the same distance states that:
from all things.[29][30] Anaximenes of Miletus believed
that the earth is at and rides on air; in the same way the
...If you take a lighted candle and set it in
sun and the moon and the other heavenly bodies, which
a
room,
you may expect it to light up the enare all ery, ride the air because of their atness.[31]
tire interior, unless something should hinder,
Xenophanes of Colophon (c. 500 BC) thought that the
though the room be quite large. But if you take
Earth was at, with its upper side touching the air, and
an apple and hang it close to the ame, so near
the lower side extending without limit.[32]
that it is heated, the apple will darken nearly
Belief in a at Earth continued into the 5th century BC.
half the room or even more. However, if you
Anaxagoras (c. 450 BC) agreed that the Earth was at,[33]
hang the apple near the wall, it will not get hot;
and his pupil Archelaus believed that the at Earth was
the candle will light up the whole house; and
depressed in the middle like a saucer, to allow for the fact
the shadow on the wall where the apple hangs

1.6

Declining support for the at Earth

will be scarcely half as large as the apple itself. From this you may infer that the earthcircle is round like a ball and not equally near
the sun at every point. But where the curved
surface lies nearest the suns path, there will the
greatest heat be; and some of the lands that lie
continuously under the unbroken rays cannot
be inhabited.[43]

3
from above as the Kai Tian describes. Chinese
astronomers, many of them brilliant men by
any standards, continued to think in at-earth
terms until the seventeenth century; this surprising fact might be the starting-point for a reexamination of the apparent facility with which
the idea of a spherical earth found acceptance
in fth-century BC Greece.[50]

Further examples cited by Needham supposed to demonstrate dissenting voices from the ancient Chinese consensus actually refer without exception to the Earth beFurther information: Chinese astronomy
ing square, not to it being at.[51] Accordingly, the 13thcentury scholar Li Ye, who argued that the movements of
In ancient China, the prevailing belief was that the Earth the round heaven would be hindered by a square Earth,[44]
was at and square, while the heavens were round,[44] an did not advocate a spherical Earth, but rather that its edge
assumption virtually unquestioned until the introduction should be rounded o so as to be circular.[52]
of European astronomy in the 17th century.[45][46][47] The
[53]
English sinologist Cullen emphasizes the point that there As noted in the book Huainanzi, in the 2nd century BC
was no concept of a round Earth in ancient Chinese as- Chinese astronomers eectively inverted Eratosthenes
calculation of the curvature of the Earth to calculate the
tronomy:
height of the sun above the earth. By assuming the earth
was at, they arrived at a distance of 100,000 li (approxChinese thought on the form of the earth
imately 200,000 km), which is a value far short of the
remained almost unchanged from early times
correct distance of 150 million km.
until the rst contacts with modern science
through the medium of Jesuit missionaries in
the seventeenth century. While the heavens
1.6 Declining support for the at Earth
were variously described as being like an umbrella covering the earth (the Kai Tian theory),
Further information: Spherical Earth and History of
or like a sphere surrounding it (the Hun Tian
geodesy
theory), or as being without substance while
the heavenly bodies oat freely (the Hsan yeh
theory), the earth was at all times at, although
perhaps bulging up slightly.[48]
1.6.1 Ancient Mediterranean

1.5

Ancient China

The model of an egg was often used by Chinese astronomers such as Zhang Heng (78139 AD) to describe
the heavens as spherical:
The heavens are like a hens egg and as
round as a crossbow bullet; the earth is like the
yolk of the egg, and lies in the centre.[49]
This analogy with a curved egg led some modern historians, notably Joseph Needham, to conjecture that Chinese
astronomers were, after all, aware of the Earths sphericity. The egg reference, however, was rather meant to clar- When a ship is at the horizon, its lower part is obscured due to
ify the relative position of the at earth to the heavens:
the curvature of the Earth.
In a passage of Zhang Hengs cosmogony
not translated by Needham, Zhang himself
says: Heaven takes its body from the Yang,
so it is round and in motion. Earth takes its
body from the Yin, so it is at and quiescent. The point of the egg analogy is simply to stress that the earth is completely enclosed by heaven, rather than merely covered

In The Histories, written in the mid-5th century BC,

Herodotus cast doubt on a report of the sun observed
shining from the north. He stated that the phenomenon
was observed during a circumnavigation of Africa undertaken by Phoenician explorers employed by Egyptian
pharaoh Necho II c. 610595 BC (The Histories, 4.42)
who claimed to have had the sun on their right when circumnavigating in a clockwise direction. To modern his-

1 HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT
In the 2nd century BC, Crates of Mallus devised a terrestrial sphere that divided the Earth into four continents,
separated by great rivers or oceans, with people presumed living in each of the four regions.[57] Opposite the
oikumene, the inhabited world, were the antipodes, considered unreachable both because of an intervening torrid
zone (equator) and the ocean. This took a strong hold on
the medieval mind.

Semi-circular shadow of Earth on the Moon during the phases of

a lunar eclipse

torians aware of a spherical Earth, these details conrm

the truth of the Phoenicians report.
After the Greek philosophers Pythagoras, in the 6th century BC, and Parmenides, in the 5th, recognized that the
Earth is spherical,[54] the spherical 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 on an estimate on the circumference.[55] The Earths circumference
was rst determined around 240 BC by Eratosthenes.[56]
By the second century CE, 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. c. BC) opposed the concept of a spherical Earth, because he considered that an innite 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.[58][59] By the 1st
century AD, Pliny the Elder was in a position to claim
that everyone agrees on the spherical shape of Earth,[60]
though disputes continued regarding the nature of the antipodes, and how it is possible to keep the ocean in a
curved shape. Pliny also considered the possibility of an
imperfect sphere, "...shaped like a pinecone.[60]
In late antiquity such widely read encyclopedists as
Macrobius (5th century) and Martianus Capella (5th century) discussed the circumference of the sphere of the
Earth, its central position in the universe, the dierence
of the seasons in northern and southern hemispheres, and
many other geographical details.[61] In his commentary
on Cicero's Dream of Scipio, Macrobius described the
Earth as a globe of insignicant size in comparison to
the remainder of the cosmos.[61]
1.6.2 Early Christian Church
During the early Church period, the spherical view
continued to be widely held, with some notable
exceptions.[62]
Lactantius, Christian writer and advisor to the rst Christian Roman Emperor, Constantine, ridiculed the notion
of the Antipodes, inhabited by people whose footsteps
are higher than their heads. After presenting some arguments he attributes to advocates for a spherical heaven
and Earth, he writes:
But if you inquire from those who defend
these marvellous ctions, why all things do not
fall into that lower part of the heaven, they reply
that such is the nature of things, that heavy bodies are borne to the middle, and that they are all
joined together towards the middle, as we see
spokes in a wheel; but that the bodies that are
light, as mist, smoke, and re, are borne away
from the middle, so as to seek the heaven. I
am at a loss what to say respecting those who,
when they have once erred, consistently persevere in their folly, and defend one vain thing by
another.[63]

The Terrestrial Sphere of Crates of Mallus (c. 150 BC)

The inuential theologian and philosopher Saint Augustine, one of the four Great Church Fathers of the Western

1.6

Declining support for the at Earth

Church, similarly objected to the fable of an inhabited

Antipodes:
But as to the fable that there are Antipodes,
that is to say, men on the opposite side of the
earth, where the sun rises when it sets to us,
men who walk with their feet opposite ours that
is on no ground credible. And, indeed, it is not
armed that this has been learned by historical knowledge, but by scientic conjecture, on
the ground that the earth is suspended within
the concavity of the sky, and that it has as much
room on the one side of it as on the other: hence
they say that the part that is beneath must also
be inhabited. But they do not remark that, although it be supposed or scientically demonstrated that the world is of a round and spherical form, yet it does not follow that the other
side of the earth is bare of water; nor even,
though it be bare, does it immediately follow
that it is peopled. For Scripture, which proves
the truth of its historical statements by the accomplishment of its prophecies, gives no false
information; and it is too absurd to say, that
some men might have taken ship and traversed
the whole wide ocean, and crossed from this
side of the world to the other, and that thus
even the inhabitants of that distant region are
descended from that one rst man.[64]
The view generally accepted by scholars of Augustines
work is that he shared the common view of his contemporaries that the Earth is spherical,[65] in line with his endorsement of science in De Genesi ad litteram.[66] That
view was challenged by noted Augustine scholar Leo Ferrari, who concluded that
he was familiar with the Greek theory of a
spherical earth, nevertheless, (following in the
footsteps of his fellow North African, Lactantius), he was rmly convinced that the earth
was at, was one of the two biggest bodies in
existence and that it lay at the bottom of the
universe. Apparently Augustine saw this picture as more useful for scriptural exegesis than
the global earth at the centre of an immense
universe.[67]
Ferraris interpretation was questioned by the historian of
science, Phillip Nothaft, who considers that in his scriptural commentaries Augustine was not endorsing any particular cosmological model.[68]
Diodorus of Tarsus, a leading gure in the School of Antioch and mentor of John Chrysostom, may have argued
for a at Earth; however, Diodorus opinion on the matter
is known only from a later criticism.[69] Chrysostom, one
of the four Great Church Fathers of the Eastern Church

Cosmas Indicopleustes world view at earth in a Tabernacle

and Archbishop of Constantinople, explicitly espoused

the idea, based on scripture, that the Earth oats miraculously on the water beneath the rmament.[70] Athanasius
the Great, Church Father and Patriarch of Alexandria, expressed a similar view in Against the Heathen.[71]
Christian Topography (547) by the Alexandrian monk
Cosmas Indicopleustes, who had travelled 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 rmament 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 rmament. The spherical Earth theory is contemptuously dismissed as pagan.[72][73][74]
Severian, Bishop of Gabala (d. 408), wrote that the Earth
is at and the sun does not pass under it in the night,
but travels through the northern parts as if hidden by
a wall.[75] Basil of Caesarea (329379) argued that the
matter was theologically irrelevant.[76]
1.6.3 Early Middle Ages
Early medieval Christian writers in the early Middle Ages
felt little urge to assume atness of the earth, though they
had fuzzy impressions of the writings of Ptolemy, Aristotle, and relied more on Pliny.[77]
With the end of Roman civilization, Western Europe
entered the Middle Ages with great diculties that affected the continents intellectual production. Most scientic treatises of classical antiquity (in Greek) were unavailable, leaving only simplied summaries and compilations. Still, many textbooks of the Early Middle Ages

1 HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT

9th-century Macrobian cosmic diagram showing the sphere of

the Earth at the center (globus terrae)

supported the sphericity of the Earth. For example: some

early medieval manuscripts of Macrobius include maps 12th-century T and O map representing the inhabited world as
of the Earth, including the antipodes, zonal maps show- described by Isidore of Seville in his Etymologiae (chapter 14,
ing the Ptolemaic climates derived from the concept of a de terra et partibus)
spherical Earth and a diagram showing the Earth (labeled
as globus terrae, the sphere of the Earth) at the center
the Earth, considering them legendary[85] and notof the hierarchically ordered planetary spheres.[78] Furing that there was no evidence for their existence.[86]
ther examples of such medieval diagrams can be found
Isidores T and O map, which was seen as representin medieval manuscripts of the Dream of Scipio. In the
ing a small part of a spherical Earth, continued to
Carolingian era, scholars discussed Macrobiuss view of
be used by authors through the Middle Ages, e.g.
the antipodes. One of them, the Irish monk Dungal, asthe 9th-century bishop Rabanus Maurus who comserted that the tropical gap between our habitable region
pared the habitable part of the northern hemisphere
and the other habitable region to the south was smaller
(Aristotle's northern temperate clime) with a wheel.
than Macrobius had believed.[79]
At the same time, Isidores works also gave the
Europes view of the shape of the Earth in Late Antiquity
views of sphericity, for example, in chapter 28 of De
and the Early Middle Ages may be best expressed by the
Natura Rerum, Isidore claims that the sun orbits the
writings of early Christian scholars:
earth and illuminates the other side when it is night
on this side. See French translation of De Natura
[87]
Rerum.
In his other work Etymologies, there are
Boethius (c. 480524), who also wrote a theoalso
armations
that the sphere of the sky has earth
logical treatise On the Trinity, repeated the Macroin
its
center
and
the sky being equally distant on
bian model of the Earth in the center of a spheri[88][89]
Other
researchers have argued these
all
sides.
cal cosmos in his inuential, and widely translated,
[77][90][91]
[80]
points
as
well.
The work remained unsurConsolation of Philosophy.
passed until the thirteenth century and was regarded
Bishop Isidore of Seville (560636) taught in his
as the summit of all knowledge. It became an eswidely read encyclopedia, the Etymologies diverse
sential part of European medieval culture. Soon afviews such as that the Earth resembles a wheel[81]
ter the invention of typography it appeared many
resembling Anaximander in language and the map
times in print.[92] However, The Scholastics - later
that he provided. This was widely interpreted as remedieval philosophers, theologians, and scientists ferring to a at disc-shaped Earth.[82][83] An illustrawere helped by the Arabic translators and commention from Isidores De Natura Rerum shows the ve
taries, but they hardly needed to struggle against a
zones of the earth as adjacent circles. Some have
at-earth legacy from the early middle ages (500concluded that he thought the Arctic and Antarctic
1050). Early medieval writers often had fuzzy and
zones were adjacent to each other.[84] He did not
imprecise impressions of both Ptolemy and Aristoadmit the possibility of antipodes, which he took
tle and relied more on Pliny, but they felt (with one
to mean people dwelling on the opposite side of
exception), little urge to assume atness.[77]

1.6

Declining support for the at Earth

7
sphericity of the Earth was among the aspects of Vergiliuss teachings that Boniface
and Zachary considered objectionable.[96][97]
Others have considered this unlikely, and
take the wording of Zacharys response to
indicate at most an objection to belief
in the existence of humans living in the
antipodes.[98][99][100][101][102] 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.[103]

Isidores portrayal of the ve zones of the earth

The monk Bede (c. 672735) wrote in his inuential treatise on computus, The Reckoning of Time,
that the Earth was round ('not merely circular like a
shield [or] spread out like a wheel, but resembl[ing]
more a ball'), explaining the unequal length of daylight from the roundness of the Earth, for not without reason is it called 'the orb of the world' on the
pages of Holy Scripture and of ordinary literature.
It is, in fact, set like a sphere in the middle of the
whole universe. (De temporum ratione, 32). The
large number of surviving manuscripts of The Reckoning of Time, copied to meet the Carolingian requirement that all priests should study the computus, indicates that many, if not most, priests were
exposed to the idea of the sphericity of the Earth.[93]
lfric of Eynsham paraphrased Bede into Old English, saying Now the Earths roundness and the
Suns orbit constitute the obstacle to the days being
equally long in every land.[94]
St Vergilius of Salzburg (c. 700784), in the middle
of the 8th century, discussed or taught some geographical or cosmographical ideas that St Boniface
found suciently objectionable that he complained
about them to Pope Zachary. The only surviving
record of the incident is contained in Zacharys reply, dated 748, where he wrote:
As for the perverse and sinful doctrine
which he (Virgil) against God and his own soul
has utteredif it shall be clearly established
that he professes belief in another world and
other men existing beneath the earth, or in (another) sun and moon there, thou art to hold
a council, deprive him of his sacerdotal rank,
and expel him from the Church.[95]
Some authorities have suggested that the

12th-century depiction of a spherical Earth with the four seasons

(book Liber Divinorum Operum by Hildegard of Bingen)

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; the Reichsapfel was used in 1191 at the
coronation of emperor Henry VI. However the word 'orbis means 'circle' and there is no record of a globe as a
representation of the Earth since ancient times in the west
till that of Martin Behaim in 1492. Additionally it could
well be a representation of the entire 'world' or cosmos.
A recent study of medieval concepts of the sphericity of
the Earth noted that since the eighth century, no cosmographer worthy of note has called into question the sphericity of the Earth.[104] However, the work of these intellectuals may not have had signicant inuence on public
opinion, and it is dicult to tell what the wider population may have thought of the shape of the Earth, if they
considered the question at all.

8
1.6.4

1 HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT
High and Late Middle Ages

Further information: Spherical Earth Medieval Europe

By the 11th century Europe had learned of Islamic as-

Picture from a 1550 edition of On the Sphere of the World, the

most inuential astronomy textbook of 13th-century Europe

tronomy. The Renaissance of the 12th century from

about 1070 started an intellectual revitalization of Europe with strong philosophical and scientic roots, and
increased interest in natural philosophy.
Hermannus Contractus (10131054) was among the earliest Christian scholars to estimate the circumference
of Earth with Eratosthenes' method. Thomas Aquinas
(12251274), the most important and widely taught theologian of the Middle Ages, believed in a spherical Earth;
and he even took for granted his readers also knew the
Earth is round.[nb 1] Lectures in the medieval universities commonly advanced evidence in favor of the idea
that the Earth was a sphere.[105] Also, "On the Sphere
of the World", the most inuential astronomy textbook
of the 13th century and required reading by students in
all Western European universities, described the world
as a sphere. Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologica, wrote, The physicist proves the earth to be round
by one means, the astronomer by another: for the latter
proves this by means of mathematics, e.g. by the shapes
of eclipses, or something of the sort; while the former
proves it by means of physics, e.g. by the movement of
heavy bodies towards the center, and so forth.[106]
The shape of the Earth was not only discussed in scholarly
works written in Latin; it was also treated in works written
in vernacular languages or dialects and intended for wider
audiences. The Norwegian book Konungs Skuggsj, from
around 1250, states clearly that the Earth is roundand
that there is night on the opposite side of the Earth when
there is daytime in Norway. The author also discusses the
existence of antipodesand he notes that (if they exist)
they see the Sun in the north of the middle of the day, and
that they experience seasons opposite those of people in

Illustration of the spherical Earth in a 14th-century copy of

L'Image du monde (c. 1246)

the Northern Hemisphere.

However Tattersall shows that in many vernacular works
in 12th- and 13th-century French texts the Earth was considered round like a table rather than round like an apple. In virtually all the examples quoted...from epics
and from non-'historical' romances (that is, works of a
less learned character) the actual form of words used suggests strongly a circle rather than a sphere, though notes
that even in these works the language is ambiguous.[107]
As late as 1674, Robert Hooke could argue To one who
has been conversant only with illiterate persons, or such
as understand not the principles of Astronomy and Geometry,...who can scarce imagine the Earth is globous,
but...imagine it to be a round plain covered with the Sky
as with a Hemisphere, suggesting that the opinion was
not uncommon even then.[108]
Portuguese exploration of Africa and Asia, Columbuss
voyage to the Americas (1492) and nally Ferdinand

9
Magellan's circumnavigation of the Earth (151921) provided the nal, practical proofs for the global shape of the
Earth.

2 Modern period

1.6.5

Main article: Myth of the Flat Earth

Islamic world

2.1 The Myth of the Flat Earth in modern

historiography

Further information: Spherical Earth Medieval Islamic Beginning in the 19th century, a historical myth arose
scholars
which held that the predominant cosmological doctrine
during the Middle Ages was that the Earth was at. An
The Abbasid Caliphate saw a great owering of early proponent of this myth was the American writer,
astronomy and mathematics in the 9th century CE. in Washington Irving, who maintained that Christopher
which Muslim scholars translated Ptolemys work, which Columbus had to overcome the opposition of churchmen
become the Almagest, and extended and updated his to gain sponsorship for his voyage of exploration. Later
work based on spherical ideas, and these have generally signicant advocates of this view were John William
it as a
been respected since. However, after the decline of the Draper and Andrew Dickson White, who used[114]
major
element
in
their
advocacy
of
the
thesis
that
Golden Age in the 13th century more traditional views
there
was
a
long
lasting
and
essential
conict
between
were increasingly heard.
science and religion.[115] Subsequent historical research
The Quran mentions that the world was laid out. To this has demonstrated two aws in this approach. First, studa classic Sunni commentary, the Tafsir al-Kabir (al-Razi) ies of medieval science have shown that the preponderwritten in the late 12th century says If it is said: Do the ance of scholars in the Middle Ages, including those read
words And the earth We spread out indicate that it is by Christopher Columbus, maintained that the Earth was
at? We would respond: Yes, because the earth, even spherical.[116] Second, studies of the relations between
though it is round, is an enormous sphere, and each little science and religion over the course of time have demonpart of this enormous sphere, when it is looked at, ap- strated that the model of an essential conict is a vast
pears to be at. As that is the case, this will dispel what oversimplication, which ignores the positive elements of
they mentioned of confusion. The evidence for that is the relations between them.[117][118]
the verse in which Allah says (interpretation of the meaning): And the mountains as pegs [an-Naba 78:7]. He
called them awtaad (pegs) even though these mountains 2.2 Modern Flat-Earthers
may have large at surfaces. And the same is true in this
case.[109]
A later classic Sunni commentary, the Tafsir al-Jalalayn
written in the early 16th century says As for His words
sutihat, laid out at, this on a literal reading suggests that
the earth is at, which is the opinion of most of the scholars of the [revealed] Law, and not a sphere as astronomers
(ahl al-haya) have it, even if this [latter] does not contradict any of the pillars of the Law.[110] Other translations
render made at as spread out.[111]

1.6.6

Ming China

As late as 1595, an early Jesuit missionary to China,

Matteo Ricci, recorded that the Chinese say: The earth
is at and square, and the sky is a round canopy; they
did not succeed in conceiving the possibility of the
antipodes.[52][112] The universal belief in a at Earth is
conrmed by a contemporary Chinese encyclopedia from
1609 illustrating a at Earth extending over the horizontal
diametral plane of a spherical heaven.[52]

Flat Earth map drawn by Orlando Ferguson in 1893. The map

contains several references to biblical passages as well as various
jabs at the Globe Theory.

In the modern era, belief in a at Earth has been expressed by isolated individuals and groups, but no scientists of note. English writer Samuel Rowbotham (1816
1885), writing under the pseudonym Parallax, produced a pamphlet called Zetetic Astronomy in 1849 arIn the 17th century, the idea of a spherical Earth spread guing for a at Earth and published results of many exin China due to the inuence of the Jesuits, who held high periments that tested the curvatures of water over a long
positions as astronomers at the imperial court.[113]
drainage ditch, followed by another called The inconsis-

10

MODERN PERIOD

tency of Modern Astronomy and its Opposition to the Scripture. One of his supporters, John Hampden, lost a bet to
Alfred Russel Wallace in the famous Bedford Level Experiment, which attempted to prove it. In 1877 Hampden produced a book called A New Manual of Biblical Cosmography.[119] Rowbotham also produced studies that purported to show that the eects of ships disappearing below the horizon could be explained by the laws
of perspective in relation to the human eye.[120] In 1883
he founded Zetetic Societies in England and New York, to
which he shipped a thousand copies of Zetetic Astronomy.
Challenges were issued in the New York Daily Graphic
oering $10,000 to charity to anyone proving the Earth
revolved on an axis.

After Rowbothams death, Lady Elizabeth Blount created

the Universal Zetetic Society in 1893 in England and created a journal called Earth not a Globe Review, which
sold for twopence, as well as one called Earth, which only
lasted from 1901 to 1904. She held that the Bible was the
unquestionable authority on the natural world and argued
that one could not be a Christian and believe the Earth is a
globe. Well-known members included E. W. Bullinger of
the Trinitarian Bible Society, Edward Haughton, senior
moderator in natural science in Trinity College, Dublin
and an archbishop. She repeated Rowbothams experiments, generating some interesting counter-experiments,
but interest declined after the First World War.[125] The
movement gave rise to several books that argued for a at,
stationary earth, including Terra Firma by David WardWilliam Carpenter, a printer originally from Greenwich,
law
Scott.[126]
England, was a supporter of Rowbotham and published
Theoretical Astronomy Examined and Exposed Prov- In 1898, during his solo circumnavigation of the world,
ing the Earth not a Globe in eight parts from 1864 un- Joshua Slocum encountered a group of at-Earthers in
der the name Common Sense.[121] He later emigrated to Durban. Three Boers, one of them a clergyman, preBaltimore where he published A hundred proofs the Earth sented Slocum with a pamphlet in which they set out to
prove that the world was at. Paul Kruger, President of
is not a Globe in 1885.[122] He said:
the Transvaal Republic, advanced the same view: You
it is impossible! You mean
There are rivers that ow for hundreds of miles to- don't mean round the world,
[127]
in
the
world.
Impossible!"
wards the level of the sea without falling more than
a few feet notably, the Nile, which, in a thousand
miles, falls but a foot. A level expanse of this extent is quite incompatible with the idea of the Earths
convexity. It is, therefore, a reasonable proof that
Earth is not a globe.
If the Earth were a globe, a small model globe
would be the very best because the truest thing
for the navigator to take to sea with him. But such
a thing as that is not known: with such a toy as a
guide, the mariner would wreck his ship, of a certainty!, This is a proof that Earth is not a globe.
John Jasper, the black ex-slave preacher said to have
preached to more people than any Southern clergyman of
his generation, echoed his friend Carpenters sentiments
in his most famous sermon Der Sun do move and the
Earth Am Square, preached over 250 times always by
invitation.[123]
In Brockport, New York, in 1887, M.C. Flanders argued
the case of a at Earth for three nights against two scientic gentlemen defending sphericity. Five townsmen
chosen as judges voted unanimously for a at Earth at
the end. The case was reported in the Brockport Democrat.[124]
Professor Joseph W. Holden of Maine, a former justice
of the peace, gave numerous lectures in New England and
lectured on at Earth theory at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. His fame stretched to North Carolina
where the Statesville Semi-weekly Landmark recorded at
his death in 1900: 'We hold to the doctrine that the earth
is at ourselves and we regret exceedingly to learn that
one of our members is dead'.[125]

Wilbur Glenn Voliva, who in 1906 took over the

Christian Catholic Church, a Pentecostal sect that established a utopian community at Zion, Illinois, preached at
Earth doctrine from 1915 onwards and used a photograph
of a twelve-mile stretch of the shoreline at Lake Winnebago, Wisconsin taken three feet above the waterline
to prove his point. When the airship Italia disappeared
on an expedition to the North Pole in 1928 he warned the
worlds press that it had sailed over the edge of the world.
He oered a $5,000 award for proving the Earth is not
at, under his own conditions.[128] Teaching a globular
Earth was banned in the Zion schools and the message
was transmitted on his WCBD radio station.[125]
Mohammed Yusuf, founder of the Nigerian militant
Islamist group Boko Haram, stated his belief in a at
Earth.[129]
In January 2016, rapper B.o.B tweeted that A lot of people are turned o by the phrase 'at earth' ... but theres
no way u can see all the evidence and not know... grow
up,[130] and accused NASA of hiding the truth.[131] Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson replied to B.o.B.'s arguments, commenting that Being ve centuries regressed
in your reasoning doesn't mean we all can't still like your
music.[132]
2.2.1 Flat Earth Society
Main article: Modern Flat Earth societies
In 1956, Samuel Shenton set up the International Flat
Earth Research Society (IFERS), better known as the Flat
Earth Society from Dover, UK, as a direct descendant
of the Universal Zetetic Society. This was just before the

11

3 Cultural references
The term at-Earther is often used in a derogatory
sense to mean anyone who holds ridiculously antiquated
views. The rst use of the term at-earther recorded by
the Oxford English Dictionary is in 1934 in Punch: Without being a bigoted at-earther, he [sc. Mercator] perceived the nuisance..of ddling about with globes..in order to discover the South Seas.[138] The term at-earthman was recorded in 1908: Fewer votes than one would
have thought possible for any human candidate, were he
even a at-earth-man.[139]

3.1 Scientic satire

Azimuthal equidistant projections of the sphere like this one have

also been co-opted as images of the at Earth model depicting Antarctica as an ice wall[133][134] surrounding a disk-shaped
Earth.

In a satirical piece published 1996, Albert A. Bartlett uses

arithmetic to show that sustainable growth on Earth is impossible in a spherical Earth since its resources are necessarily nite. He explains that only a model of a at Earth,
stretching innitely in the two horizontal dimensions and
also in the vertical downward direction, would be able to
accommodate the needs of a permanently growing population.

Referring to Julian Simon's book The Ultimate Resource,

Bartlett suggests So, let us think of the 'Were going
to grow the limits!' people as the 'New Flat Earth
Society.'"[140] The satiric nature of the piece is also made
Soviet Union launched the rst articial satellite, Sputnik; clear by a comparison to Bartletts other publications,
he responded, Would sailing round the Isle of Wight which mainly advocate the necessity of curbing populaprove that it were spherical? It is just the same for those tion growth.[141]
satellites.
His primary aim was to reach children before they were
convinced about a spherical Earth. Despite plenty of publicity, the space race eroded Shentons support in Britain
until 1967 when he started to become famous due to the
Apollo program. His postbag was full but his health suffered as his operation remained essentially a one-man
show until he died in 1971.[125]
In 1972 Shentons role was taken over by Charles K. Johnson, a correspondent from California, USA. He incorporated the IFERS and steadily built up the membership to
about 3,000. He spent years examining the studies of
at and round Earth theories and proposed evidence of
a conspiracy against at-Earth: The idea of a spinning
globe is only a conspiracy of error that Moses, Columbus, and FDR all fought... His article was published in
the magazine Science Digest, 1980. It goes on to state,
If it is a sphere, the surface of a large body of water
must be curved. The Johnsons have checked the surfaces
of Lake Tahoe and the Salton Sea without detecting any
curvature.[135]
The Society declined in the 1990s following a re at its
headquarters in California and the death of Johnson in
2001.[136] It was revived as a website in 2004 by Daniel
Shenton (no relation to Samuel Shenton). He believes that
no one has provided proof that the world is not at.[137]

4 See also
List of topics characterized as pseudoscience
Biblical cosmology
Denialism
Earths rotation
Geographical distance
Hollow Earth
Scientic mythology
Skepticism

5 Notes
[1] When Aquinas wrote his Summa, at the very beginning
(Summa Theologica Ia, q. 1, a. 1; see also Summa Theologica IIa Iae, q. 54, a. 2), the idea of a round Earth
was the example used when he wanted to show that elds
of science are distinguished by their methods rather than
their subject matter... Sciences are distinguished by the

12

dierent methods they use. For the astronomer and the

physicist both may prove the same conclusion - that the
earth, for instance, is round: the astronomer proves it by
means of mathematics, but the physicist proves it by the
nature of matter. History of Science: Shape of the Earth:
Middle Ages: Aquinas

REFERENCES

the nbwt; Behold, thou art round and great like the Great
Circle which sets.(Faulkner 1969, 120)
[10] Ancient Near Eastern Texts, Pritchard, 1969, p.374.
[11] Con Texts, Spell 714.
[12] Iliad, 28. 606.

References

[1] Their cosmography as far as we know anything about it

was practically of one type up til the time of the white
mans arrival upon the scene. That of the Borneo Dayaks
may furnish us with some idea of it. 'They consider the
Earth to be a at surface, whilst the heavens are a dome, a
kind of glass shade which covers the Earth and comes in
contact with it at the horizon.'" Lucien Levy-Bruhl, Primitive Mentality (repr. Boston: Beacon, 1966) 353; The
usual primitive conception of the worlds form ... [is] at
and round below and surmounted above by a solid rmament in the shape of an inverted bowl. H. B. Alexander,
The Mythology of All Races 10: North American (repr.
New York: Cooper Square, 1964) 249.
[2] Continuation of Greek concept into Roman and medieval
Christian thought: Reinhard Krger: Materialien und
Dokumente zur mittelalterlichen Erdkugeltheorie von der
Sptantike bis zur Kolumbusfahrt (1492)
[3] Direct adoption of the Greek concept by Islam: Ragep,
F. Jamil: Astronomy, in: Krmer, Gudrun (ed.) et al.:
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[4] Direct adoption by India: D. Pingree: History of Mathematical Astronomy in India, Dictionary of Scientic Biography, Vol. 15 (1978), pp. 533633 (554f.); Glick,
Thomas F., Livesey, Steven John, Wallis, Faith (eds.):
Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine: An Encyclopedia, Routledge, New York 2005, ISBN 0-41596930-1, p. 463
[5] Adoption by China via European science: Jean-Claude
Martzlo, Space and Time in Chinese Texts of Astronomy and of Mathematical Astronomy in the Seventeenth
and Eighteenth Centuries, Chinese Science 11 (1993-94):
66-92 (69) and Christopher Cullen, A Chinese Eratosthenes of the Flat Earth: A Study of a Fragment of Cosmology in Huai Nan tzu
", Bulletin of the School of
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106-127 (107)
[6] H. and H. A. Frankfort, J. A. Wilson, and T. Jacobsen,
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[7] Anthony Gottlieb (2000). The Dream of Reason. Penguin. p. 6. ISBN 0-393-04951-5.
[8] Berlin, Adele (2011). Cosmology and creation. In
Berlin, Adele; Grossman, Maxine. The Oxford Dictionary
of the Jewish Religion. Oxford University Press.
[9] Pyramid Texts, Utterance 366, 629a-629c: Behold, thou
art great and round like the Great Round; Behold, thou are
bent around, and art round like the Circle which encircles

[13] The Shield of Heracles, 314-316, transl. Hugh G. EvelynWhite, 1914.

[14] The shield of Achilles and the poetics of ekphrasis, Andrew
Sprague Becker, Rowman & Littleeld, 1995, p.148.
[15] Professor of Classics (Emeritus) Mark W. Edwards in
his The Iliad. A commentary (1991, p.231) has noted
of Homers usage of the at earth disc in the Iliad:
Okeanos...surrounds the pictures on the shield and he surrounds the at disc of the earth on which men and women
work out their lives. Quoted in The shield of Achilles and
the poetics of ekphrasis, Andrew Sprague Becker, Rowman & Littleeld, 1995, p.148
[16] Stasinus of Cyprus wrote in his Cypria (lost, only preserved in fragment) that Oceanus surrounded the entire
earth: deep eddying Oceanus and that the earth was at
with furthest bounds, these quotes are found preserved in
Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, VIII. 334B.
[17] Mimnermus of Colophon (630BC) details a at earth
model, with the sun (Helios) bathing at the edges of
Oceanus that surround the earth (Mimnermus, frg. 11)
[18] Seven against Thebes, verse 305; Prometheus Bound, 1,
136; 530; 665 (which also describe the 'edges of the
earth).
[19] Apollonius Rhodius, in his Argonautica (3rd century BC)
included numerous at earth references (IV. 590 ):
Now that river, rising from the ends of the earth, where
are the portals and mansions of Nyx (Night), on one side
bursts forth upon the beach of Okeanos.
[20] Posthomerica (V. 14) - Here [on the shield of Achilles]
Tethys all-embracing arms were wrought, and Okeanos
fathomless ow. The outrushing ood of Rivers crying to
the echoing hills all round, to right, to left, rolled o'er the
land. - Translation by Way. A. S, 1913.
[21] According to John Mansley Robinson, An Introduction to
Early Greek Philosophy, Houghton and Miin, 1968.
[22] The Physical World of the Greeks, Samuel Sambursky,
Princeton University Press (August 1987), p. 12
[23] Burch, George Bosworth (1954). The Counter-Earth.
Osirus (Saint Catherines Press) 11 (1): 267294.
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[24] De Fontaine, Didier (2002). Flat worlds: Today and in
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[25] Aristotle, De Caelo, 294b13-21
[26] Aristotle, De Caelo, II. 13. 3; 294a 28: Many others say
the earth rests upon water. This... is the oldest theory that
has been preserved, and is attributed to Thales of Miletus

13

[27] O'Grady, Patricia F. (2002). Thales of Miletus : the beginnings of Western science and philosophy. Aldershot:
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[30] Anaximander; Fairbanks (editor and translator), Arthur.
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[31] Hippolytus, Refutation of all Heresies, i. 7; Cf. Aristotle,
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[32] Xenophanes DK 21B28, quoted in Achilles, Introduction
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[33] Diogenes Laertius, ii. 8
[34] Hippolytus, Refutation of all Heresies, i. 9
[35] FGrH F 18a.
[36] Herodotus knew of the conventional view, according to
which the river Ocean runs around a circular at earth
(4.8), and of the division of the world into three - Jacoby,
RE Suppl. 2.352 yet rejected this personal belief (Histories, 2. 21; 4. 8; 4. 36)
[37] The history of Herodotus, George Rawlinson, Appleton
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[38] D. Pingree: History of Mathematical Astronomy in India, Dictionary of Scientic Biography, Vol. 15 (1978),
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Courier Dover Publications, 2004, p.113.
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and the sea all around. Thus the serpent is about as far
away from the center, where men and gods lived (Norse
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John Lindow Oxford University Press, 2002) p.253.
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in the 9th century, in his Ragnarsdrpa (XIV)

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the Flat Earth: A Study of a Fragment of Cosmology in
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[52] Cullen, Christopher (1976). A Chinese Eratosthenes
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[60] Natural History, 2.64

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[63] Lactantius, The Divine Institutes, Book III, Chapter

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[64] De Civitate Dei, Book XVI, Chapter 9 Whether We

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[73] Cosmas Indicopleustes, Christian Topography (1897) Introduction..

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[84] Ernest Brehaut (1912). An Encyclopedist of the Dark
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[85] Isidore, Etymologiae, XIV.v.17 .
[86] Isidore, Etymologiae, IX.ii.133 .
[87] Fontaine, Jacques (1960). Isidore de Seville: Trait de la
Nature. Bordeaux.
[88] Isidore, Etymologiae, III. XXXII .
[89] Isidore, Etymologiae, XIV. I .
[90] Wesley M. Stevens, The Figure of the Earth in Isidores
De natura rerum, Isis, 71(1980): 268-277.Stevens,
Wesley M. (1980).
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Isidores De natura rerum"". Isis 71 (2): 26877.
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15

[92] Thomas Glick, Stephen John Livesley and Faith Wallis [108] Hooke, Robert (1674). An Attempt to prove the Motion of
(2005). Medieval Science Technology and Medicine, an
the Earth from Observations. London. p. 2.
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corners? Er at, squar thing has corners, but tell me where
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is de cornur uv er appul, ur a marbul, ur a cannun ball, ur
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16

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[130] Brait, Ellen (26 Jan 2016). "'I didn't wanna believe it either': Rapper BoB insists the Earth is at. Guardian. Retrieved 27 January 2016.
[131] Twitter. Twitter. 25 Jan 2016 https://twitter.com/
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EXTERNAL LINKS

7 Further reading
Fraser, Raymond (2007). When The Earth Was
Flat: Remembering Leonard Cohen, Alden Nowlan,
the Flat Earth Society, the King James monarchy
hoax, the Montreal Story Tellers and other curious
matters. Black Moss Press, ISBN 978-0-88753439-3
Garwood, Christine (2007) Flat Earth: The History
of an Infamous Idea, Pan Books, ISBN 1-40504702-X
Simek, Rudolf (1996). Heaven and Earth in the
Middle Ages: The Physical World Before Columbus.
Angela Hall (trans.). The Boydell Press. Retrieved
February 9, 2013.

8 External links
The Myth of the Flat Earth
The Myth of the Flat Universe
You say the earth is round? Prove it (from The
Straight Dope)
Flat Earth Fallacy

[132] Brait, Ellen (26 Jan 2016). Flat earth rapper BoB releases
Neil deGrasse Tyson diss track. Guardian. Retrieved 27
January 2016.

Zetetic Astronomy, or Earth Not a Globe by Parallax (Samuel Birley Rowbotham (1816-1884)) at
sacred-texts.com

[133] Schadewald, Robert J The Flat-out Truth:Earth Orbits?

Moon Landings? A Fraud! Says This Prophet Science
Digest July 1980

The Flat Earth Society ocial website

[134] Schick, Theodore; Lewis Vaughn How to think about

weird things: critical thinking for a new age Houghton Mifin (Mayeld) (October 31, 1995) ISBN 978-1-55934254-4 p.197
[135] Robert J. Schadewald. The Flat-out Truth. Lhup.edu.
Retrieved February 9, 2013.
[136] Donald E. Simanek. The Flat Earth. Lhup.edu. Retrieved February 9, 2013.
[137] Ingenious 'Flat Earth' Theory Revealed In Old Map.
LiveScience. Retrieved February 9, 2013.
[138] Flat-Earth. Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved July
29, 2013.
[139] Shaw, George B. (1908). Fabian Essays on Socialism (new
ed.). p. xviii.
[140] The New Flat Earth Society. Jclahr.com. Retrieved
June 15, 2009.
[141] Albert Bartlett On Growth. Jclahr.com. November 28,
2006. Retrieved June 15, 2009.

17

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

9.1

Text

Flat Earth Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth?oldid=702827572 Contributors: AxelBoldt, MichaelTinkler, JHK,

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18

9 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

named user 3928195555, A4advowiki, Asdjklghty, Ryk72, Hajme, Jayakumar RG, Gronk Oz, Phoenix25782000, Cranberry Products,
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Allthefoxes, RealMintyFresh, XXx-PaintChipper-xXx, Emotionalllama and Anonymous: 699

9.2

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File:Anaximander_world_map-en.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Anaximander_world_map-en.

svg License: Public domain Contributors: Own work (original PNG version by User:Gwwfps is/was : en:Image:Anaximandermap.png,
based on an image found in An Introduction to Early Greek Philosophy by John Mansley Robinson, Houghton and Miin, 1968, ISBN
0395053161). Original artist: User:Bibi Saint-Pol
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Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
File:Commons-logo.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg License: CC-BY-SA-3.0 Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
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https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/
Cosmas_Indicopleustes_-_Topographia_Christiana_1.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: WIKI-EN: en:Flat Earth Original artist:
Cosmas Indicopleustes
File:Crates_Terrestrial_Sphere.png Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Crates_Terrestrial_Sphere.png
License: Public domain Contributors: http://www.archive.org/stream/terrestrialceles01stev#page/n43/mode/2up Original artist: Own work,
adapted from original by Edward Luther Stevenson
File:Diagrammatic_T-O_world_map_-_12th_century.jpg
Source:
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01/Diagrammatic_T-O_world_map_-_12th_century.jpg License:
Public domain Contributors:
Losslessly cropped from
http://www.imagesonline.bl.uk/britishlibrary-store/Components/707/70737_2.jpg at [1] Original artist: Isidore of Seville
File:Flammarion.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Flammarion.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: Camille Flammarion, L'Atmosphere: Mtorologie Populaire (Paris, 1888), pp. 163 Original artist: Anonymous
File:Flat_earth.png Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Flat_earth.png License: Public domain Contributors:
Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by MathiasRav. Original artist: Trekky0623 at English Wikipedia (I made this map myself)
File:Gossuin_de_Metz_-_L'image_du_monde_-_BNF_Fr._574_fo42_-_miniature.jpg Source:
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Original artist: user:GDK
File:Hildegard_von_Bingen-_'Werk_Gottes{},_12._Jh..jpg Source:
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File:Isidore-wheels.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Isidore-wheels.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: Fontaine, Trait de la Nature, reproduction from the 8th century Munich manuscript Original artist: uploader created the le artist unknown
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Diagram.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: After Macrobius, Somnium Scipionis, I.xxi.3-7. Burgerbibliothek Bern, ms 347, fol.
9r (9th. century) Original artist: Macrobius
File:Orlando-Ferguson-flat-earth-map_edit.jpg
Source:
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Orlando-Ferguson-flat-earth-map_edit.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: http://www.thehistoryblog.com/wp-content/uploads/
2011/06/Orlando-Ferguson-flat-earth-map.jpg Original artist: Orlando Ferguson
File:Sacrobosco-1550-B3r-detail01.jpg
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Own work Original artist: Anton

9.3

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