Atlas of Mauritania

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Title copper for the atlas of Gerhard Mercator, which was published one year after his death by his son Rumold Mercator

Atlas of Mauritania is a mythical king who Diodorus appears as a wise connoisseur of the stars and their spherical shape.

Gerhard Mercator explained this scientific aspect of the atlas mythology in the preface to his Atlas sive Cosmographicae Meditationes de Fabrica Mundi et Fabricati Figura (Atlas or world-descriptive (cosmographic) reflections on the creation of the world and the form of creation), which was published posthumously in 1595 . The Atlas of Mauritania was named after the atlases in cartography.

Atlas of Mauritania belongs to the legendary circle around the Titan Atlas and the King Atlas of Atlantis .

The Jesuit Giovanni Riccioli named in his New Almagest (1651) a moon crater after Atlas the King of Mauritania, which according to his chronology should be around 1590 BC. In 1935 the lunar crater Atlas was taken over by the IAU with reference to Atlas the Titan .

supporting documents

  1. ^ Diodorus , books 3, 60 and 4, 27.
  2. ^ Gerhard Mercator in the foreword of his Atlas sive Cosmographicae Meditationes de Fabrica Mundi et Fabricati Figura, published posthumously in 1595
  3. ^ Friedrich Kluge : Etymological Dictionary of the German Language , 6th Edition, 2nd Imprint, 1905, p. 22 limited preview in the Google book search.
  4. Konrad Wernicke : Atlas 3 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume II, 2, Stuttgart 1896, Col. 2119-2133. Section II. Interpretation.
  5. ^ Giovanni Riccioli: Almagestum novum astronomiam veterem novamque complectens observationibus aliorum et propriis novisque theorematibus, problematibus ac tabulis promotam, Vol. I-III, Bologna 1651;