Observations placeholder
Atlas
Identifier
006613
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
“A NEW SYSTEM; OR, AN ANALYSIS OF ANTIENT MYTHOLOGY” - BY JACOB BRYANT, ESQ. THE THIRD EDITION. IN SIX VOLUMES. 1807.
WORSHIP PAID AT CAVERNS; AND OF THE ADORATION OF FIRE IN THE FIRST AGES.
The mythologists gave out, that Atlas supported heaven: one reason for this notion was, that upon mount Atlas stood a temple to Coëlus. … The temple was undoubtedly a cavern: but the name is to be understood in its original acceptation, as Coël, the house of God; to which the natives paid their adoration. ……… the temple seems to have been merely a vast hollow in the side of the mountain;
“This Atlas (of which I have been speaking) is a mountain with a cavity, and of a tolerable height, which the natives esteem both as a temple and a Deity: and it is the great object by which they swear; and to which they pay their devotions.”
The cave in the mountain was certainly named Co-el, the house of God; equivalent to Cœlus of the Romans. To this the people made their offerings: and this was the heaven which Atlas was supposed to support.