The Heavens
How the ancient world imagined the realms above us, and what that tells us about ourselves.
The layersA sky built in floors
Many ancient peoples saw the sky as layers, one above the other. In Mesopotamia the heavens were imagined as levels with different gods. In Jewish and early Christian writings the number of heavens grew to three and to seven; the apostle Paul writes of a man "caught up to the third heaven".
Greek astronomers turned the layers into spheres: the Moon, the Sun and the planets each on its own crystal sphere around the Earth. This picture, set down by Ptolemy in the 2nd century, ruled for some 1,400 years. Dante climbed through those spheres in his Paradise.
Between the worldsSpirits in the air
The space between earth and heaven was not empty for the ancients. It was full of powers, good and bad, and many texts of the time speak of the end of the world as a battle in those middle realms.
What remainsThree truths from the old skies
- People have always looked up to understand their place.
- Every age drew the sky with the knowledge it had, and believed its picture was final.
- The telescope replaced the crystal spheres, but not the question. That question is still ours.
Go deeperSources
Everything on this page was written for you here. These are the places we drew from, if you want to walk further on your own: