Atlas (pronounced at-luhs (U) or At-lass (non-U))
(1) A
bound collection of maps, named after the Greek god. Since the sixteenth
century, pictures of Atlas and his burden have been used as decorations on
maps.
(2) A
detailed visual conspectus of something of great and multi-faceted complexity,
with its elements splayed so as to be presented in as discrete a manner as
possible whilst retaining a realistic view of the whole. Most associated with anatomy, especially of
the human body, it’s long been used to describe detailed collections of
drawings, diagrams etc of any subject.
(3) In
anatomy, the top or first cervical vertebra of the neck, supporting the skull
and articulating with the occipital bone and rotating around the dens of the
axis.
(4) In
stationery, a size of drawing or writing paper, 26 × 33 or 34 inches (660 x 838
or 864 mm); in some markets sold in a 26 x 17 inch (660 x 432 mm) form.
(5) In
architecture, a sculptural figure of a man used as a column; also called a
telamon (plural telamones or telamons) or atlant, atlante & atlantid (plural
atlantes).
(6) A
mountain range in north-west Africa.
(7) In classical mythology, a Titan, son of Iapetus and brother of Prometheus and
Epimetheus, condemned for eternity to support the sky on his shoulders as
punishment for rebelling against Zeus: identified by the ancients with the
Atlas Mountains.
(8) A very
strong person or who supports a heavy burden; a mainstay.
(9) In
rocketry, a liquid-propellant booster rocket, originally developed as the first
US intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), used with Agena or Centaur upper
stages to launch satellites into orbit around the earth and send probes to the
moon and planets; also used to launch the Mercury spacecraft into Earth orbit.
(9) in military use (US rocketry) & astronautics, the SM-65, an early ICBM (inter-continental ballistic missile), re-purposed as the launch platform for orbital vehicles (satellites) and later used with Agena or Centaur upper stages to send probes to the moon and planets; also used to launch the Mercury spacecraft into Earth orbit.
(10) In
astronomy, a small satellite of Saturn, discovered in 1980.
(11) In astronomy, a crater in the last quadrant of the moon.
(12) In astronomy, a triple star system in the Pleiades open cluster (M45) also known as 27 Tauri.
(13) In
psychiatry, as Atlas personality, a term used to describe the personality of
someone whose childhood was characterized by excessive responsibilities.
(14) As
the ERA Atlas, the original name for the UNIVAC 1101 computer, released in
1950.
(15) In
differential geometry & topology, a family of coordinate charts that cover
a manifold.
(16) A
rich satin fabric (archaic).
1580-1590:
From the Latin Atlas, from the name
of the Ancient Greek mythological figure Ἄτλας (Átlas)
(Bearer (of the Heavens)), from τλῆναι (tlênai)
(to suffer; to endure; to bear). The traditional
translation of the Greek name as "The Bearer (of the Heavens)" comes
from it construct: a- (the copulative
prefix) + the stem of tlenai (to
bear), from the primitive Indo-European root tele- (to lift, support, weigh) but some etymologists suggest the Berber
adrar (mountain) as a source and
argues it’s at least plausible that the Greek name is a "folk-etymological
reshaping" of this. Mount Atlas, in (then) Mauritania, featured in the cosmology
of Ancient Greece as a support of the heavens.
Atlas had originally been the name of an Arcadian mountain god before
being transferred to the mountain chain.
In Arabic script atlas was أَطْلَس and Atlas
Mountains جِبَال ٱلْأَطْلَس,
Romanized as jibāl al-ʾaṭlas. The Atlas
mountain range lies in north-west Africa and separates the Mediterranean and
Atlantic coastlines from the Sahara. The
noun plural is atlases for the collection of maps and atlantes for the
architectural feature. Atlas is a noun and atlas-like is an adjective; the noun plural is atlases. When used as a proper noun to refer to the figure of mythology, it's with an initial capital.
The
adjective (resembling or pertaining to Atlas) was atlantean which from 1852
extended to “pertaining to Atlantis".
The mythical island (even sometimes a continent) become widely known in
Europe only after circa 1600 after translations of Plato’s Timaeus and Critias (both
written circa 360 BC) became available.
Even then, like some previous medieval scholars who knew the texts, many
thought regarding Plato as a historian as dubious and considered Atlantis
entirely an invention, a device used to illustrate a political cautionary tale. Still, given a long history of earthquakes
and sea-level rise since the last peak of the ice-age (in which we’re still
living), it’s not impossible there are buried settlements which would, by the
standards of the time, have been thought large.
The Greek Atlantis (literally "daughter of Atlas”), is a noun use
of the feminine adjective from Atlas (stem Atlant).
In European architectural
sculpture, an atlas (also known as an atlant, atlante & atlantid (plural
atlantes)), was a (usually decorative) support sculpted in the form of a man
and either part of or attached to a column, a pier or a pilaster. The Roman term was telamon (plural telamones
or telamons), from a later
mythological hero, Telamon, one of the Argonauts, the father of Ajax. Pre-dating the alantes in Classical
architecture was the caryatid, an exclusively female form where the sculpture
of a woman stands with each pillar or column.
Usually in an Ionic context, they were traditionally represented in
association with the goddesses worshiped in the temples to which they were
attached and rarely were they full-length forms, usually crafted as a
conventional structural member below the waist, assuming the female lines
above. One difference between the male
and female renderings was the atlantes often bore expressions of strain or had
limbs bent by the effort of sustaining their heavy load. The caryatids were almost always purely
decorative and carved to show a nonchalant effortlessness.
Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque (1943), oil on canvas by Sir Winston Churchill (1974-1965).
In January 1943, Winston Churchill (1874-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) and Franklin Roosevelt (1882-1945; US president 1933-1945) met at Casablanca to discuss Allied political and military strategy. One of the critical meetings of the war and one which tends to be neglected compared with the later tripartite conferences (which included Comrade Stalin (1878-1953; leader of the USSR 1924-1953) at Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam, it’s remembered for a statement which emerged almost casually at the end of the ten day session: that Germany, Italy and Japan must surrender unconditionally. The phrase "unconditional surrender" came from the president and surprised many (including Churchill) and it proved a gift for the ever-active Nazi propaganda machine.
Churchill prevailed on the president to stay another day before returning to Washington DC, insisting one couldn’t come all the way to Morocco without visiting Marrakech and seeing the sun set over the Atlas Mountains. They stayed at the Villa Taylor on 24 January and the next day, after the American delegation had departed, the prime-minister painted his view of the Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque, framed by the Atlas Mountains. He’d visited Marrakech during the 1930s and completed several paintings but this was the only one he would paint during the war. It was sent it to Roosevelt, as a present for his birthday on 30 January. Churchill was a keen amateur painter, even having published Painting as a Pastime (1922) but never rated his own skills highly, often when speaking with other amateurs cheerfully admitting their work was better but he did think the 1943 effort was “a cut above anything I have ever done so far”. He would have been surprised to learn that on 1 March 2021, Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque sold at auction at Christie’s in London for Stg£8,285,000 (US$11,194,000).
The Farnese Atlas (left) which historians concluded was a Roman copy (circa 150 AD) in marble of (second century BC) work typical of the style of the Hellenistic period. It depicts Atlas holding the world on his shoulders and is the oldest known representation of the celestial spheres and classical constellations, Napoli, Museo archeologico nazionale (National Archaeological Museum, Naples, Italy). Lindsay Lohan (right) reprises the look in an aqua swimsuit, Mykonos, Greece, July 2017.
After
the war Churchill was amused to read that but for a misunderstanding, he may
never have got to paint in Morocco at all.
The wartime meetings of the leaders were all top-secret but in something
of a coup by North African agents of the Abwehr (the German
military-intelligence service 1920-1944), the details of the meeting at Casablanca
were discovered and Berlin was advised to consider a bombing mission. Unfortunately for the Abwehr, the decoders translated
“Casablanca” literally as “White House” and the idea of any action was
dismissed because the Germans had no bomber capable of reaching the US. Casablanca had originally been named Dar al-Baiḍā (دار البيضاء (House of the White) in
the Arabic, later renamed by the Portuguese as Casa Branca before finally
being Hispanicized as "Casablanca".
Group photograph of the political leaders with the Combined Chiefs of Staff Committee, Casablanca Conference, Morocco, 14-24 January 1943. It was at this conference the president unexpectedly announced the allied demand for "unconditional surrender" by the Axis powers and historians have since debated the political and military implications, one theory being it was something which mitigated against the possibility of any attempt within Germany to depose Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945).
Sitting: Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR, 1882–1945, US president 1933-1945) (left); Sir
Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955)
(right).
Standing,
left to right (retirement ranks used): General Brehon B Somervell (1892–1955;
head of US Army Service Forces 1942-1946); General of the Air Force Henry H
"Hap" Arnold (1886–1950; head of US air forces 1938-1947); Fleet
Admiral Ernest J King (1878–1956; US Chief of Naval Operations 1944-1945);
General Lord (Hastings "Pug") Ismay (1887–1965; chief of staff to the
prime-minister in his capacity as minister of defence 1940-1965); General of
the Army George C Marshall (1880–1959; US Army chief of staff 1939-1945);
Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound (1877–1943; First Sea Lord 1939-1943);
Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke (1883–1963; Chief of the Imperial General Staff
(CIGS) 1941-1946); Marshal of the Royal Air Force Lord (Charles
"Peter") Portal (1893–1971; Chief of the RAF Air Staff 1940-1945);
Admiral of the Fleet Lord (Louis) Mountbatten (1900–1979; First Sea Lord
1955-1959).
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