Strong Man

I looked up Atlas, and discovered the extent of my ignorance about many things. All the things I did not know: In Greek mythology, Atlas was a Titan. The Titans were the 'old gods'. The young gods were the Olympians. The Titans and the Olympians fought a ten-year war that the Titans lost. For some reason Atlas was singled out for particular post-war punishment, and condemned to bear the weight of the heavens upon his shoulders for eternity

Note, he supported the heavens, not the earth, as many people - me included, until now - assume. From the time of Plato (~400 BCE) until the 17th century, "the heavens" meant the "celestial spheres". The celestial spheres were not (yet again, my ignorance) the spherical suns, planets, moons and other bodies that make up the universe. In fact they were a hypothesis of how the universe worked. They comprised a set of hollow spheres, one inside another, like an onion or a Russian doll, and the earth, the sun, the planets and the stars were viewed as embedded in one or other of the spheres. The rotating motion of the spheres inside one another was assumed to be responsible for the observed motion of the stars, planets, sun etc, with Atlas holding the whole thing on his shoulders. At one point, he tried to offload the job to Hercules - in mid-labours - but Hercules was too smart for him

Atlas got associated with northwest Africa, for some reason and, in some myths, became the first king of what is now Morocco, hence the Atlas mountains. A book of world maps was called an atlas by an early geographer - presumably also misled about what Atlas was actually carrying. Similarly, Ayn Rand, darling of the swivel-eyed political right, seems to have assumed it was the earth under which he shrugged - not the last thing she got wrong

If you already knew all this, I apologise. I used to do the same thing to my parents after school science lessons! The object in the picture was a retirement present from my oldest friends. It works as a sundial - which means it needs to be, and is, pointing its arrow north. Aside from its spherical form, the presence of (I assume) Atlas as its base and the vague suggestion of time's arrow, I don't think it has any deeper symbolism. It makes me smile. I'd like to call it an armillary, but I don't think it really qualifies

The dressed local stone it is mounted on was unearthed when we dug out a green drive soon after coming here. It was only buried in a few cm of soil. It is much too heavy for burly builders to move by hand and was dumped on this spot (an on-the-spot decision) by the mechanical digger. I believe it was once part of a lost neighbouring house, buried on site because it was too heavy to haul away

When I received my not-armillary, I decided the stone would make a good plinth but, for that, I needed it stood on end. Channeling my inner neolithic circle-builder, I dug a hole underneath one end of the stone, so that it was balanced over the rim and I could quite easily tip it, to put that end in the hole and rotate the stone upright, before filling in around it. "Did you do that all by yourself?" asked Mrs M. I just shrugged