Mountains & Monuments
This mythical mountain was the center of the Hindu and Buddhist universe.
What is Mt. Meru?
Ancient people often connected this object’s changing phases with death and rebirth.
What is the moon?
In Greek mythology, this was the underground world of the dead.
What is Hades?
The shape Greek thinkers eventually proved Earth has.
What is a sphere?
This philosopher used the curved shadow seen during lunar eclipses as evidence that Earth is round.
Who is Aristotle?
Zeus and the Greek gods were believed to live on this mountain.
What is Mt. Olympus?
The Romans believed that a person might become one of these after death.
What is a star?
This ferryman carried souls across the River Styx.
Who is Charon?
These imaginary lines help identify a location north or south of the equator.
What is latitude?
This philosopher believed a sphere was the most perfect shape, so Earth must be spherical.
Who is Plato?
Moses received the Ten Commandments on this mountain.
What is Mt. Sinai?
This phrase still used today comes from the old belief that stars could determine someone’s destiny.
What are “lucky stars”?
Greeks often placed this item with the dead to pay Charon for passage.
What is a coin/an obolos?
These imaginary lines help identify a location east or west on Earth.
: What is longitude?
This group of Greek thinkers also connected mathematical perfection with the spherical Earth.
Who are the Pythagoreans?
These stepped towers in ancient Mesopotamia were designed as links between heaven and earth.
What are ziggurats?
Some people believed this bright band in the night sky was a highway for departed souls.
What is the Milky Way?
This place in Greek mythology was a prison of punishment for wicked souls.
What is Tartarus?
This Greek scholar measured Earth’s circumference by comparing shadows in Alexandria and Syene.
Who is Eratosthenes?
This astronomer proposed creating a complete grid system for Earth using latitude and longitude.
Who is Hipparchus?
Daily Double: This Hindu temple in India was carved directly from a mountain to represent Shiva’s sacred mountain paradise.
What is Kailasa Temple?
: In Manichaean belief, the moon carried souls before transferring them to this larger heavenly body.
What is the sun?
Daily Double: In Dante’s Divine Comedy, this Roman poet guides Dante through Hell.
Who is Virgil?
This mapmaker’s incorrect small estimate of Earth helped convince Columbus that Asia was closer by sailing west.
Who is Ptolemy?
This Greek geographer’s coordinates and map conventions influenced modern cartography for centuries.
Who is Ptolemy?