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Cast of the Farnese Atlas globe

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Cast of the Farnese Atlas globe, ca. 1930
Rome, Museo della Civiltą Romana, inv. M.C.R. 2896

The celestial sphere carried by Atlas on his back is the oldest depiction of the sky as the ancients saw it. The globe features the celestial equator, the ecliptic with the band of the zodiac, the Arctic and Antarctic circles, the colure and the constellations (19 northern, 14 southern) with the 12 signs of the zodiac.