Such
a belief is entirely natural; it conforms to the appearance of things,
and hence at a very early period entered into various theologies.
In the civilizations of Chaldea and Egypt it was very fully
developed. The Assyrian inscriptions deciphered in these latter
years represent the god Marduk as in the beginning creating the
heavens and the earth: the earth rests upon the waters; within it
is the realm of the dead; above it is spread "the firmament"--a
solid dome coming down to the horizon on all sides and resting upon
foundations laid in the "great waters" which extend around the earth.
On the east and west sides of this domed firmament are doors, through
which the sun enters in the morning and departs at night; above it
extends another ocean, which goes down to the ocean surrounding
the earth at the horizon on all sides, and which is supported and
kept away from the earth by the firmament. Above the firmament and
the upper ocean which it supports is the interior of heaven.
The Egyptians considered the earth as a table, flat and oblong, the
sky being its ceiling--a huge "firmament" of metal.
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