For a similar Babylonian belief, see Sayce's Herodotus, Appendix, p.

403.
For the belief of Hebrew scriptural writers in a solid "firmament," see especially Job, xxxviii, 18; also Smith's Bible Dictionary.

For engravings showing the earth and heaven above it as conceived by Egyptians and Chaldeans, with "pillars of heaven" and "firmament," see Maspero and Sayce, Dawn of Civilization, London, 1894, pp.

17 and 543.
But, as civilization was developed, there were evolved, especially among the Greeks, ideas of the earth's sphericity.

The Pythagoreans, Plato, and Aristotle especially cherished them.