Early Greek cosmology in the context of Poetry

The Theogony (Ancient Greek: Θεογονία, romanized: Theogonía, lit. 'the genealogy or birth of the gods') is a poem by Hesiod (8th–7th century BC) describing the origins and genealogies of the Greek gods, composed c. 730–700 BC. It is written in the epic dialect of Ancient Greek and contains 1,022 lines. It is one of the most important sources for the understanding of early Greek cosmology.

Flat Earth is an archaic and scientifically disproven conception of the Earth's shape as a plane or disk. Many ancient cultures subscribed to a flat-Earth cosmography. The model has undergone a recent resurgence as a conspiracy theory in the 21st century.

The idea of a spherical Earth appeared in ancient Greek philosophy with Pythagoras (6th century BC). However, the early Greek cosmological view of a flat Earth persisted among most pre-Socratics (6th–5th century BC). In the early 4th century BC, Plato wrote about a spherical Earth. By about 330 BC, his former student Aristotle had provided strong empirical evidence for a spherical Earth. Knowledge of the Earth's global shape gradually began to spread beyond the Hellenistic world. By the early period of the Christian Church, the spherical view was widely held, with some notable exceptions. In contrast, ancient Chinese scholars consistently describe the Earth as flat, and this perception remained unchanged until their encounters with Jesuit missionaries in the 17th century. Muslim scholars in early Islam maintained that the Earth is flat. However, since the 9th century, Muslim scholars have tended to believe in a spherical Earth.

The term cosmography has two distinct meanings: traditionally it has been the protoscience of mapping the general features of the cosmos, heaven and Earth; more recently, it has been used to describe the ongoing effort to determine the large-scale features of the observable universe.

Premodern views of cosmography can be traditionally divided into those following the tradition of ancient near eastern cosmology, dominant in the Ancient Near East and in early Greece.

In the context of religious cosmogony, Chaos (Ancient Greek: χάος, romanized: kháos) refers to the division of reality outside or in contrast to the ordered cosmos. As such it refers to a state, place, or time beyond the known, familiar, and reliable world, often said to be inhabited by strange, ominous, or demonic beings.

According to the creation of the universe (the cosmos) in early Greek cosmology, Chaos was the first being to exist.

In Greek mythology, Tartarus (/ˈtɑːrtərəs/; Ancient Greek: Τάρταρος, romanized: Tártaros) is the deep abyss that is used as a dungeon of torment and suffering for the wicked and as the prison for the Titans. Tartarus is the place where, according to Plato's Gorgias (c. 400 BC), souls are judged after death and where the wicked received divine punishment. Tartarus appears in early Greek cosmology, such as in Hesiod's Theogony, where the personified Tartarus is described as one of the earliest beings to exist, alongside Chaos and Gaia (Earth).

The cosmology of the ancient Near East refers to beliefs about where the universe came from, how it developed, and its physical layout, in the ancient Near East, an area that corresponds with the Middle East today (including Mesopotamia, Egypt, Persia, the Levant, Anatolia, and the Arabian Peninsula). The basic understanding of the world in this region from premodern times included a flat earth, a solid layer or barrier above the sky (the firmament), a cosmic ocean located above the firmament, a region above the cosmic ocean where the gods lived, and a netherworld located at the furthest region in the direction down. Creation myths explained where the universe came from, including which gods created it (and how), as well as how humanity was created. These beliefs are attested as early as the fourth millennium BC and dominated until the modern era, with the only major competing system being the Hellenistic cosmology that developed in Ancient Greece in the mid-1st millennium BC.

Geographically, these views are known from the Mesopotamian cosmologies from Babylonia, Sumer, and Akkad; the Levantine or West Semitic cosmologies from Ugarit and ancient Israel and Judah (the biblical cosmology); the Egyptian cosmology from Ancient Egypt; and the Anatolian cosmologies from the Hittites. This system of cosmology went on to have a profound influence on views in early Greek cosmology, later Jewish cosmology, patristic cosmology, and Islamic cosmology (including Quranic cosmology).

The ancient Mesopotamian underworld (known in Sumerian as Kur, Irkalla, Kukku, Arali, or Kigal, and in Akkadian as Erṣetu), was the lowermost part of the ancient near eastern cosmos, roughly parallel to the region known as Tartarus from early Greek cosmology. It was described as a dark, dreary cavern located deep below the ground, where inhabitants were believed to continue "a transpositional version of life on earth". The only food or drink was dry dust, but family members of the deceased would pour sacred mineral libations from the earth for them to drink. In the Sumerian underworld, it was initially believed that there was no final judgement of the deceased and the dead were neither punished nor rewarded for their deeds in life.

The ruler of the underworld was the goddess Ereshkigal, who lived in the palace Ganzir, sometimes used as a name for the underworld itself. Her husband was either Gugalanna, the "canal-inspector of Anu", or, especially in later stories, Nergal, the god of war. After the Akkadian Period (c. 2334–2154 BC), Nergal sometimes took over the role as ruler of the underworld. The seven gates of the underworld are guarded by a gatekeeper, who is named Neti in Sumerian. The god Namtar acts as Ereshkigal's sukkal, or divine attendant. The dying god Dumuzid spends half the year in the underworld, while, during the other half, his place is taken by his sister, the scribal goddess Geshtinanna, who records the names of the deceased. The underworld was also the abode of various demons, including the hideous child-devourer Lamashtu, the fearsome wind demon and protector god Pazuzu, and galla, who dragged mortals to the underworld.