Atlas, Titans series, Niue 2020, 2 dollars, 2 oz, 45 mm, antique finish high relief coin, 3D fluorescent inserts, client: Numiartis, producer: Mint of Poland.

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Since 16th century in art we commonly see Atlas holding the Earth on his shoulders, but according to the mythology he should bear the celestial sphere. My Atlas is just a clumsy muscle man. The athlete loses the balance and the Sky is about to fall on his head.

Titan Atlas had numerous children. His seven daughters—Pleiades: Alcyone, Electra, Celaeno, Maia, Merope, Sterope, Taygete (their names in Greek appear on the coin) committed suicide when her father was condemned by Zeus to carry the heavens on his shoulders. Then Zeus turned them into the stars. The cluster of Pleiades is a part of the Taurus constellation, close to the Auriga and Perseus constellations. We see all of them on the Sky map above the Titan’s head.

Atlas, reverse
The reverse of the coin.
The map of the Sky.
The map of the Sky (schematic) on my design.
Pleiades NASA
Real Pleiades cluster by NASA The cluster has the shape similar to the Big Dipper. Photo source: Wikipedia, public domain.
Turus constellation
Turus, Auriga and Perseus constellations and Pleiades cluster on the Sky map. Source: Wikipedia, credit: IAU and Sky & Telescope magazine (Roger Sinnott & Rick Fienberg) under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

Atlas, the obverse
The obverse of the Atlas coin is the same as the obverse of the Cronus. Both coins are in the same Titans series. You can read more here.

Titans

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