why is the c1 vertebra called the atlas
Atlas (anatomy) It is named for the Atlas of Greek mythology, because it supports the globe of the head.[1]
Atlas (mythology) A common misconception today is that Atlas was forced to hold the Earth on his shoulders, but Classical art shows Atlas holding the celestial spheres, not a globe; the solidity of the marble globe borne by the renowned Farnese Atlas may have aided the conflation, reinforced in the 16th century by the developing usage of atlas to describe a corpus of terrestrial maps.