Regarding the crust of the Earth. Yes, it's thicker than the oceans are deep...but it's not very thick in comparison to the vast size of the planet. It's a really thin skin over a molten body with an iron core. And the oceans are a thinner puddle on top of that thin skin.

One thing about the ancients in the thousands of years prior to our development of electricty...they were FAR more aware of the sky, the constellations, and the other things in the night sky than most people are nowadays. Their skies were unpolluted by the vast array of lights that we now have, thus far more visible to the naked eye.

The ancients paid much more attention to the stars, the comets, the constellations, the sun, and the moon than modern people do, and they studied them. They measured the cycles of the sky in order to better understand the seasons, grow their crops, etc. They tied much of their religious understanding to the visible phenomena in the sky.

I think you would find that our present civilization (with the exception of a few scientists and hobbyists) is woefully ignorant of the night sky when compared to people in a great many ancient societies. We are lost in our technology and our artificial lifestyle, and have largely lost our sensitivity to the cycles of Nature. This is one of the things that imperils our civilization, as it is obsessed with what its technology can do, but has greatly lost its sense of intimacy with the natural cycles.