Nebra skydisk - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Nebra Sky Disk is a bronze

Bronze

Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...

disk of around 30 cm diameter, with a blue-green patina

Patina

Patina is a tarnish that forms on the surface of bronze and similar metals ; a sheen on wooden furniture produced by age, wear, and polishing; or any such acquired change of a surface through age and exposure...

and inlaid with gold symbols. These are interpreted generally as a sun or full moon, a lunar crescent, and stars (including a cluster interpreted as the Pleiades

Pleiades (star cluster)

In astronomy, the Pleiades, or Seven Sisters , is an open star cluster containing middle-aged hot B-type stars located in the constellation of Taurus. It is among the nearest star clusters to Earth and is the cluster most obvious to the naked eye in the night sky...

). Two golden arcs along the sides, marking the angle between the solstice

Solstice

A solstice is an astronomical event that happens twice each year when the Sun's apparent position in the sky, as viewed from Earth, reaches its northernmost or southernmost extremes...

s, were added later. A final addition was another arc at the bottom surrounded with multiple strokes (of uncertain meaning, variously interpreted as a Solar Barge with numerous oars, as the Milky Way

Milky Way

The Milky Way is the galaxy that contains the Solar System. This name derives from its appearance as a dim un-resolved "milky" glowing band arching across the night sky...

or as a rainbow

Rainbow

A rainbow is an optical and meteorological phenomenon that causes a spectrum of light to appear in the sky when the Sun shines on to droplets of moisture in the Earth's atmosphere. It takes the form of a multicoloured arc...

).

The disk is attributed to a site near Nebra

Nebra

Nebra is a town in the district of Burgenlandkreis of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated on the river Unstrut....

, Saxony-Anhalt

Saxony-Anhalt

Saxony-Anhalt is a landlocked state of Germany. Its capital is Magdeburg and it is surrounded by the German states of Lower Saxony, Brandenburg, Saxony, and Thuringia.Saxony-Anhalt covers an area of...

in Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, and associatively

Archaeological association

Association in archaeology has more than one meaning and is confusing to the layman. Archaeology has been critiqued as a soft science with a somewhat poor standardization of terms.-Finds and objects:...

dated

Dating methodology (archaeology)

Dating material drawn from the archaeological record can be made by a direct study of an artifact or may be deduced by association with materials found in the context the item is drawn from or inferred by its point of discovery in the sequence relative to datable contexts...

to c. 1600 BC

16th century BC

The 16th century BC is a century which lasted from 1600 BC to 1501 BC.-Events:* 1700 BC – 1500 BC: Hurrian conquests.* 1595 BC: Sack of Babylon by the Hittite king Mursilis I....

. It has been associated with the Bronze Age Unetice culture

Unetice culture

Unetice; or more properly Únětice culture ; is the name given to an early Bronze Age culture, preceded by the Beaker culture and followed by the Tumulus culture. It was named after finds at site in Únětice, northwest of Prague. It is focused around the Czech Republic, southern and central Germany,...

.

The disk is unlike any known artistic style from the period, and had initially been suspected of being a forgery, but is now widely accepted as authentic.

Discovery

The disk, two bronze swords, two hatchets, a chisel and fragments of spiral bracelets were discovered by Henry Westphal and Mario Renner while treasure hunting with a metal detector in 1999. Archaeological artifacts are the property of the state in Saxony-Anhalt and the hunters were operating without a license and knew their activities constituted looting. Already the next day, Westphal and Renner sold the entire hoard for 31,000 DM to a dealer in Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

. The hoard exchanged hands throughout Germany over the next two years, being sold for up to a million DM. By 2001 knowledge of its existence became public. In February 2002 the state archaeologist Harald Meller acquired the disk in a police-led sting operation in Basel

Basel

Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...

from a couple that had put it on the black market for 700,000 DM. The looters were eventually traced back. In a plea bargain, they led police and archaeologists to the discovery site. Archaeologists have opened a dig at the site and have uncovered evidence that support the looters' claim in the form of traces of bronze artefacts in the ground, as well as matching earth samples found sticking to the artifacts. The disk and its accompanying finds are now in Halle in the Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte (State Museum for Prehistory) of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. The two looters received a four months and a ten months sentence by a Naumburg

Naumburg

Naumburg is a town in Germany, on the Saale River. It is in the district Burgenlandkreis in the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt. It is approximately southwest of Leipzig, south-southwest of Halle, and north-northeast of Jena....

court in September 2003. They went into appeal, but the appeal court raised their sentence to six and twelve months, respectively.

The discovery site is a prehistoric enclosure encircling the top of a 252 metres (826.8 ft) elevation in the Ziegelroda Forest, known as Mittelberg ("central hill"), some 60 km west of Leipzig

Leipzig

Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

. The surrounding area is known to have been settled since the Neolithic

Neolithic

The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...

, and Ziegelroda Forest is said to contain around 1,000 barrows

Tumulus

A tumulus is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, Hügelgrab or kurgans, and can be found throughout much of the world. A tumulus composed largely or entirely of stones is usually referred to as a cairn...

.

The enclosure is oriented in such a way that the sun seems to set every solstice

Solstice

A solstice is an astronomical event that happens twice each year when the Sun's apparent position in the sky, as viewed from Earth, reaches its northernmost or southernmost extremes...

behind the Brocken, the highest peak of the Harz

Harz

The Harz is the highest mountain range in northern Germany and its rugged terrain extends across parts of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. The name Harz derives from the Middle High German word Hardt or Hart , latinized as Hercynia. The legendary Brocken is the highest summit in the Harz...

mountains, some 80 km to the north-west. It was claimed by the treasure-hunters that the artefacts were discovered within a pit inside the bank-and-ditch enclosure.

The significance of the site to prehistoric dwellers is underlined by the proximity to the much older Goseck circle

Goseck circle

The Goseck circle is a Neolithic structure in Goseck in the Burgenlandkreis district in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It consists of a set of concentric ditches 75 metres across and two palisade rings containing gates in defined places. It is considered the earliest sun observatory currently known in...

Dating

The precise dating of the Nebra skydisk depended upon the dating of a number of Bronze Age weapons, which were offered for sale with the disk and said to be from the same site. These axes and swords can be typologically dated to the mid 2nd millennium BC

2nd millennium BC

The 2nd millennium BC marks the transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age.Its first half is dominated by the Middle Kingdom of Egypt and Babylonia. The alphabet develops. Indo-Iranian migration onto the Iranian plateau and onto the Indian subcontinent propagates the use of the chariot...

(Unetice culture

Unetice culture

).
Radiocarbon dating

Radiocarbon dating

Radiocarbon dating is a radiometric dating method that uses the naturally occurring radioisotope carbon-14 to estimate the age of carbon-bearing materials up to about 58,000 to 62,000 years. Raw, i.e. uncalibrated, radiocarbon ages are usually reported in radiocarbon years "Before Present" ,...

of a birchbark particle found on one of the swords to between 1600 and 1560 BC confirmed this estimate. This corresponds to the date of burial, at which time the disk had likely been in existence for several generations.

Origin of the metals

According to an initial analysis of trace elements by x-ray fluorescence

X-ray fluorescence

X-ray fluorescence is the emission of characteristic "secondary" X-rays from a material that has been excited by bombarding with high-energy X-rays or gamma rays...

by E. Pernicka, then at the University of Freiberg

Freiberg, Saxony

Freiberg is a city in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, administrative center of the Mittelsachsen district.-History:The city was founded in 1186, and has been a center of the mining industry in the Ore Mountains for centuries...

, the copper originated at Bischofshofen

Bischofshofen

Bischofshofen is a city located in the Salzach valley in the Alps, in the District of Pongau, in Salzburgerland, Austria.The city is an important railway hub and lies at the Tauernautobahn, a highway route through the Alps....

in Austria, while the gold

Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

was thought to be from the Carpathian Mountains

Carpathian Mountains

The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians are a range of mountains forming an arc roughly long across Central and Eastern Europe, making them the second-longest mountain range in Europe...

. However a more recent analysis found that the gold was from the river Carnon in Cornwall. The tin content of the bronze was also from Cornwall.

History

The disk as preserved was developed in four stages (Meller 2004):

Initially the disk had thirty-two small round gold circles, a large circular plate, and a large crescent-shaped plate attached. The circular plate is interpreted as either the Sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...

or the full Moon
Full Moon
Full moon is a lunar phase.Full Moon may also refer to:- Literature :* Full Moon , a novel by P. G. Wodehouse* Full Moon o Sagashite or Full Moon, a manga* Full Moon Press, an American small-press publisher...

, the crescent shape as the crescent Moon (or either the Sun or the Moon undergoing eclipse
Eclipse
An eclipse is an astronomical event that occurs when an astronomical object is temporarily obscured, either by passing into the shadow of another body or by having another body pass between it and the viewer...

), and the dots as star
Star
A star is a massive, luminous sphere of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth...

s, with the cluster of seven dots likely representing the Pleiades
Pleiades (star cluster)
In astronomy, the Pleiades, or Seven Sisters , is an open star cluster containing middle-aged hot B-type stars located in the constellation of Taurus. It is among the nearest star clusters to Earth and is the cluster most obvious to the naked eye in the night sky...

.
At some later date, two arcs (constructed from gold of a different origin, as shown by its chemical impurities) were added at opposite edges of the disk. To make space for these arcs, one small circle was moved from the left side toward the center of the disk and two of the circles on the right were covered over, so that thirty remain visible. The two arcs span an angle of 82°, correctly indicating the angle between the positions of sunset at summer and winter solstice
Solstice
A solstice is an astronomical event that happens twice each year when the Sun's apparent position in the sky, as viewed from Earth, reaches its northernmost or southernmost extremes...

at the latitude of the Mittelberg (51°N). Given that the arcs relate to solar phenomena, it is likely the circular plate represents the Sun not the Moon.
The final addition was another arc at the bottom, the "sun boat", again made of gold from a different origin.
By the time the disk was buried it also had thirty-nine or forty holes punched out around its perimeter, each approximately 3 mm in diameter.

Significance

The disk is possibly an astronomical

Archaeoastronomy

Archaeoastronomy is the study of how people in the past "have understood the phenomena in the sky how they used phenomena in the sky and what role the sky played in their cultures." Clive Ruggles argues it is misleading to consider archaeoastronomy to be the study of ancient astronomy, as modern...

instrument as well as an item of religious

Prehistoric religion

Prehistoric religion is a general term for the religious beliefs and practices of prehistoric peoples. More specifically it encompasses Paleolithic religion, Mesolithic religion, Neolithic religion and Bronze Age religion.-Burial:...

significance. The blue-green patina of the bronze may have been an intentional part of the original artifact.

If authentic, the find reconfirms that the astronomical knowledge and abilities of the people of the European Bronze Age included close observation of the yearly course of the Sun

Sun

The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...

, and the angle between its rising and setting points at summer and winter solstice

Solstice

A solstice is an astronomical event that happens twice each year when the Sun's apparent position in the sky, as viewed from Earth, reaches its northernmost or southernmost extremes...

. While Stonehenge

Stonehenge

Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument located in the English county of Wiltshire, about west of Amesbury and north of Salisbury. One of the most famous sites in the world, Stonehenge is composed of a circular setting of large standing stones set within earthworks...

and the Neolithic "circular ditches

Circular ditches

About 150 arrangements of prehistoric circular ditches are known to archaeologists spread over Germany, Austria, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. Their diameters range from ca. 20 to ca. 130 m, and they date to the 5th millennium BC. Tools, bones, and some artefacts were found in their context....

" such as the 5th millennium BC Goseck circle

Goseck circle

were used to mark the solstices, the disk is the oldest known "portable" instrument to allow such measurements.

Another view is that the Nebra disk can be linked to the solar calendar reconstructed by Alexander Thom

Alexander Thom

Alexander "Sandy" Thom was a Scottish engineer most famous for his theory of the Megalithic yard, categorization of stone circles and his studies of Stonehenge and other archaeological sites.- Life and work :...

from his analysis of standing stone alignments in Britain. MacKie has argued that several aspects of the disk support this view, following up the work of Prof. Wolfhard Schlosser. The first is that the Mittelberg – the hill on which the disk is supposed to have been found – is so situated that when the sun sets at two distant mountain peaks in the north-west, both midsummer and May Day are accurately marked (and therefore also the old Celtic harvest festival on Aug. 2nd); these are three important dates in the 16 'month' Thom solar calendar. The second feature is the two golden arcs on either side of the disk which subtend angles of about 82 degrees; this is the angular distance between sunrise and sunset at midsummer and midwinter at the latitude of Mittelberg. This surely implies a detailed knowledge of the yearly solar cycle on the part of the disk's designer. The third feature is the 32 golden 'star spots' on the disk. Although Thom found really clear evidence for only sixteen subdivisions of the solar year (of 21 or 22 days) in the standing stone alignments, there were some indications of a further subdivision into 32 parts of 10 or 11 days.

Authenticity

There were initial suspicions that the disk might be an archaeological forgery

Archaeological forgery

Archaeological forgery is the manufacture of supposedly ancient items that are sold to the antiquities market and may even end up in the collections of museums. It is related to art forgery....

. Peter Schauer of the University of Regensburg, Germany, argued in 2005 that the Nebra disk was a fake and that he could prove that the patina of the disk could be created with urine, hydrochloric acid and a blow torch within a short amount of time. However, he had to admit in court that he had never held the disk in his own hands, unlike eighteen scientists who had examined the disk.

Richard Harrison, professor of European prehistory at the University of Bristol

University of Bristol

The University of Bristol is a public research university located in Bristol, United Kingdom. One of the so-called "red brick" universities, it received its Royal Charter in 1909, although its predecessor institution, University College, Bristol, had been in existence since 1876.The University is...

and an expert on the Beaker people allowed his initial reaction to be quoted in a BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

documentary:

"When I first heard about the Nebra Disc I thought it was a joke, indeed I thought it was a forgery. Because it’s such an extraordinary piece that it wouldn’t surprise any of us that a clever forger had cooked this up in a backroom and sold it for a lot of money."

Though Harrison had not seen the skydisk when he was interviewed, his skepticism was reasonable at that point, but the disk is now widely accepted as authentic and dated to roughly 1600 BC on grounds of typological classification of the associated finds.
As the item was not excavated using archaeological methods, even its claimed provenance may be made up, hence authenticating it has depended on microphotography of the corrosion crystals (see link), which produced images that could not be reproduced by a faker.

Dr Harald Meller, lecturing to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in April 2008, gave a list of reasons for the authenticity of the disc and for its find location's being on the Mittelberg. The most persuasive of the latter was the discovery by the archaeologists – in the pit in which the looters said they had found the metalwork – of a fragment of gold leaf exactly fitting the gap present in the gold leaf covering on the 'sun' symbol when it was originally recovered.

Exhibition

The disk was the center of an exhibition titled Der geschmiedete Himmel ("the smithied heavens"), showing 1,600 Bronze Age artifacts, including the Trundholm sun chariot

Trundholm sun chariot

The Trundholm sun chariot , is a late Nordic Bronze Age artifact discovered in Denmark. It is a representatino of the sun chariot, a bronze statue of a horse and a large bronze disk, which are placed on a device with spoked wheels....

, shown at Halle from 15 October 2004 to 22 May 2005, from 1 July to 22 October 2005 in Kopenhagen, from 9 November 2005 to 5 February 2006 in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, from 10 March to 16 July 2006 in Mannheim

Mannheim

Mannheim is a city in southwestern Germany. With about 315,000 inhabitants, Mannheim is the second-largest city in the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, following the capital city of Stuttgart....

and from 29 September 2006 to 25 February 2007 in Basel

Basel

.

On 20 June 2007 a multimedia visitor center was opened near the discovery site at Nebra.

Legal issues

The state

States of Germany

Germany is made up of sixteen which are partly sovereign constituent states of the Federal Republic of Germany. Land literally translates as "country", and constitutionally speaking, they are constituent countries...

of Saxony-Anhalt

Saxony-Anhalt

has registered the disk as a trademark

Trademark

A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...

, which has resulted in two lawsuits. In 2003, Saxony-Anhalt successfully sued the city of Querfurt

Querfurt

Querfurt a town in Saalekreis district in the south of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, situated in a fertile area on the Querne, west from Merseburg, on a branch line from Oberroblingen. Pop. 12,935 .-History:...

for depicting the disk design on souvenirs. Saxony-Anhalt also successfully sued the publishing houses Piper

Piper Verlag

Piper Verlag is a German publisher based in Munich, printing both fiction and non-fiction works. It currently prints over 200 new paperback titles per year. Authors published by the company include Andreas von Bülow and Sara Paretsky. It owned by the Swedish media conglomerate Bonnier. It was...

and Heyne over an abstracted depiction of the disk on book covers. The Magdeburg

Magdeburg

Magdeburg , is the largest city and the capital city of the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Magdeburg is situated on the Elbe River and was one of the most important medieval cities of Europe....

court assessed the case's relevance according to German copyright law

German copyright law

German authors' right or Deutsches Urheberrecht is codified in the Gesetz über Urheberrecht und verwandte Schutzrechte ....

. The defenders argued that as a cultic object, the disk had already been "published" in the Bronze Age, and that consequently all protection of intellectual property

Intellectual property

Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...

associated with it has long expired. The plaintiff on the other hand argued that the editio princeps
Editio princeps
In classical scholarship, editio princeps is a term of art. It means, roughly, the first printed edition of a work that previously had existed only in manuscripts, which could be circulated only after being copied by hand....

of the disk is recent, and according to German law protected for 25 years, until 2027. Another argument concerned the question whether a notable work of art may be registered as a trademark in the first place.

Popular culture

The disk has begun to attract the kind of pseudoarchaeology

Pseudoarchaeology

Pseudoarchaeology — also known as alternative archaeology, fringe archaeology, fantastic archaeology, or cult archaeology — refers to interpretations of the past from outside of the academic archaeological community, which typically also reject the accepted scientific and analytical methods of the...

, neopagan and paranormal

Paranormal

Paranormal is a general term that designates experiences that lie outside "the range of normal experience or scientific explanation" or that indicates phenomena understood to be outside of science's current ability to explain or measure...

speculation that is associated with Stonehenge

Stonehenge

and Arkaim

Arkaim

Arkaim is an archaeological site situated in the Southern Urals steppe, north-to-northwest of Amurskiy, and south-to-southeast of Alexandronvskiy, two villages in the Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, just to the north from the Kazakhstan border....

.
The Nebra Skydisk is also the name of an experimental band out of Binghamton, New York.

External links

Brief description
Official Landesmuseum website with spectacular microphotos (German, with some English translation)
Video of BBC Horizon documentary on Google Video
Transcript of BBC Horizon documentary on the disk
http://www.physorg.com/news11357.html
Article by astronomer Prof. Dr. Wolfhard Schlosser about the possible interpretation of the disk (German)
Translation of German newspaper article about trial of looters and authenticity of the disk
Article on non-calendrical interpretation espoused in 'Antiquity'.
Herr der Himmelsscheibe — 'Terra X' documentary on the disk, first broadcast by the ZDF on 22 August 2010 (in German)
http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m045.html
http://www.ras.ucalgary.ca/~gibson/pleiades/
http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/vphase.html

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Discovery

Dating

Origin of the metals

History

Significance

Authenticity

Exhibition

Legal issues

See also

Popular culture

Further reading

External links