According to new research by German scientists, the Nebra sky disk, one of the oldest concrete images of the cosmic phenomenon, was created in the first millennium BCE, which was supposed to be about 1000 years ago, according to new research by German scientists.
Nebra Sky Disk. Image credit: Dbachmann / CC BY-SA 3.0.
The Nebra Sky Disc is about 32 cm. (12.6 inches) in diameter, a bronze disc and a mass of 2.2 kilograms, with a blue-green patina and gold markings.
The metal artifact was discovered in 1999 by poachers near Nebra, a small town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.
The Nebra disk apparently developed in several stages. Its early version consisted of 32 small round gold circles, a large round gold plate and a crescent-shaped gold plate.
A circular plate can mean either the sun or a full moon, a crescent-shaped shape as a crescent moon, or a solar or lunar eclipse, and can have points as stars, possibly representing le plaids.
Later, on the opposite edges of the disc – two arcs made of gold of two origins were added. Given that the arcs are related to the solar phenomenon, it is possible that the round gold plate represents the sun, not the moon.
Finally, another arc was added to the bottom. This arc is called a sun boat and is also made of gold, but of a different origin. When the disc was buried it had 39-40 holes, about 3 mm in diameter, perforated around its perimeter.
The Nebra disk is believed to be authentic and was initially dated to 1600 BCE based on the discovery involved: two bronze swords, a chisel, an ax head and bracelets.
“This discovery context was important for scientific dating, as the disk itself could not be scientifically or archaeologically comparable to other objects,” said Arch ä Logischen Stats Tsammalung of Muni and Professor Frankfurt of Goethe University.
“Many years of research by several research groups have tried to verify both the general origin of independent .bject and the attribution for the supposed search site based on the obscure information provided by the robbers.”
In the new research, they conducted a detailed analysis of all the circumstances surrounding the discovery of the Nebra Sky disk and the results of previous studies.
“The site which until today was considered a search site and which was investigated after excavation is not a search site for robbers but with high probability,” they said.
“Furthermore, there is no conclusive evidence that bronze swords, axes and bracelets form an alliance of common origin.”
“For this reason, it must be assumed that this is no ordinary deposit of the Bronze Age and no discs with other objects have been found in the original condition at the excavation site.”
“This means that the disc must be treated as a personal object when it comes to dating.”
“Culturally and stylistically, sky discs cannot be fitted into the world of the early Bronze Age at the beginning of the second millennium BCE.”
“On this, clear references can be made to the original world of the Iron Age of the first millennium BCE.”
The team’s paper was published in the journal Arch ä logish information.
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Rupert Gabbard and Rediger Cruz. Critical comments on the search complex of the so-called Nebra Sky Disk. Arch ä logish information, September 3, 2020, published online
