simple facts
Name: Nebula Sky Disc
What is it: Bronze disc with gold accents
Birthplace: Nebra, Germany
Created: From around 1800 BC to around 1600 BC
The Nebula Sky Disc was discovered in 1999 among a pile of artifacts that metal detectors illegally excavated from an ancient religious site in the hills near Nebula, a town in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. After police recovered the disc in 2002, archaeologists studied the unique object and found it to be up to 3,800 years old, making it the world’s oldest depiction of an astronomical phenomenon. (The next oldest is a star map on the ceiling of an ancient Egyptian tomb, about 3,500 years old.)
Based on the style of the ax and carbon dating of the wood of the sword handle, which was recovered with the disk from a metal warehouse, experts believe the sky disk was buried in the early Bronze Age, around 1600 BC, but believe it may have been created two centuries earlier.
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Some studies have questioned the authenticity of the disk, saying it probably did not come from Nebula and is more recent, about 1,000 years, based on soil and chemical analysis of the artifact. Subsequent research refuted these claims and found that the discs were genuine, but made from nebula, but were made in several stages.
Closer examination of the disc reveals that it was created in at least five stages. Initially, the bronze disc contained a full moon or sun, a crescent moon, and 32 stars. I then placed two arcs on each side of the disk. A third arc was added to the bottom, presumably representing a boat. In the fourth stage, holes were drilled into the rim of the disc, suggesting that it may have been attached to a ceremonial rod-like support. Finally, the left arc was removed before the disk was filled with a metal treasure trove. But experts do not know exactly when the disc was made or how much time passed between the stages of decoration.
The Nebula Sky Disk appears to represent the night sky, with several stars forming the Pleiades, or “Seven Sisters”, star cluster. The golden arcs on each side of the disc may represent the horizons marking the summer and winter solstices, and the ship may be a mythical ship that crossed the sky from east to west during the day and brought the sun to the sky at night.
If you align the skydisk with the Mittelberg hill plateau where it was discovered, the arc of the western horizon coincides with the Brocken, the high mountain behind which the sun hides on the summer solstice. This suggests that sky disks may have been used to track important astronomical dates in prehistoric times.
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However, who used the Sky Disc and who buried it remains a mystery, as the Sky Disk was recovered by treasure hunters rather than scientific excavations. Treasure hunters have damaged the golden sun and full moon, scratched their surfaces, and cleaned them improperly. However, given the large number of well-equipped burial mounds of important figures that dotted the landscape of central Germany in 2000 BC, perhaps the Sky Disc once belonged to a Bronze Age chieftain.
For more amazing archaeological discoveries, check out our Astonishing Artifacts archive.
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