One of Germany’s best-known ancient artifacts would possibly not be what it looks like, according to a new study.
A fierce debate about the Nebra Sky Disk has been revived through a new review suggesting that it is at least 1000 years younger than in the previous idea and probably has none of the elaborate meanings proposed for it.
The bronze disc 30 centimeters (30 centimeters) wide with inlays of circles, arches and half golden moons was reportedly closed in 1999 near the town of Nebra, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.
It has been widely hailed as one of the most amazing ancient artifacts ever found, but the controversy has surrounded him since his discovery.
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Experts have long debated the origin of the album and its meaning, if any; some have even declared it false (and created very recently); Clinical trials recommend that it is an original artifact that would possibly date back to the European Precell Bronze Age, until 3800 years ago.
If this dating is correct, then Nebra’s celestial disc is the oldest known representation of the heavens in the world, said Jan-Heinrich Bunnefeld, archaeologist at the National Museum of Prehistory of Saxony-Anhalt in the city of Halle, where the album is now in demonstration (the next oldest is an ancient Egyptian starry map on the roof of a tomb about 3500 years ago).
“The Nebra Sky Disc presents the oldest concrete representation of cosmic phenomena,” Bunnefeld told Live Science in an email. “This is a key discovery, only for the field of archaeology, but also for astronomy and the history of religions. “
But a novelty casts doubt on the origins and importance of the Nebra Sky Disk.
Writing this month in the journal Archaeolologische Informationen, University of Munich archaeologist Rupert Gebhard and R-diger Krause, an archaeologist at Goethe University in Frankfurt, claim that the artifact may have been close to Nebra, according to a statement.
It also means that the celestial disc is not at all from the Bronze Age. In addition, a re-examination of his iconography suggests that the artifact dates back to the Celtic period of the Iron Age, some 2800 to 2050 years ago, the researchers wrote.
The examination has caused outrage in parts of the archaeological scene in Germany, where the Nebra Sky Disk is a national treasure and an emblem of early European civilization, and where all demanding situations similar to its provenance or authenticity are aggressively confronted.
“It’s like Beethoven’s ninth,” Gebhard told WordsSideKick. com, referring to the composer’s famous symphony, a nationally respected German success.
“It makes it difficult for me . . . you can perceive that other people are very satisfied with that.
The main explanation for why the new study casts doubts about the origin of the celestial disc is that clinical evidence suggests that it was not part of a treasure trove of Bronze Age axes, swords and bracelets that were discovered through treasure hunters near Nebra in 1999. Even if it was first thought out, Gebhard said.
Collectors sold the record and treasure to a black market collector for about 70,000 German marks ($42,000) and sold it for up to a million German marks ($600,000), until police recovered the treasure in 2002 and handed it over to the state, archaeologists.
A court that was blamed by the two treasure hunters in 2005 for illegal excavations, condemning them to several months in prison.
Statements made through treasure hunters in their attempts to appear to cooperate with the government cause the resulting confusion about the location of the artifacts, Gebhard said.
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But archaeological evidence, soil research and track isotope studies (variations of a detail with other neutron numbers) on the metals on the disc show that it will have to have been discovered elsewhere and then sold as a component of Nebra’s treasure: “If you return to basic concepts, then you won’t find any argument that those elements go together” Said.
Gebhard hopes that treasure hunters will eventually reach the place where they actually unearthed the Nebra Sky Disk, data that would shed new light on its origins.
“Our article now brings some movement into this story,” he said. “I hope this is the first step in getting data on the original site. “
Previous investigations into the structure of the disc and metals used screens that the Nebra Sky Disk carried out in several phases. Its creators first added a central organization of gold stars, which were interpreted as the Pléyades, and a giant and developing golden circle that were interpreted as the full moon and the crescent moon.
Later, they rearranged some of the golden stars, also adding two “horizon” arcs to the edges of the disk that can show the movement of the sun at the winter and summer solstices.
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In a later phase, artists added an arc near the back edge of the album, which in the past was interpreted as a “solar ship” carrying the sun through the sky.
Supporters of the origins of the Bronze Age album say that the artifact represents a complicated astronomical phenomenon, as well as the subtleties of the devout idea of the time.
Archaeologists at the Museum of Prehistory of Saxony-Anhalt in Halle, dating back to the Bronze Age, insist that the most recent examination is false. They say some of the soil samples recommend that the celestial disc may have been just one component of Nebra’s treasure. while chemical research of its metals sets its previous date.
“Gebhard and Krause forget about the posts and cite only facts that seem useful to underline their theory,” Assistant State Archaeologist Alfred Reichenberger said in a statement. “The Iron Age date theory for the Nebra Sky Disc is obviously incorrect. “
But Gebhard said that the iconography of the celestial disc shows that it was probably done in the Iron Age, perhaps through villages in northern Germany that were heavily influenced by Celtic civilization further south.
Iron Age swords and other elements of the region are also decorated with moon symbols and stars that give symbolic importance to the night, he said.
Any new interpretation of the Nebra Sky Disk takes into account the uncertainty of its origins, Gebhard said. “We have to start from the beginning. “
Originally on Live Science.
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