So, just what IS the Nebra disk? It’s a bronze plate about 12 inches / 30 centimeters in diameter with 32 pure gold studs in it that represent stars. In the middle of the disk are an obvious gold crescent moon and a large gold circle that is thought to represent a moon in total eclipse. Seven of the 32 studs appear to be arranged to represent the Pleiades or “Seven Sisters” constellation. Not coincidentally, when a crescent moon is seen near the Pleiades in that part of Germany, a total lunar eclipse follows in a matter of weeks.
When you lack the internet, books and computers, a bronze disk reminding you of this astronomical discovery is a ticket to predict the future – and be seen as having supernatural powers. Indeed, the Mittelberg mountain where Nebra disk was found is reputed even today to be the home of witches.
Three gold bands around the perimeter of the disk (one of which is missing and exists only as an imprint on the bronze metal) also are seen as having an astronomical meaning. By positioning the Nebra disk in the pit where it was found, the bands are thought to show the positions of the sun on the horizon at the equinoxes – crucial information to schedule crop planting and harvest and establish a calendar. Thus, the Nebra sky disk and the pit in which it was found may well mark humanity’s oldest astronomical observatory – from 3600 years ago.
5 Responses to The Story Of The Nebra Sky Disk
Anonymous
January 31st, 2004 at 9:14 pm
The Nebra find is a variation of a solar calendar based on the movement of the sun along the horizon. The movement of the sun is measured by observing the change in the position of the shadow of a fixed object (gnomon).The shadow is cast upon a scale marked in days, weeks or two-week perliods as in the case of tibia unearthered by Drs. Mania at Bilzingsleben (my analysis). In the Nebra find, the seven stars represent the 7 days of the week. At Bilzingsleben the engravd marks on the tibia are done at two-week intervals The so-called “oars” of Nebra are part of the scale marking the number of days from the solstice. A Chinese calendar has names for each of the two-week periods describing the weather conditions for each of the 26 periods. What an interesting coincidence. For more info:
My email is tennisfwb@aol.com
drphil
March 1st, 2004 at 12:40 pm
Granted, Nebra sounds like the geologic physical site the disk was found in, but the number 3,600 years for its age is also the purported orbital period for ‘Nibiru’ (the internet’s name is Planet X, the biblical term is the star ‘Wormwood’, and most astronomers since Tombaugh call ‘it’ a transneptunian / kuiper belt object).
Anyhoo, does anyone else have insight into any Sumerian mythologic relationships to this disk?
Anonymous
July 30th, 2004 at 2:18 am
For those interested in the Nebra Sky Disc I give below my interpretation of what the disc was for (apart from setting out solstices and equinoxes)Think on this – in those days anyone who could accurately set out any plans,who could create accurate maps, and who could accurately navigate by maps, would have been veiwed as a magician.
1st e-mail sent to National Geographic:
On page 87 it states “And a final modification was made when a series of holes along the perimiter were punched through the gold bands and the disk, perhaps to fasten the sky disk to fabric”. As a surveyor I would suggest that this disk is an early surveying instrument – place the disk horizontally on top of a pole, and put wooden, bone or copper pegs into the holes to aid sight lines. This method was in use before theodolites were invented, and is surprisingly accurate in the right hands. From the pictures there would appear to be about 60 holes around the outside which would allow for around 1770 different sightlines, which would give an accuracy of around 0.2 of a degree.
(I have since seen a better image of the disc from which I have estimated about 40 holes giving 1560 sight lines and an accuracy of around 0.25 of a degree. Can anyone tell me exactly how many holes there are?)
2nd e-mail sent to National Geographic:
Further to my previous e-mail, copy above, something that I did not notice at the time, but noticed during a program called Horizon on BBC television here in England on 29th January, was the small markings around the so called “night ship”. As a surveyor I should have looked for it, but I was so surprised that bronze age people should have a survey table at all, that I did not expect to see a much later refinement. The two grooves on this part show that it is a traverse bar that would have held a sightbar, which could have been adjusted to line up with any of what can only be described as micrometer adjustment lines on the sides of the bar. Fairly accurate survey tables, named Diopters by the Greeks, were described by them in the first century after Christ, but these did not have the micrometer traverse bars on them. This raises a very serious question. How did bronze age people come to have a survey table with a micrometer traverse bar some two thousand years earlier?????????
(As a new thought: Where did the Greeks get the idea for their Diopters from, if not from the previous cultures? Perhaps we have lost more knowledge than we have gained over the intervening centuries……….)
rickyjames
July 30th, 2004 at 8:49 am
These are some very good ideas and I thank you for sharing them here.
jxliv7
July 30th, 2004 at 12:13 pm
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…the casual, imaginative, and intuitive observer, the Nebra disk seems to be an alien artifact.
If where the disk was found is reputed to be home to witches (the supernatural, but remember the Arthur C. Clarke quote, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”), if it was so well and precisely crafted in the Bronze Age of 3600 years ago, if it was discovered in “a stone mound surrounded by a low circular rampart — possibly an early observatory”, if it was crafted to be an astronomical tool (and possibly a surveying tool), and if (because 7 of the 32 gold studs might represent the Pleiades or “Seven Sisters” constellation) it’s a message from the people of the Pleiades, then it’s only logical to conclude it was either inspired by or made by extra-terrestrial aliens.
Sorry, SETI, they’ve already been here.
jon