Nebra Disk 116 Emı́lia Pásztor Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Description of the Disk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sun, Moon, and Stars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Astronomical Significance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Rainbow? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cross-References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1350 1350 1350 1352 1353 1354 1355 1356 1356 Abstract An important archaeological find from the Bronze Age has come to light in Germany. It is a round bronze disk adorned with gold figures that might be interpreted as symbols for stars, the sun, and the moon, making the disk the oldest known surviving depiction of celestial objects in Europe. By comparing the iconography and ideography of the disk with archaeological finds, ethnographic material, and historical notes of different cultures and periods, the conclusion has been reached that the compositional elements might be understood as the depiction of a traditional folk worldview. E. Pásztor Magistratum Studio, Dunaföldvár, Hungary e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] C.L.N. Ruggles (ed.), Handbook of Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-6141-8_128, # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015 1349 1350 E. Pásztor Introduction One of the most unique archaeoastronomical artifacts that has so far been discovered was found by two treasure hunters in the summer of 1999. The Swiss police retrieved it in 2002 and returned it to Germany, where the sky disk is now on ur Vorgeschichte in Halle. The treasure hunters display in the Landesmuseum f€ indicated the 252-m high hilltop called Mittelberg in Ziegelrodaer Forst near the small village of Nebra in Sachsen-Anhalt as the site of the find. Description of the Disk The bronze disk has a diameter of 32 cm, a thickness of 4.5 mm at its center (although it thins out to 1.5 mm at the rim), and a weight of 2 kg. Originally, it was adorned with 32 small, round, thin gold plates measuring a centimeter in diameter. Two of them had been removed and one slightly adjusted to make room for two arcs of thin gold plates lining the rim of the disk. They measure nearly 90 each. One of these arcs is now missing. Another but shorter gold plate is placed at the rim between the two long gold plates. It measures about 120 . The center of the disk is dominated by two round gold plates of the size of a decimeter. One covers a full circle while the other one is a semicircular crescent called a lune. The applied geometrical gold/silver ornaments now have a significant difference in color from the bronze background which makes this arrangement more pronounced (Fig. 116.1). According to the metallurgical analysis of the Nebra disk, the eastern Alps and Transylvania provided raw material for the copper and gold. The disk has been dated to 1600 BC or the Bronze Age by two bronze swords and axes that the treasure hunters claimed to have found at the same place (Meller 2002). Sun, Moon, and Stars The round gold figures that embellish the corroded green bronze disk are said to represent stars, the sun, and the moon (Meller 2002; Schlosser 2002). Although both the sun and the moon can be seen at the same time in the daytime sky, the illuminated part of the moon is always turned toward the sun and not away from as it is on the disk like on many pieces of traditional folk art. The small round gold plates have generally been regarded as representing stars, although there is no definite stellar constellation among them except for a group of seven gold plates which may refer to the Pleiades, often called the Seven Stars (Schlosser 2002, 2003). Usually one can only count six stars among the Pleiades; however, the inclusion of a group of seven gold plates on the disk might have been only for aesthetic or symbolic reasons. 116 Nebra Disk 1351 Fig. 116.1 The Nebra disc adorned with gold plates which might represent celestial bodies and phenomena Fig. 116.2 Drawing of the Nebra disc overlaid by a network of squares with sides measuring 51 mm (Pásztor and Roslund 2007, Fig. 2) I personally agree with Schlosser (2004), as I find that the small gold plates are spaced too regularly (Fig. 116.2). It is just what one would expect if they were set out by freehand to make an aesthetically pleasing picture. At the most, the round gold plates are only meant to symbolize stars in the night sky. 1352 E. Pásztor Fig. 116.3 Chart of a field centred on the Pleiades containing all stars brighter than visual magnitude 3.0. The field measures 105 degrees in right ascension and 70 degrees in declination. The dashed line marks the celestial equator and the open circle the vernal equinox in 1600 BC (Pasztor and Roslund 2007, Fig. 3) Moreover, it is not possible to find real stars agreeing in position with the small round gold plates on the disk. Figure 116.3 shows the position of the same number of real stars centered on the Pleiades star cluster as on the disk, all are brighter than visual magnitude 3.0 which is usually the brightness limit used for delineating constellations. If the goldsmith had intended to produce an accurate chart of the region around the Pleiades, he would not have neglected to include the conspicuous Orion constellation to the left and the roughly square-shaped asterism of Pegasus outside the figure to the right (Pásztor and Roslund 2007). Astronomical Significance Although the two round center objects can be interpreted as being connected to solar or lunar eclipses, this is not necessarily the case. There is not the slightest hint in the archaeological material that Bronze Age man understood the underlying causes of an eclipse of the sun or the moon. Schlosser (2003) has called attention to an interesting feature for the settings of the Pleiades in connection with the seasons 3,600 years ago. Their heliacal setting in March (the last day in the year they were seen setting in the evening twilight) and setting in October (the first day in the year they were seen setting in the morning dawn) could have been used by the farmers to define their working year. He cited the Greek poet Hesiod’s famous poem Works and Days from around 700 BC to support his idea. 116 Nebra Disk 1353 The cluster of seven gold plates on the disk might have represented the Pleiades, but the kind of close connection with farming activities that Schlosser has suggested cannot be proved. The disk does not offer solid evidence for the positions of the celestial objects to calculate exact astronomical phenomena. Schlosser (2002) has also put forward a theory that the two golden arcs framing the rim of the disk may show how far the sunrise and the sunset move along the horizon from one solstice to the next. Their angular length of 82–83 is just right for the latitude of Mittelberg which he argues cannot be by chance. His view is given some support by the unique position of Mittelberg in the landscape. From there, the sunset reaches its most northerly point behind Brocken, the legendary 1,142-m high summit of the 75-km distant Hartz Mountain, at the summer solstice. Schlosser goes as far as treating the disk as an instrument for measuring the sun’s azimuth at sunrise or sunset for obtaining a calendar date (Schlosser 2004). The disk is certainly not a practical device for such measurements. The center for the peripheral arcs is not marked, and there is no foresight for establishing a sightline to the sun. The close agreement of the length of the peripheral arcs with the movement of the sun’s risings or settings might be a pure coincidence as the landmarks on the horizon offer completely satisfactory reference points for following the position of the sun. Instead, the purpose of these arcs might have been a simple geometric attempt to divide the circumference of the disk into four equal parts to fit into the general concept of the cosmos as displayed in rock art and many other Bronze Age decorations (Malmer 1981; Larsson 1996). The two gold peripheral arcs on the disk might represent the parts of the sky firmament which was always a separate celestial object in ancient cosmologies. In folk beliefs, the sky firmament was perceived as being made of pure gold, which could be seen when the sky was lit up by lightning (Erdész 1961). These two arcs on the disk may, however, also symbolize such celestial phenomena, which were also believed to be separate objects in the sky, such as the arcs of the golden sunset and the blush of dawn at the two opposite eastern and western horizons. The Skidi Pawnee Indians of North America possessed a star chart which was supposedly 300 years old. It depicts their important constellations, stars, the moon and the sunrise and sunset as the essential elements of their cosmos (Chamberlain 1982). The Rainbow? The usual explanation for the shorter gold plate at the rim of the Nebra disk is that it is a portrayal of the mythical boat that brought the sun across the sky from the east to the west in daytime and back to the east through the underworld at night (Meller 2004). The sun boat myth is well-known from ancient Egypt, but it could just as well have been created in Scandinavia as seafaring there was an everyday experience according to the tremendous number of ships rendered on rock carvings and razors from the Bronze Age (Kaul 1998). In the landlocked central Europe, the boat can never have 1354 E. Pásztor been as important for transportation as in Scandinavia. This is attested by the almost total absence of boats on rock carvings in the inland Europe of this period. Besides, the arc is too regular a circle to represent a boat with a flattened bottom. So far no similar rendition of this circular bottom has been found among the ships represented in prehistoric Europe. Its characteristic shape suggests that it could preferably be a depiction of the rainbow with its circular bands of colors indicated by three parallel narrow strips (Pásztor and Roslund 2007). As an impressive and colorful phenomenon often seen in northern Europe because of its wet climate and low standing sun, the rainbow would also be a natural element of Bronze Age mythology as it is in the old Scandinavian belief system and pictured as a burning bridge (Davidson 1988). The rainbow was created to connect the sky and the earth and consisted of three colors of which the middle one was made of hot iron. Its significance in traditional worldviews is also attested to by its frequently featuring among the illustrated elements of the cosmos on the shamans’ drums. The standing strokes both above and below this arc are characteristic of the style of ornamentation of Danish metal finds from the late Bronze Age (Kaul 1998). They may represent shining rays rather than men who are rowing. This artistic visualization can be a further support for the idea that the Nebra disk might have been produced in the cultural region of the Nordic Bronze Age. Discussion The representations of the sun on archaeological finds of the Aunjetitz and other contemporary cultures or from the areas of the eastern Alps and Transylvania, especially on precious objects like the Nebra disk, are always richly filled with concentric circles and spirals and often display radial rays. Decorations of solar symbols of gold are never as simple as on the Nebra disk. Some of the symbols believed to be the sun might actually have been representations of the full moon, and this might be the case for the disk as well. Unfortunately, the portrayal of the lunar crescent like the one on the disk seems to be rather rare on Bronze Age decorations. Neither do the small round gold plates display the radiating ray pattern that is so distinctive when looking at bright stars and which also seems to be a characteristic feature for star symbols on other objects from the first part of the Bronze Age (Pásztor and Roslund 2007). The plain style of the round gold plates resembles cup marks and circles on rock carvings, especially in the region of the Nordic Bronze Age as the simple circles belong to the most usual designs there. They predominate on rock-carving sites in Denmark, while they decline in number when one goes further north (Malmer 1981). Depicting the stars as round objects might therefore have been intentional. In ethnographical reports on the cosmological beliefs of peoples in the northern part of Eurasia and North America, the stars are imagined as holes in the sky (MacDonald 2000). During the very cold part of the year, they are like a light hole in the sky, they do not scintillate. 116 Nebra Disk 1355 Kristiansen argues that a strong connection is supposed to have existed between Near Eastern and Nebra peoples and the disk represents an interpretation of Near Eastern cosmological iconography and knowledge, transmitted to a European Bronze Age context (Kristiansen 2010). The depiction of the triad of sun, crescent, and star is characteristic on Near Eastern artifacts. The star, however, never stands for the Pleiades but the Morning-Evening star. The sun and the lunar crescent are almost always arranged below each other. The lay-out of the seven gold plates on the Nebra disk is, however, rather different from the depictions of the Pleiades in the Near East. There they have a more realistic long-shaped form in sharp contrast to the round clustering on the disk, which is rather in line with the representation of the Pleiades on the Skidi Pawnee star chart (Chamberlain 1982). However, it is not necessary to go as far as Mesopotamia to offer an explanation for finding a depiction of the Pleiades on the disk, as they belong to those groups of stars which are known to most cultures because of their distinctive shapes, such as the Great Bear, Orion and the Milky Way. Conclusion The sky lore necessary for communal needs was orally transmitted; thus, “scientific exactness” was not particularly important, as those initiated into the lore were satisfied with a simple knowledge of the celestial entities whose changes and movements in the sky be memorized with the help of the landscape or some other characteristic features such as colors, movements, or positions compared to each other. Even this humble knowledge was not, however, shared among all members of the community. Ethnographical reports show that the chiefs and/or the shamans of a community were the only people privileged to have access to it. More than elementary observation of the sky needs knowledge of writing which had not yet reached or been invented in prehistoric Europe. Therefore, there is no compelling evidence that the Nebra disk ever served as a precision instrument for astronomical observations or was intended to depict celestial events with any demand for scientific accuracy. Presumptuous statements about the disk as proof of Bronze Age peoples’ advanced astronomical knowledge are unfounded. It is easy to forgo scientific skepticism in the enthusiasm over the finding of such an extraordinary object as the Nebra disk. It is more likely that the disk is a representation of the essential elements of the cosmos for traditional peoples. From an anthropological point of view, it could be even considered to be scientific as the celestial entities are depicted as they were seen in the sky. No abstract symbols or anthropomorphic figures are on it, which are so characteristic on Near Eastern religious objects and whose absence is so characteristic of traditional peoples (Chamberlain 1982; Pásztor and Roslund 2007). It might have been produced in a Northern region. Such an outstanding object usually has a long history and as a gift passed from one owner to another over large distances. 1356 E. Pásztor Cross-References ▶ Celestial Symbolism in Central European Later Prehistory - Case Studies from the Bronze Age Carpathian Basin ▶ Concepts of Space, Time, and the Cosmos ▶ Cultural Interpretation of Archaeological Evidence Relating to Astronomy ▶ Cultural Interpretation of Ethnographic Evidence Relating to Astronomy ▶ Inuit Astronomy References Chamberlain VD (1982) When stars came down to earth. 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