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by Lise
Hull
In September of 2002, German archaeologists revealed a Bronze Age find
with the potential to change modern-day thought about how the ancients
viewed their relationship to the stars, moon, and sun, and how they may
have used solar observatories to predict the cycle of life. Based on its
association with other Bronze Age artifacts found near Nebra, a site located
about 110 miles southwest of Berlin in eastern Germany, archaeologists
believe that the bronze Sangerhausen Star Disk may be 3,600 years old.
Despite having been discovered about four years ago by metal
detectorists illegally working the site, it was not until July of 2002
that authorities seized the artifact, along with two swords, two axes,
a chisel, and a set of arm-rings, and arrested the people who had plundered
the site. Only then were archaeologists able to pinpoint exactly where
the looters had unearthed the plate-like disk and begin excavating the
site. Thus far, archaeologists have uncovered a circular earthen embankment
some 200 yards in diameter, which encloses the entire site and includes
a series of ramparts and ditches that were used continually from 1,600
to 700 BC.
Valued at about $10 million, the disk’s images were embossed
with gold leaf. They display the sun (or a full moon), a crescent moon,
the horizon, and 32 stars, several of which may represent the Pleiades,
the star cluster used by Bronze Age peoples to predict the timing of autumn
and the fall harvest. If determined to be authentic, the Star Disk could
be the earliest astronomical map in existence, and the forested site where
it was found—Mittelberg hill—might be the home to the oldest
surviving solar observatory.
Speculating that the structure was a celestial observatory,
astronomer Wolfhard Schlosser from the University of Bochum, said, “The
site’s special aspect can be seen in the correct determination of
at least two important dates. On June 21, the sun can be seen from here
to set exactly behind the Brocken, the most important mountain in the
Harz, and on May 1, the sun sets behind the Kulpenberg, the highest hill
of the Kyffhäuser.”
Superficially, then, the Nebra site has similarities to other
henge sites in Europe, including Stonehenge and Avebury, both of which
were enclosed with earthen banks and ditches. However, since the German
site was constructed with timber logs rather than stone slabs, it is more
similar to Woodhenge, an ancient site in England where timber uprights
were erected instead of stone.
The Purpose of the Disk
While scholars have wrestled with the possibility that such megalithic
sites functioned as some sort of celestial observatory, they have been
unable to offer concrete physical proof to bolster their theories. So
the association of the Star Disk with the henge-like structure at Nebra
may be just the breakthrough they have been seeking. The images on the
Star Disk may even correlate with the view of the night sky as seen from
Mittelberg hill during the Bronze Age.
Besides identifying several astronomical bodies on the bronze
disk, scholars have offered a variety of interpretations about the two
curved shapes depicted opposite each other on the object. According to
Professor Schlosser, the two gold bands represent an angle of 82.5°.
This represents the circle of the daily period passing from the summer
solstice on June 21 to the winter solstice on December 21 in central Germany.
A third more curved gold band lies between the two horizon arcs, and may
represent either the Milky Way or a ship sailing between the horizons
across the nocturnal celestial ocean.
Archaeologist Harald Meller, director of State Museum for
Prehistory in Halle, Germany, believes that both the circular building
and the Star Disk were used by the ancients to track the sun’s movement
from winter to summer solstices, providing information on when to sow
and harvest their crops.
Findings from the Nebra excavations will be published in early
2003, and a conference on the subject is planned for 2004 in Halle, Germany,
where the Star Disk is currently being studied. Future plans for the site
near Nebra include reconstructing the solar observatory and turning the
hilltop into a tourist attraction so that visitors will be able to experience
how the structure may have functioned during prehistoric times.
Perhaps by then, sufficient evidence will exist to determine
whether the bronze plate is authentic and confirm both its original purpose
and that the henge site was used by the ancients as a solar observatory.
Its broader implications may change the way archaeoastronomers understand
the prehistoric world, how megalithic monuments were used, and whether
or not the ancients had an intellectual sophistication that modern humans
have yet to define.
From
issue #1
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