Nebra Sky Disk - Significance

Significance

The disk is possibly an astronomical instrument as well as an item of religious significance. The blue-green patina of the bronze may have been an intentional part of the original artifact.

If authentic, the find reconfirms that the astronomical knowledge and abilities of the people of the European Bronze Age included close observation of the yearly course of the Sun, and the angle between its rising and setting points at summer and winter solstice. While Stonehenge and the Neolithic "circular ditches" such as the 5th millennium BC Goseck circle were used to mark the solstices, the disk is the oldest known "portable" instrument to allow such measurements.

Another view is that the Nebra disk can be linked to the solar calendar reconstructed by Alexander Thom from his analysis of standing stone alignments in Britain. MacKie has argued that several aspects of the disk support this view, following up the work of Prof. Wolfhard Schlosser. The first is that the Mittelberg – the hill on which the disk is supposed to have been found – is so situated that when the sun sets at two distant mountain peaks in the north-west, both midsummer and May Day are accurately marked (and therefore also the old Celtic harvest festival on August 2); these are three important dates in the 16 'month' Thom solar calendar. The second feature is the two golden arcs on either side of the disk which subtend angles of about 82 degrees; this is the angular distance between sunrise and sunset at midsummer and midwinter at the latitude of Mittelberg. This surely implies a detailed knowledge of the yearly solar cycle on the part of the disk's designer. The third feature is the 32 golden 'star spots' on the disk. Although Thom found really clear evidence for only sixteen subdivisions of the solar year (of 21 or 22 days) in the standing stone alignments, there were some indications of a further subdivision into 32 parts of 10 or 11 days.