An interpretation of the Nebra disc.

An interpretation of the Nebra disc. Discovery, description and authenticity As is often the case nowadays, the Nebra disc was not found byarchaeologists but by two treasure hunters in the summer of 1999. Thedisc was retrieved by Swiss police in 2002 and returned to Germany,where it is now on display in the Landesmuseum fur Vorgeschichte inHalle. When the treasure hunters were apprehended, they were persuadedto reveal the spot where they had found the disc, and pointed out the252m-high hilltop called Mittelberg in Ziegelrodaer Forst near the smallvillage of Nebra in Sachsen-Anhalt. With the help of other datableobjects that the treasure hunters had found at the same place, the dischas been dated to c. 1600 BC or the Middle Bronze Age Bronze Age,period in the development of technology when metals were first used regularly in the manufacture of tools and weapons. Pure copper and bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, were used indiscriminately at first; this early period is sometimes called the . The bronze disc (Figure 1a-c) weighs 2kg and has a diameter of320mm, a thickness of 4.5mm at its centre but thins out to 1.5mm at therim of the disc. The centre of the disc is dominated by two gold plates,each about 100mm across. One describes a full circle while the otherforms a crescent (lune). The surface of the disc is further adorned withsmall, round, thin gold spots (measuring 10mm in diameter) of whichthere were originally 32. Two of these have been removed and oneslightly adjusted to give room for two arcs of thin gold strips liningthe rim of the disc. One of these arcs is now missing. A third, shorterand curved gold strip is placed along the rim between the two long goldarcs. The thin arcs lining the rim of the disc subtend sub��tend?tr.v. sub��tend��ed, sub��tend��ing, sub��tends1. Mathematics To be opposite to and delimit: The side of a triangle subtends the opposite angle.2. nearly 90 degreeseach or a quarter of a circle with a radius of 160mm. The remainingshorter gold strip on the rim between them measures about 120 degrees ora third of a full circle with a radius of 90mm. The profile of the discis almost flat (Figure 1c) and the back of the disc shows no trace of anattachment (Figure 1b). However the rim of the disc is punctuated by 38(?) pin-holes which may indicate that it was sewn onto fabric or nailedonto wood. [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] The authenticity of an important archaeological find must beestablished beyond all doubt, especially for a find with a somewhatobscure provenance. The Nebra disc has therefore gone through a seriesof rigorous laboratory tests to prove that it is genuinely ancient(Pernicka 2004), although in spite of this, the object still attractssome sceptical comments (Schauer 2005). According to according toprep.1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians.2. In keeping with: according to instructions.3. the metallurgicalinvestigation, the relationship between different isotopes of lead Lead (Pb) has four stable isotopes - 204Pb, 206Pb, 207Pb, 208Pb and one common radiogenic isotope 202Pb with a half-life of ~53,000 years. The Standard atomic mass is 207.2(1) u. points to the eastern Alps Eastern Alps is the name given to the eastern half of the Alps, usually defined as the area east of the Spl��gen Pass in eastern Switzerland. North of the Spl��gen Pass, the Posterior Rhine forms the border, and south of the pass, the Liro river and Lake Como form the boundary line. as a possible source for the copper used inmaking the bronze. The bronze of the disc contains an unusually low tincontent of 2.5 per cent (Pernicka 2004). The high silver content of morethan 20 per cent in the gold strips indicates that the gold was mined inTransylvania, except for the shorter peripheral curved gold strip whichhas a comparatively low silver content of 13 per cent. The source forthis gold has not been identified. The eastern Alps and Transylvania provided copper and gold,respectively, not only for central but for northern Europe as well(Liversage & Northover 1998: 137-8). According to the metallurgicalexamination of early Danish Bronze Age craftwork craft��work?n.Work made or done by craftspeople.craftworker n. , similar bronze-makingprocesses were used in both regions, although neither imports norinfluences from the central European Aunjetitz culture (2300-1600 BC)can be traced in Denmark in the metalwork of Bronze Age Period IA(1700-1600 BC; Vandkilde 1998: 128, 131-2.). Vandkilde even argues that'in this period the [metal producing] central area around Halledisappears, locally leaving a social and cultural vacuum The expression cultural vacuum refers to the state of an absence of anything cultural. It can refer to an individual, a place or town or a whole country. For example "our local cinema is a cultural vacuum". that re-echoesup the northern peripheries' (Vandkilde 1998: 133). While the ornament is not itself very characteristic, the shortstrokes and the parallel bands on the curved strip are rathercharacteristic features on Danish metal finds from the Bronze Age (Kaul1998). This provides some support for the idea that the Nebra disc mighthave been produced in the cultural region of the Nordic Bronze Age or bysmiths from that area. Sun, moon and stars? Almost immediately after the disc had been returned to Germany, itwas suggested that the round gold images that embellished the greencorroded bronze disc represented stars, the sun and the moon (Meller2002; Schlosser 2002). If this interpretation is correct, it would placethe disc among the most important finds from Bronze Age Europe The Bronze Age in Europe succeeds the Neolithic in the late 3rd millennium BC (late Beaker culture), and spans the entire 2nd millennium BC (Unetice culture, Urnfield culture, Tumulus culture, Terramare culture, Lusatian culture) in Northern Europe lasting until ca. 600 BC. , making aclose investigation of the basis for an astronomical explanationimperative. Intuitively, one identifies the full circle in the centre ofthe disc with the sun or the full moon and the semicircular lune withthe lunar crescent of the new moon or old moon. By coincidence, theangular size Angular size is a measurement of how large or small something is using rotational measurement. It is useful for measuring things that are so far away that they appear two-dimensional. of the sun and the moon in the sky is the same. On thedisc, however, it is dearly noticeable that the radius of the outer arcof the lune is greater than that for the 'sun'. The goldsmithmay here have been misled to exaggerate the radius of the lunar crescentdue to a well-known optical illusion causing the angular length of theouter arc of a lune to appear longer than in reality and the radius tobe overestimated (Minnaert 1940: 105). If the circular object represents the sun, its style is unusuallyplain. On archaeological finds of the Aunjetitz and other contemporarycultures or from the areas of the eastern Alps and Transylvania, the sunis always richly decorated with concentric circles, and spirals andoften displays radial rays (Neugebauer 1987: Abb. 51, 54; Probst 1996:101, 210, Figures 24-5; Kaul 2004: 56-7; Kovacs 1991; Schwarz 2004: 179;Zipf 2004: 75-6). Some of the symbols on archaeological finds believedto be the sun might actually have been of the full moon; this could bethe case for the Nebra disc as well. Unfortunately, the portrayal of thelunar crescent like the one on the disc seems to be rather rare. Asingle depiction of it is known on a golden bowl but from the laterperiod of the Bronze Age (Green 1993: Figure 438), although jewellery inthe unique shape of a crescent (lunulae) was produced during this periodor near it. The most prominent arm rings ending with lunulae wereproduced from Transylvanian gold (Schumacher-Matthaus 1985: Taf. 24;Kovacs 1999: Figures 26-7). If the larger central objects represent the sun and the moon, theyare not astronomically correct. Although both the sun and the moon canbe seen at the same time in the daytime sky, the convex, illuminated,part of the moon is always turned towards the sun and not away from itas on the disc, where the sun faces the concave ConcaveProperty that a curve is below a straight line connecting two end points. If the curve falls above the straight line, it is called convex. side of the moon. Thescene might be suggested as representing an eclipse, but this is highlyunlikely, since there is not the slightest hint in the archaeologicalrecord The archaeological record is a term used in archaeology to denote all archaeological evidence, including the physical remains of past human activities which archaeologists seek out and record in an attempt to analyze and reconstruct the past. that Bronze Age people understood the underlying cause for aneclipse of the sun or the moon. The small round gold spots on the disc have generally been thoughtof as stars, and one cluster of seven spots lying between the'sun' and the 'moon' has naturally been associatedwith the Pleiades (Schlosser 2002; 2003). However, the other spots arespaced too regularly on the disc to represent the stars of the firmament(Schlosser 2004: 44). Figure 2 shows that, with the exception of the'Pleiades', the spots are evenly spaced with respect to a grid(in this case of 51mm). Such regular spacing implies that they were setout freehand See Macromedia FreeHand. to make an aesthetically pleasing picture. Figure 3 showsthe position of the same number of real stars centred on the Pleiades,all brighter than visual magnitude visual magnitude:see magnitude. 3.0 which is usually the brightnesslimit used for delineating constellations. The stellar chart shows theuneven distribution of real stars in the sky. If the goldsmith intendedto produce an accurate chart of the region around the Pleiades, he wouldhardly have omitted the conspicuous Orion constellation to the bottomleft and the square of Pegasus to the right. [FIGURES 2-3 OMITTED] Bright stars have a distinctive radiating ray pattern (Navarro& Losada 1997), which may feature on symbols for stars from thefirst part of the Bronze Age, although these are difficult todistinguish from symbols for the sun (Koos 1988: 1. kep; Kovacs 1991:Abb. 2, Abb. 5; Probst 1996: 148, 197, 221). However, the plain style ofthe round gold plates (the single big one and the small spots) recallscup-marks and circles in rock carvings of the Nordic Bronze Age. Theplain circles and the cup marks predominate on rock--carving sites inDenmark, while they decline in number when one goes further north(Maimer 1981: 68-9, 75). Depicting the stars as round objects mighttherefore have been intentional. Horizons, rainbows or boats? According to Schlosser (2002) the two arcs of gold framing the rimof the disc may show how far the sunrise and the sunset move along thehorizon from one solstice to the next. Their length of 82-3 degrees isjust right for the latitude of the Mittelberg which he argues cannot beby chance. His view is given some support by the unique position of theMittelberg in the landscape. From here the sunset reaches its mostnortherly point behind Brocken, the legendary 1142m-high summit of the75km-distant Hartz Mountain, at the summer solstice on 22 June.Supported also by Meller, Schlosser goes so far as interpreting the discas an instrument for measuring the sun's azimuth azimuth(ăz`əməth), in astronomy, one coordinate in the altazimuth coordinate system. It is the angular distance of a body measured westward along the celestial horizon from the observer's south point. at sunrise orsunset in order to obtain a calendar date (Meller 2004:31; Schlosser2004: 44). The horizon itself at the site however, offers a simple andcompletely adequate reference for calendrical use without the need for aprecise device. The origin for the peripheral arcs is not marked andthere are no sights for establishing a sightline to the sun. There is noother feature on the disc that shows any aspiration towards exactrepresentation. The close agreement of the length of the peripheral arcswith the movement of the sun's rising or setting might be a purecoincidence. The two arcs on the disc may alternatively symbolise thearcs of the golden sunset and the blush of dawn at the horizon, twometeorological phenomena A meteorological phenomenon is a weather event which can be explained by the principles of meteorology. Air mass Anticyclone Arctic cyclone Clouds Crow Instability Drought Dust devil Dust storm Extratropical cyclone F?hn wind Hail that have always made a deep impression onobservers who considered them to be independent and separate celestialobjects as seen on the Skidi Pawnee star chart (Chamberlain 1982: 189).Equally the purpose of these arcs may have been a simple geometricattempt to divide the circumference of the disc into four equal parts tofit into the general concept of cosmos as displayed in rock art and manyother Bronze Age decorations (Maimer 1981: 66-76; Larsson 1996: 45,Figures 21-2). The shorter gold curved strip at the rim of the Nebra disc, withits three parallel incised arcs, has been suggested as a depiction ofthe rainbow, showing the bands of colour (British Archaeology 2004:16-7). The rainbow would be a natural feature of Bronze Age mythology.In the old Scandinavian belief system, it was imagined as a burningbridge (Davidson 1988: 171) created to connect the sky and the earth. Itconsisted of three colours of which the middle one was made of hot iron. A more usual explanation for the arc is that it portrays themythical boat that brought the sun across the sky from the east to thewest in daytime and back to the east through the underworld at night.The sun boat myth is well-known from ancient Egypt Editing of this page by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled due to vandalism. but it could just aswell have been created in Scandinavia as seafaring there was an everydayexperience in the Bronze Age, as witnessed by the numerous shipsrendered on rock carvings. It would likewise have been natural for thesun to travel by boat as depicted clearly on rock carvings and razorsfrom the Bronze Age (Kaul 1998). However, these boats are flat-bottomedwith rising stems and sterns. No boat with a semi-circular profile hasyet been seen depicted in prehistoric Europe This bulk of this article encompasses the time in Europe from c 900,000 years ago to 8th-7th century BCE. Pre-PleistoceneThrough most of Earth's history, various subcontinental land masses such as Baltica and Avalonia that would later be part of Europe moved about the globe . In any case, in landlocked central Europe Central Europe is the region lying between the variously and vaguely defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe. In addition, Northern, Southern and Southeastern Europe may variously delimit or overlap into Central Europe. , the boat can never havebeen as important for transportation as in Scandinavia. This is attestedby the almost total absence of boats on rock carvings in inland Europefrom this period. No ships have yet been found on rock carvings in northGermany (Malmer 1981: 18). In Val Camonica, only five ships have so farbeen reported on rock carvings (Kaul 2005: 56). In contrast, there arefrequent finds of models of wagons with sun symbols and wheels. It wouldhave been completely natural if the sun was here believed to travel on awagon across the sky instead of by ship. There are'sun-chariot' finds even from Scandinavia (Larsson 1996: 45,Figures 12, 14; Kaul 2004.). This shows the complexity of the role thesun might have played in the Bronze Age mythology. From 1500 BC onwardthe custom of placing miniature wheels representing the sun as ornamentin graves can also be observed in Europe (Green 1993: 301-3). Astronomical inheritance A strong connection is supposed to have existed between the Nebrapeople and the earlier or contemporary people of western Asia, both ofthem using celestial symbols which might have included the Pleiades(Meller 2004; Kristiansen & Larsson 2005). The Pleiades wererecognised in Mesopotamia at the time the Nebra disc was made. They arementioned in a text called Prayer to the Gods of the Night from Babylonaround 1830-1530 BC (Rogers 1998: 15). They are also mentioned oncircular tablets (astrolabes) from about 1100 BC, giving their risingand setting and their implication for agriculture and mythology (Rogers1998: 16-7). The lay-out of the closely-knit group of seven gold plateson the disc is, however, rather different from the depictions of thePleiades in the Near East. There they have a more realistic long-shapedform (Lindsay 1972: Figure 17; Collon 1990: Figure 16; Black & Green1992: 162-3, Figures 49, 55) in sharp contrast to the round clusteringon the disc. Some 3600 years ago, the Pleiades lay close to the vernal equinox vernal equinox:see equinox. ,a point in the sky where the sun crosses the celestial equator celestial equator:see equatorial coordinate system. from thesouthern to the northern hemisphere. This means the star group was justopposite the sun in autumn: when the sun rose they set and when the sunset they rose. During the Bronze Age that would have made the Pleiades aprominent astronomical object Astronomical objects are significant physical entities, associations or structures which current science has confirmed to exist in space. This does not necessarily mean that more current science will not disprove their existence. in the autumnal night sky, so prominentthat nobody could have missed it. The dashed line in Figure 3 marks thecelestial equator with the vernal equinox for the year 1600 BC set outas an open circle. Schlosser (2003) has called attention to the dates ofthe appearance of the Pleiades in the Bronze Age. Their heliacal he��li��a��cal?adj.Of or relating to the sun, especially rising and setting with the sun.[From Late Latin h settingin March (the last day in the year they were seen setting in the eveningtwilight) and acronychian setting in October (the first day in the yearthey were seen setting in the morning dawn) could have been used by thefarmers to define their working year. He cited the Greek poet Hesiodfrom around 700 BC in support of this idea: 'When the Pleiades riseit is the time to use the sickle, but the plough when they aresetting' (Hesiod Works and Days Works and Dayslong poem by Hesiod, considered a farmers’ almanac of ancient Greece. [Gk. Lit.: Benét, 1102]See : Pastoralism , line 382; Pannekoek 1961: 95). TheRoman scholar Varro mentioned the Pleiades by the name of the Vergiliaiin his now lost books as a heliacal rising The heliacal rising of a star (or other body such as the moon or a planet) occurs when it first becomes visible above the eastern horizon at dawn, after a period when it was hidden below the horizon or when it was just above the horizon but hidden by the brightness of the sun. that took place between 22April and 10 May marked the beginning of spring (Lat (Local Area Transport) A communications protocol from Digital for controlling terminal traffic in a DECnet environment. LAT - Local Area Transport . ver, spring;Lindsay 1972: 224). The harvest in Greece actually takes place in May, while in centralEurope it is in August, leaving the association between the Pleiades andthe sickle in question. However, as recently as the nineteenth century,farmers in central Europe started their fieldwork in late February, withone or two weeks either way depending on the local weather. It is notexcluded therefore that in both regions the Pleiades were used to markturning points of the farming year. Some researchers suppose that the major part of European Bronze Ageiconography can be explained by the assumption of a complex pantheon ofgods which had spread with the migration of proto-Indo-Europeans. Theyargue that the worship of the Divine Twins The Divine twins are a mytheme of Proto-Indo-European mythology. the Greek Dioscuri the Vedic Ashvins the Lithuanian Ašvieniai the Latvian Dieva dēli Alcis (god) Romulus and Remus , who were multifunctionalgods from this pantheon and broke open the daylight for their sister,the sun-goddess, is indicated by references to twins in Bronze Agehoards. Especially in northern Europe, the increase in the deposition ofdouble axes can be seen in this light. The Nebra hoard might have beensuch a sacrifice, demonstrating a close connection with the course ofthe sun, the moon and the stars. For this reason the disc has clear NearEastern roots as these motifs (that is the sun, the moon and a brightstar as symbols of the sky divinities) often appear on Syrian andMesopotamian seals (Kristiansen & Larsson 2005: 264-7). However, the Nebra disc cannot be said to make any direct referenceto this iconography, because on the seals the third member beside thesun and the lunar crescent was a star, presumably pre��sum��a��ble?adj.That can be presumed or taken for granted; reasonable as a supposition: presumable causes of the disaster. Ishtar, the morningstar (which in reality is not a star at all, but the planet Venus) butnot the Pleiades. Moreover on the cylinder seals of the third and secondmillennia, the crescent is almost always depicted below the sun disc andquite close to it (Collon 1990: 52, Figures 8, 13, 17, 23, 31, 34-5,42). They detach themselves from each other as on the disc, on theboundary stones but these royal charters are from a later period(1350-1000 BC) than the Nebra disc. On the gold Mycenaean rings (1500BC) they are also depicted independently from each other (Goodison:1989: Figures 129, 130) and are supposed to represent rituals which wereperformed on certain days of the year when they were seen simultaneouslyin the sky (Nagy & Valavanis 1993: Figures 401-2). These gold rings,however, represent the sun and the moon without a star. Stellar patterns can have carried many millennia of local meanings.The creation of zodiacal constellations in Mesopotamia took severalmillennia according to the archaeological finds and written sources. Itis logical to assume the same for non-Mesopotamian peoples, so oneshould avoid theories which suppose a single place and time fordeveloping sky lore (Maunder 1913; Ovenden 1966; Roy 1984). Fromprehistoric Europe there are no written sources dealing with thisprocess as in Mesopotamia or Egypt; but it seems likely that earlyEuropeans were equally interested in the starry sky. Their sky lore canbe detected in the use of celestial symbols on finds and theorientations of archaeological features such as houses, megalithic meg��a��lith?n.A very large stone used in various prehistoric architectures or monumental styles, notably in western Europe during the second millennium b.c. monuments and Neolithic enclosures. The investigations of thesemonuments has shown how important it is to survey the location and thedesign of monuments in relation to the surrounding landscape and thecelestial bodies (Ruggles 1988; 1999). However, no orientation with thePleiades has yet been detected in a monument or structure from BronzeAge Europe. Ethnographic analogy Evidently sun, moon and stars are widely recorded in the folktraditions of many countries, and some specifically cite the sevenstars. For example, the Skidi Pawnee Indians in North America North America,third largest continent (1990 est. pop. 365,000,000), c.9,400,000 sq mi (24,346,000 sq km), the northern of the two continents of the Western Hemisphere. also usedthe Pleiades together with other signs from nature to mark the time forstarting the preparations for the planting ceremonies, when the priestsitting by the fireside inside the lodge could see the Seven Starsdirectly above, through the smoke hole (Chamberlain 1982: 134-5). TheSkidi Pawnee buckskin buckskinbody coat color in horses, varies from yellow to almost brown; the points, including mane, tail, lower limbs are brown to black. star chart now in the Field Museum of NaturalHistory Field Museum of Natural History,at Chicago, Ill. Founded in 1893 through the gifts of Marshall Field and others, it was first known as the Columbian Museum of Chicago and later (1943–66) as the Chicago Natural History Museum. in Chicago (Figure 4) depicts stars according to their differentmythical powers on the earth. The pronounced groupings roughly followthe virtual clustering of the stars in the sky but their identificationswith the real sky were only possible with the help of written texts(Chamberlain 1982: 184-205). [FIGURE 4 OMITTED] The depictions on the disc also bear a striking resemblance to theportrayal of shamans' drums which symbolise, by their material anddecoration, a strong relationship with the cosmos and the supernaturalworld. The shaman, as a mediatory person between the spirits of theother worlds and the community, was active for the welfare of the peopleand helped them with controlling their relations with natural andsupernatural forces. They used the drums to evoke the spirits and'travelled' on it as a magic steed between different worlds.Several stations of these quests and their cosmos were portrayed on thesurface of their drums. Symbols include the sun, the moon, stars, theMilky Way Milky Way,the galaxy of which the sun and solar system are a part, seen as a broad band of light arching across the night sky from horizon to horizon; if not blocked by the horizon, it would be seen as a circle around the entire sky. , the rainbow, the World Tree and animals. Being a model of theuniverse they always show the most important elements of theowners' mythology (Jankovics 1984). Figure 6a-b shows examples fromSiberia and from Nepal, both of which show the sun and moon. As with theNebra disc, in each case the moon is turned the wrong way, so as to facethe sun rather than be lit by its light. [FIGURE 6 OMITTED] Field research among the Inuit Eskimos in the early 1950s and 1990sproved that astronomical knowledge meant great power to shamans or/andtheir leaders, their close friends and families (MacDonald 2000: 6, 32).Even today those people who are still under the influence of shamanism shamanism/sha��man��ism/ (shah��-) (sha��mah-nizm?) a traditional system, occurring in tribal societies, in which certain individuals (shamans) are believed to be gifted with access to an invisible spiritual keep their heritage alive in creating artwork. Figure 5 shows an InuitNunavut in 1993, depicting the sun moon and stars. The sun and moon areagain shown as facing each other. [FIGURE 5 OMITTED] The role of the disc The holes around the perimeter suggest it was attached to a supportof some kind, but at 2kg the disc is perhaps too heavy to be worn. Itcould, however, have been nailed to a shield or standard made of wood.In song XVIII, lines 478-89 of the Iliad, Homer describes in detail howHephaestus makes a shield for the great hero Achilles: 'Firstfashioned he a shield, great and sturdy, adorning it cunningly in everypart, and roundabout it set a bright rim, threefold and glittering, andtherefrom made fast a silver baldric. Five were the layers of the shielditself; and on it he wrought many curious devices with cunning skill.Therein he wrought the earth, therein the heavens, therein the sea, andthe unwearied sun, and the moon at the full, and therein all theconstellations wherewith where��with?pron.The thing or things with which.conj.By means of which.adv. ObsoleteWith what or which. heaven is crowned--the Pleiades, and the Hyadesand the mighty Orion, and the Bear, that men call also the Wain, thatcircleth ever in her place, and watcheth Orion, and alone hath no partin the baths of Ocean'. It does seem that Achilles' shield and the Nebra disc haveseveral traits in common. It was not unusual in the Bronze Age to attachsolar amulets to armour, to decorate shields with symbols which mighthave been believed to be protective or endowed with supernatural power.The round shields of central and northern Europe are often decoratedwith concentric circles, solar or star images with ray patterns, orwheel-cross signs, from the second half of the Bronze Age, a time whenwarfare had become general according to the increased number of depositsof weapons (Sprockhoff 1930: Tafel 1-2; Coles 1962: Plates 28, 30, 31;Jensen 1999: 97). As the disc was possibly found together with swords and other waritems, it is conceivable that it once embellished a ceremonial shieldbelonging to a person of a high rank, the representative of a mythicalhero or the image of a god in a ritual combat. As many hoards containingswords are assumed to be offered to the gods as a gratitude for victoryafter a combat (Kristiansen 2002: 329-30), the disc, like the armourfound with it, might have been offered for the same purpose. The cut onthe upper left top of the disc might be the mark of a stroke from asharp object during combat (Meller 2004: 24-5). Conclusions The Nebra disc seems to have carried a mythical representation ofthe cosmos featuring the sun, moon and stars. Mounted on a shield orstandard, it may have participated in a ceremony for a man of rank andposition in society, or as a ritual object empowered with supernaturalforces by portraying shamanistic symbols of the Upper World. There is little support for a connection with western Asia so closethat the iconography of the divine triad was adopted. The iconographicarrangement of the symbols on the disc does not seem to follow anyforeign influence, but just to express a basic but aestheticallyorganised laying out of the elements of the cosmos. The sun and the moonmust have always played an important part in the life of European peoplebecause of their presumed impact on the fertility and wealth of thecommunity, and once agriculture began to spread they became essential.The investigation of sites and monuments in relation to the locallandscape and the movement of celestial bodies has enriched ourawareness of cognitive responses in prehistory prehistory,period of human evolution before writing was invented and records kept. The term was coined by Daniel Wilson in 1851. It is followed by protohistory, the period for which we have some records but must still rely largely on archaeological evidence to . Interest in the starry sky might at first have been raised byrituals such as initiation rites or rites connected with belief inshamans' journeys into the Upper world. In initiation ceremonies,stories about the deeds of heroes might have been projected onto thestarry sky so that star groups with patterns that are easy to rememberstored their memory (Frank & Bengoa 2001). There might have been asmany different stories about different heroic deeds, creating as manydifferent prehistoric 'constellations', as there weredifferent peoples living in prehistoric Europe. Current scientific knowledge may tend to direct us towardsastronomical explanations, but we cannot expect to encounter a coherentknowledge of celestial phenomena among the peoples of prehistoricEurope. In general the purpose of their observations might have beenritual and the ritual rules of one community was likely to be differentfrom another. Even the elements of the calendar referring to starpositions in the sky were likely to have been influenced by the localclimate and landscape. The sky lore necessary for communal needs wasorally transmitted and not necessarily shared among the members of thecommunity. Ethnographical accounts suggest that the chiefs and/or theshamans of a community were the only people privileged to have access toit. Thus there is no compelling evidence that the Nebra disc everserved as a precision instrument for astronomical observations or wasintended to depict celestial objects or events with any accuracy, orthat it shows iconographical links to western Asia. It is more likelythat the disc was a symbolic expression of the cosmos with somereference to the iconographical system of the Nordic Bronze Age. It evenmight have been produced there or by Nordic smiths. Although the discmay be of limited value to astronomers, it still has considerableinterest to prehistorians and historians of religion. If we accept thatBronze Age Europeans people could produce works of art as beautiful asthe Nebra disc, their creative genius is worth our deepest and mostsincere admiration. Acknowledgements The authors would like to acknowledge Roselyn Frank, Clive Ruggles,Michael Rappengluck and Stanislaw Iwaniszewski for their valuablecomments on the preliminary versions of the paper and Aladar Gaspar fordrawing the profile. Received: 16 June 2006; Accepted: 6 September 2006; Revised: 9October 2006 References BLACK, J.A. & A. GREEN. 1992. Gods, Demons and Symbols ofAncient Mesopotamia. London: British Museum British Museum,the national repository in London for treasures in science and art. Located in the Bloomsbury section of the city, it has departments of antiquities, prints and drawings, coins and medals, and ethnography. Publications. British Archaeology 79, November 16-7, 2004. CHAMBERLAIN, V.D. 1982. When Stars came down to Earth. 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Paris: CTHS CTHS Cherrybrook Technology High School (Sydney, Australia). ZIPF, G. 2004. Zwei mysteriose Objekte--die Becken aus Haschendorfund Balkakra, in H. Meller (ed.) Der Geschmiedete Himmel: 74-8.Stuttgart: Theiss. Emilia Pasztor (1) & Curt Roslund (2) (1) Matrica Museum, HU-2440 Szazhalombatta, Hungary (Email:pasztore@enternet.hu) (2) Department of Astronomy, Gothenburg University, SE-41296Gothenburg, Sweden