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WonderArchaeology fact

The Nebra Sky Disc, a bronze disc inlaid with a gold sun or full moon, a crescent moon and stars, was buried in Germany about 3,600 years ago and is one of the oldest known pictures of the sky.

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The story behind the card

Two treasure hunters with a metal detector dug the disc up illegally in 1999 on a hill near Nebra, in eastern Germany. It passed through the black market until police seized it in a sting operation in Basel, Switzerland, in 2002. Swords and axes buried with it, and birch bark from the sword hilts, date the burial to about 1600 BC, in the Early Bronze Age. A cluster of seven gold dots is usually read as the Pleiades, a star group that early farmers watched to time the seasons. Gold arcs added later along the edges span the angle between sunrise at midsummer and midwinter, and a curved shape at the bottom is often read as a sun boat. The disc is kept at the State Museum of Prehistory in Halle and is on UNESCO's Memory of the World register.

Türkçe oku
Nebra Gök Diski, üzerine altından bir güneş ya da dolunay, bir hilal ve yıldızlar işlenmiş bronz bir disktir. Yaklaşık 3.600 yıl önce Almanya'da toprağa gömülmüştür ve gökyüzünün bilinen en eski tasvirlerinden biridir.

Metal dedektörlü iki defineci, diski 1999'da Almanya'nın doğusundaki Nebra kasabası yakınlarında bir tepede kaçak kazıyla çıkardı. Disk karaborsada el değiştirdi ve 2002'de İsviçre'nin Basel kentinde düzenlenen bir operasyonla polis tarafından ele geçirildi. Yanına gömülen kılıç ve baltalar ile kılıç kabzalarındaki huş kabuğu, gömülme tarihini Erken Tunç Çağı'na, MÖ 1600 dolaylarına yerleştirir. Yedi altın noktadan oluşan küme genellikle Ülker olarak yorumlanır; ilk çiftçiler mevsimlerin zamanını bu yıldız kümesine bakarak belirlerdi. Kenarlara sonradan eklenen altın yaylar, yaz ve kış gündönümlerinde güneşin doğduğu noktalar arasındaki açıyı gösterir; alttaki kavisli şekil ise çoğu zaman bir güneş kayığı olarak yorumlanır. Disk bugün Halle'deki Eyalet Tarih Öncesi Müzesi'nde korunuyor ve UNESCO'nun Dünya Belleği listesinde yer alıyor.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Nebra sky disc
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