<< Feature Articles >> British Archaeology readers see a Rainbow in star disk
Submitted by Andy B on Tuesday, 21 December 2004 Page Views: 3988
DiscoveriesCountry: Germany
Readers of British Archaeology magazine have now suggested the controversial disc depicts a rainbow. Rather than scientific observation, the disc may illustrate a long-forgotten myth.
German scientists said the disc depicted the autumn sky. Gold decoration seems to illustrate a crescent moon, a sun or full moon and some stars, some of which were identified as the Pleiades. The disc has attracted international interest, and is now the focus of a major exhibition in Halle, Germany.
In November, British Archaeology featured a proposal by Howard Davies, a Cardiff chartered surveyor, that the seven stars were not the Pleiades, but stars visible in the day - he had the idea looking at the sky as he walked home from the pub, after seeing a film about the disc on television. To illustrate his point, the magazine turned the disc photo upside down compared to its usual position.
This prompted five readers to write, suggesting a gold arc - compared by German archaeologists to the ancient Egyptian 'sun ship' that pulled stars through the heavens - was in fact a rainbow. The arc has lines separating three 'colour' bands.
If the cluster of seven spots are daytime stars, perhaps the other spots are raindrops. Two gold strips on the disc edge could be real boats - they look like ancient European logboats.
This would be the only known depiction of a rainbow in prehistoric Europe. Rainbows are interpreted around the world as symbols or portents, suggesting the disc shows a forgotten myth rather than astronomical observations.
Interpretation of the spectacular Nebra, Saxony-Anhalt, disc (32 cm across) is clouded by circumstances of its discovery. Illegally excavated by metal detectorists in 1999, after being sold on several times it was seized by police in Switzerland in 2002, with other objects supposedly found nearby.
We can only date the disc by style and context - neither of much help for a unique object whose context was destroyed without record. Two metal-hilted swords date to 1600 BC, but the association between swords and disc is not clear.
Announcing the find in 2002, Harald Meller, director of the Halle Institute for Archaeological Research, said it is 'without doubt the earliest genuine depiction of the cosmos ever to have been discovered', and suggested the claimed site of its burial 'functioned as an astronomical observatory, like Stonehenge in Britain'.
Wolfhard Schlosser, astronomer at the Ruhr University of Bochum, said the group of seven gold dots could represent the Pleiades, the Praesepe star cluster or the constellation Delphinus, but he preferred the Pleiades.
Schlosser said in the Bronze Age the Pleiades were thought to signal the approach of autumn, and suggested there would be another disc depicting the spring sky.
Credit to the readers in question, who were:
Belinda Stratton, Amsterdam
Patrick McSweeney, Bromley
Ian Blackwell, Newcastle upon Tyne
Alison Watts, St Albans
Jake Spurling, Shaftesbury
Mike Pitts edits British Archeology magazine, available bimonthly in larger WH Smiths , Borders, some independent newsagents, and by subscription.
Note: Go back to our main page about the Nebra skydisk.
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