New study confirms that the Sky Disc of Nebra is from the Bronze Age, not Iron Age

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

A new study from Austria is proving, that the sky disc from Nebra is really from the Bronze Age and not from the Iron Age, as two historians for prehistory Gebhard and Krause had claimed, that the sky disc didn't belong to the place, where it identified finding place should be. It should only have been a single finding without proper context, which should be dated to Iron Age.

After a new study from 13 austrian scientists there can be no serious doubt, that the Mittelberg in Nebra is the authentic finding place.

Judicial testemonies of the looter and the receiver, explorations of the State Office for Monument Preservation and Archeology in Saxony-Anhalt and markings in the area make it possible to locate exactly, where the sky disc was originally hidden.
The disc also has damages, which were inflicted only a shortl time before by the looter. The sediment of the finding place has also a high concentration of gold and cooper, which would only be the case if the sky disc had rested a long time in the ground.
Also soil samples of the finding place and samples from earth on the sky disc are fitting, also from a bronze sword and axe, which was confiscated together with the sky disc from the looter.
Also trace elements and lead isotopes of the sky disc are corresponding to with those of a copper deposit near Salzburg, which is known for copper mining from 18. till 9. century BC. The gold of the disc is originating from the Carnon River in Cornwall, where gold mining is documented for the 17./16. century BC.
The tin and lead isotopes are also corresponding with other artefacts of early Bronze Age.
Finally data from a radiocarbon examination of organic material from the sword are dating to 1600 BC.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

You can download the study as PDF here:

The study begins at page 89:

https://austriaca.at/Nebra-Sky-Disc?frames=yes

So the Sky Disk of Nebra is still the oldest known concrete depiction of the Cosmos.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebra_sky_disk

[Marcus Aemilius Lepidus]

I have no expertise in this area to make my own judgement based on scientific facts regarding the object itself but i wouldn't say that there is no serious doubt any longer.

After all it is published in an austrian magazin but the scientists are not 13 Austrians. Alone 6 of them work for the Archeaoligical Institution of the Federal State of Sachsen-Anhalt and their jobs depend on the goodwill of the head of this institut who happens to be creator of this idea. We just take that in to account because leading independent scientists in germany that teach at universities that are not involved with the state of Sachsen-Anhalt still vividly cast there doubts on the authencity of the thing and its Bronze Age origin. The recent dating depends on the swords and critics deny that they belong to the same find and there is no other argument for the swords belonging to the same find than the comments of the illigal diggers and the trader of illegal antics who tried to sell them. That's something to think of because the swords as such are not that valuable on the market, in the context of the disc of nebra their value is increased that why it is not that unlikely that several finds were added to the disk to get more money. Traders of antiques do that all the time.

[Roma_Victrix]

I have no expertise in this area to make my own judgement based on scientific facts regarding the object itself but i wouldn't say that there is no serious doubt any longer.

After all it is published in an austrian magazin but the scientists are not 13 Austrians. Alone 6 of them work for the Archeaoligical Institution of the Federal State of Sachsen-Anhalt and their jobs depend on the goodwill of the head of this institut who happens to be creator of this idea. We just take that in to account because leading independent scientists in germany that teach at universities that are not involved with the state of Sachsen-Anhalt still vividly cast there doubts on the authencity of the thing and its Bronze Age origin. The recent dating depends on the swords and critics deny that they belong to the same find and there is no other argument for the swords belonging to the same find than the comments of the illigal diggers and the trader of illegal antics who tried to sell them. That's something to think of because the swords as such are not that valuable on the market, in the context of the disc of nebra their value is increased that why it is not that unlikely that several finds were added to the disk to get more money. Traders of antiques do that all the time.

So there is no solid international academic consensus yet. The new discoveries about the composition of the disk are interesting, though, albeit not incredibly surprising since both Bronze Age and Iron Age items often had a mixture of things from different regions and items were also recycled a lot for crafting others. That's especially when you consider most of the tin used in bronze wares and weapons in Europe came from the British Isles or the other rare sites of the world where tin could be mined. The gold coming from a Cornwall mine dated back to the 16th century BC is a strong indication that the disk is dated to the Bronze Age.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

For me it's the entirety of indications, which make the bronze age origin plausible.

Additionally there are similar artefacts like the sun chariot from Trondholm, which is from Bronze Age origin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trundholm_sun_chariot

Sun barks are a common theme in Bronze Age Artefacts.

[Marcus Aemilius Lepidus]

Don't get me wrong here. I don't say it isn't plausible, if it is authentic which i somewhat want to believe. My only problem was with the "confirm" in the threads title which was also used on several news outlets. That's simply not the case. There are still to many things debated and there are many scholars in Germany alone, who argue against the arguments brought up in this study.

I am not paticually against the power of the archeological authorities within the german federal states but one side effect of such power is that if the people in charage have a theory than it is really difficult to fight that idea. Another good example is the germanic wall in Kalkriese that turned out to be the wall of an legionary camp which changes the entire interpretation of the place. That idea came up from students and phd candidates 20 years ago but they were subsequently all let go from the excavations and the thisis was never evaluated. A short campaign in another location would have done that but was only undertaken two or three years ago. A really sad story.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

But you can say that about Gebhard and Krause too. They are no nobodies.

Anyways the link to their studies about the Sky Disk of Nebra:

http://www.dguf.de/nebraskydisk.html

But their main argument:

In particular, the two archaeologists are convinced that the Sky Disk cannot belong together with the other finds which seemed to facilitate the dating of the world-famous object in the first place.

is shaky, as

The physical, chemical, and mineralogical investigations revealed almost complete qualitative and extensive quantitative matches between the soil samples VM 1 (soil sample from a depth of approx. 30–40 cm from the presumed location of the Sky Disc), and Sp 1 (adhesions taken from the Sky Disc), and Sp 2 (adhesions taken from Sword II). The additional comparison with data from soils which originate from areas that are geologically similar to the find location of VM 1 did not reveal any indications of any possible origin of Sp 1 and
Sp 2 other than the Mittelberg near Nebra. All in all, the origin of both the adhering soil on the Sky Disc (Sp 1) and that on the sword (Sp 2) being their presumed location (sampling point of VM 1) is considered as highly probable. However, a statement of certainty is difficult with only one soil sample. For this a detailed investigation of the soil conditions on the Mittelberg near Nebra using a much larger number of reference samples would be required.

For me personally this is enough, as you in most cases never reach the level of certainty in archaeology.

[sumskilz]

No metal object acquired from the antiquities market will ever be as solidly dated as a similar object found in situ in a well-stratified context.

So there is no solid international academic consensus yet. The new discoveries about the composition of the disk are interesting, though, albeit not incredibly surprising since both Bronze Age and Iron Age items often had a mixture of things from different regions and items were also recycled a lot for crafting others. That's especially when you consider most of the tin used in bronze wares and weapons in Europe came from the British Isles or the other rare sites of the world where tin could be mined. The gold coming from a Cornwall mine dated back to the 16th century BC is a strong indication that the disk is dated to the Bronze Age.

Not so much on that last point. There were probably specific mines in the region that operated during certain spans of time, I don't the know particulars off hand, but there is still gold in Cornwall, and usually such analysis doesn't pinpoint a specific mine as much as a specific region. Likewise, valuable metals were often recycled.

By the way, the tin from Cornwall has also been found in large quantities in the Levant. For example, there are some Bronze Age shipwrecks off the coast of Haifa that were carrying ingots of it. We might have had this conversation before...

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

To complete this dispute it should be mentioned, that perhaps here is a personal vendetta:

Observers had already suspected in September that the dispute over the dating and location of the sky disc might not be of a purely academic nature, when Gebhard and Krause presented her sharp criticism. At that time there was talk of a "return coach" - because of the gold jewelry that came to light near Bernstorf in Upper Bavaria in 1998. In their expertise, Gebhard and Krause pleaded for the authenticity of the find. In 2013, the archaeometry specialist Ernst Pernicka from Tübingen questioned this by arguing with the extraordinary purity of the precious metal. Pernicka was also involved in numerous investigations into the sky disk. Now he is named as the main author of the article in the journal "Archaeologia Austriaca".

https://www.welt.de/geschichte/artic...ve-Zitate.html

After all we are all humans.

[Roma_Victrix]

To complete this dispute it should be mentioned, that perhaps here is a personal vendetta:



https://www.welt.de/geschichte/artic...ve-Zitate.html

After all we are all humans.

The academic equivalent of hitting your opponent with a folding chair!

No metal object acquired from the antiquities market will ever be as solidly dated as a similar object found in situ in a well-stratified context.

Not so much on that last point. There were probably specific mines in the region that operated during certain spans of time, I don't the particulars off hand, but there is still gold in Cornwall, and usually such analysis doesn't pinpoint a specific mine as much as a specific region. Likewise, valuable metals were often recycled.

By the the way, the tin from Cornwall has also been found in large quantities in the Levant. For example, there are some Bronze Age shipwrecks off the coast of Haifa that were carrying ingots of it. We might have had this conversation before...

Yes, we have definitely come full circle.

So in your opinion do you think the disk can be comfortably dated to the Bronze Age, or is everything in the OP basically on shaky ground and worth disputing? As you said, items that are passed around in the antiquities market aren't as reliably dated as those found on site in a particular soil layer.

I'm not an archaeologist, but I can imagine how frustrating it is to be one whose primary focus is the Bronze Age or early Iron Age. Sounds more like a mind-numbing nightmare than a profession. I'd probably go insane from having to juggle all the uncertainties that go hand-in-hand with the paucity of corroborative contemporary written sources compared to later periods. That's on top of amateur archaeologists of the 19th century who either went treasure hunting or carelessly damaged sites without taking a systematic approach to studying each strata of soil. Schliemann's excavation of Troy comes to mind, a rather extreme example albeit not on the exact same level of wanton disregard as Giuseppe Ferlini and his extraction of treasure from the Nubian pyramids at Meroe in Sudan by using explosives. I guess a more recent equivalent would be ISIS dynamiting ancient sites in Iraq and Syria, and before that Saddam stamping his name on ziggurats after attempting to partially rebuild them.

[Marcus Aemilius Lepidus]

But you can say that about Gebhard and Krause too. They are no nobodies.

For me personally this is enough, as you in most cases never reach the level of certainty in archaeology.

I agree in both cases. I am not specialized in the Bronzeage but i speak often enough with people that are and especially in southern germany there are a bunch of professors that regulary seem to critizise the arguments of the dating in their lectures. Sadly they mostly avoid that in public papers because they tend to avoid the conflict we see here. It such a shameful development that people are overly careful what to say and who to critizise because they are fearful.

[sumskilz]

So in your opinion do you think the disk can be comfortably dated to the Bronze Age, or is everything in the OP basically on shaky ground and worth disputing?

I think it's fair to say nothing has been confirmed.

Pernicka et al’s argument is that the totality of the evidence taken together all points to a Bronze age date, but the totality of the evidence is a number of plausible assumptions made by them (disputed by others) which are unsupported by even a single scientific fact. For example, they argue that the Sky Disk and the other artifacts all had soil residue on them consistent with the find site according to the looters. Others disagree, but okay, even if it’s true, that doesn’t tell us anything about the date. It also doesn’t even necessarily mean all the artifacts came from the same site, just that they got soil on them at some point consistent with the site. The gold residue in the ground is better evidence that the disk came from that site, but then we don’t know what other artifacts the looters may have found there that they got away with, and again, it tells us nothing about the date.

They write:

This overview was triggered by a recently published claim that it is more likely that the Sky Disc was not part of the Nebra hoard and, based on stylistic arguments, should be dated to the Iron Age.

And they really were triggered judging by how much they discussed their feelings about it. For example:

What is more irritating is the fact that Gebhard and Krause modified the original figure without mentioning this modification in their figure caption.

And…

It rankles that Gebhard and Krause do not discuss the Pleiades at all because they are present on the sword blade of Allach, according to Peter Kurzmann’s statement.

Other than the alleged association with other artifacts, this is all they have to rely on for dating the disk:

Although the composition of metal artefacts cannot be used for precise dating, there are nevertheless certain recognisable trends, like the tendency from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age of increasingly adding lead to bronze.

I would amend that to “For the most part, the composition of metal artefacts cannot be used to date their manufacture”. This is a rather unique artifact, how does its composition compare to other artifacts of its type? Yeah, I wouldn’t know either. And in any case, it’s not uncommon to find items of the same type in the exact same stratum within a meter of each other, each composed of a somewhat different alloy.

Even typological dating of artifacts is uncertain without stratigraphic anchors. For example, there is a type of Achaemenid Period arrowhead that was very common all over the Persian Empire, but then it fell out of use about a century into the Hellenistic Period. And yet, it somehow reappeared in a stratigraphically very well-dated stockpile of weapons from the Bar Kochba revolt. We can assume that maybe the rebels found old weapons to reuse, or maybe they made molds of the old weapons and copied them, but what we can’t assume is that the other artifacts in the stratum date to the Achaemenid Period.

In any case, I found Gebhard and Krause’s arguments equally uncompelling, in that they are fine, just that after reading both papers, I don’t have any strong opinion as to when the Sky Disk dates to. Anyway, here is a PDF of that paper if anyone is interested. Although, trigger warning: it has been known to rankle and irritate.

[Marcus Aemilius Lepidus]

Here is an older interview with the guy who illigally found the disc: https://www.tor-verlag.de/images/PDF...-von-nebra.pdf

It's in German but GoogleTranslate or DeepL are getting better and better and the german is rather simple since the guy who found the disc is simple minded too (;
It gives a bit inside about what he claims where it was found and how politics got involved. Short summary: He claims a diffrent place and that he added the swords etc. because he thought that the disc alone would be not worth that much. That he was drunk and is a criminal should be considered but on the other hand he has little to gain by making that stuff up. In case of politics it is relevant that the location is relevant in terms which federal state got the disc. Thuringia was the first idea. Today its Sachsen-Anhalt. Surprisingly the guy who has the biggest agenda of fighting for the acceptence of the thesis from the topics thesis, has postulated an entire culture based around the disc that fits the borders of his federal state. Something that is independently from the dating of the disc rejected by almost every other scientist in the field. What i critizited before: The authors of the paper presented in the title, all work for him and are depended of his good will.