The mystery of the Nebra Disk: its origin is still uncertain

 The Nebra Disk is a metal plate with gold applications that represents the vault of heaven. According to the most widely accepted theories, it dates back to the Bronze Age, but how certain is it that it is as old as the sky it depicts?

The Nebra Disk was found by grave robbers in the summer of 1999 in a stone cave on Mittelberg Mountain near the town of Nebra, Germany. Since 2002 it has belonged to the State Museum of Prehistory in Halle, Saxony-Anhalt.

Nearly round, 32 centimeters in diameter, 4.5 millimeters thick at the center and 1.7 millimeters at the rim, the disk weighs 2.3 kilograms. It is made of bronze, an alloy of copper and tin. The original color of the object must have been black. A corrosive layer of malachite, formed during the disc's time underground, caused the greenish tint we see today.

As Adriano Gaspani of the Inaf Astronomical Observatory in Brera explains in an extensive article dedicated to the Nebra disk, we have no certainty about where the disk was buried. This would have allowed us to check for astronomical alignments, if any.

However, the production of the Nebra Disk is estimated between 2000 and 1700 B.C., when Hammurabi was writing his code in Babylon and the "Hyksos", the foreign chiefs, were ruling in Egypt. These were the same years when Sardinia was literally boiling with molten bronze in the hands of the Nuragic people. In short, the discovery of alloys, and bronze in particular, represented an unprecedented "post-neolithic" technological leap that led to the production of mainly warlike artifacts: spears, axes, daggers, shields, armor and more.

The magnificent applications representing the stars are made of gold foil and have undergone modifications over the centuries. In addition to the Nebra Disk, several other artifacts were found, including bronze swords, bracelet fragments, two axes, and a chisel. Examination of these objects suggests that the Nebra Disk was placed in situ around 1600 B.C., while its manufacture dates from 2100 to 1700 B.C.

However, two German archaeologists have questioned the age and origin of the Nebra Disk: Rupert Gebhard, director of the Bavarian State Archaeological Collection in Munich, and Rüdiger Krause, professor of ancient European history at Goethe University in Frankfurt, believe it is an Iron Age artifact, which would make it about 1,000 years younger.

The two researchers also argue that the disk was most likely introduced by looters at the Nebra site, but that it actually came from another, undefined location. This detail would make the object unrelated to the other finds with which it has always been associated. The study of this unique hypothesis was published in the journal Archaeological Information.

"We consider the disk as a single discovery, as a single artifact, unrelated to the other finds in Nebra, because nothing in the surrounding area fits with it," Krause said.

The State Museum of Prehistory in Halle, Germany, which exhibits the Nebra Disk, issued a press release openly stating that the theories of the two archaeologists are completely wrong and easily disproved. "The biggest mistake you can make in a study is not to use all the available data," said Harald Meller, the museum's director. "The mistake these colleagues made was to rely on very limited information by selecting those that seemed to fit their theories."

Drs. Gebhard and Krause have cast doubt on several previous hypotheses about the disk. They believe the artifact was associated with Bronze Age items found nearby, in part because encrusted soil on the objects indicated a common period, but the study uses conflicting elements of judgment on those assessments, and, again according to the pair of scientists, some of the weapons associated with the disc may not date to the Bronze Age or come from the same site.

"The problem here is that this is a unique event," said Alison Sheridan, past president of the Prehistoric Society, who is not involved in research on the disc. "That's why some people are saying it might be a fake."

Emilia Pásztor, an archaeologist at the Türr István Museum in Hungary who has studied the disc, noted that its black-market background adds to these uncertainties. "The Nebra Disc, because of the circumstances of its discovery," she explained, "is one of those archaeological finds that can be debated forever until a very accurate absolute dating method for metals is found."

"It's original. It's not a fake," Dr. Krause reiterated, "What you can get out of it is a very interesting scientific discussion about the various hypotheses about how to judge this object, whether it's Bronze Age or Iron Age." To that end, Dr. Meller's team plans to publish a rebuttal of the new study.