Goseck Circle and Nebra Disk: there is something wrong with historic stereotypes!

Last updated on: June 18, 2009 at 2:48 am by Desh Kapoor

Goseck Circle and Nebra Disk: there is something wrong with historic stereotypes! 2009-06-18T02:48:18-05:00 Desh Kapoor

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There are many things that happened back in history – prehistory, even – which seems completely incongruent with the historical eras and the accomplishments that our historians would have us believe existed at that time en-masse. Neolithic Age, for example, was the Stone Age where man was just a farmer and a herder.

Now, if that’s the only sophistication that man was capable of at that time, then Goseck Circle found in in Goseck in the Burgenlandkreis district in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany does seem like an unbelievable piece of work! It was built in 4900 BC![1][2]

It is so precise and is built to measure the days, years and the time of the year. The circle when reconstructed sent shock waves within the archeological circles. It was a solar observatory, which may be a milestone in astronomical history and also may challenge many stereotypes in archeological. In the attached picture, the yellow lines represent the direction the Sun rises and sets at the winter solstice, while the vertical line shows the astronomical meridian.

Some archeologists do not believe that this is what it was. But this is not the only thing that has come out of this area. There was another discovery called the Nebra Sky Disk. It is a bronze disk of around 30 cm diameter, with a blue-green patina and inlaid with gold symbols.[3]

These are interpreted generally as a sun or full moon, a lunar crescent, and stars (including a cluster interpreted as the Pleiades). Two golden arcs along the sides, marking the angle between the solstices, were added later. A final addition was another arc at the bottom surrounded with multiple strokes (of uncertain meaning, variously interpreted as a Solar Barge with numerous oars, as the Milky Way or as a rainbow).

The Nebra disk is dated to 1600 BC and was found near Nebra, Saxony-Anhalt in Germany.

Pleiades is one of the most mystery constellations in the cosmos. With the benefit of telescopes we now it consists of eleven main stars. But several of these are barely visible to the naked eye. Usually only six or seven can be seen. So Schlosser turned to the oldest images of the Pleiades that he could find, tablets and scrolls from the east. And there he saw a wonder. The Pleiades drawn with just seven stars. An image just like on the disc.

What is significant about this disk is that there is a small cluster of seven stars right between the sun and the moon. It represents the Pleiades constellation.

The disk also has yellow shallow curves on the side, which are deliberate. Why are they important? The angle of the curves is 82 degress.[4]

Eighty two degrees is a very specific angle, and it reminded him of something that Europeans had known since the earliest times. For it is here that between the high mid-summer sunset and the low mid-winter sunset the sun is seen to travel around eighty degrees along the horizon. Since prehistoric times ancient monuments have been aligned to mark these solstices all across northern Europe. But the precise angle varies from place to place. Further north it would be ninety degrees. To the south just seventy degrees. In just a tiny band of central Europe would the suns journey measure exactly eighty two degrees. And as Professor Schlosser returned to the site of Nebra, in Germany, where the disc had been found, he realised something that was beyond coincidence.

The angle between when sun sets mid-winter and mid-summer is precisely eighty two degrees. This angle corresponds to the journey of the sun between summer and winter for this specific latitude right here in Nebra… EXACTLY!

Such was the sophistication of the mind of people in THAT time – 1600 BC. So, if that were so, then how could the people who could measure angles.. monitor sun and make great astronomical intruments, just be mere pre-historic farmers? And remember, that we have schools and books – which have within them centuries of human knowledge summarized. In those times, a person would have known ONLY that he/she learned in A LIFETIME.. just ONE lifetime of a ONE person. Do, we understand the significance of that handicap? Despite that… this is what that bunch of prehistoric guys come up with! 🙂

Reference Links:

1. Goseck circle
2. Circles for Space
3. Nebra sky disk
4. Secrets of the Star Disc – transcript

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