The Nebra Sky Disc
Looters with a metal detector dug up a bronze disc showing the Sun, Moon and stars, perhaps the oldest picture of the sky ever found.
What was reported
In 1999 two treasure hunters with a metal detector illegally dug up a bronze disc about 30 cm across on the Mittelberg hill near Nebra, in eastern Germany. It's inlaid in gold with a crescent, a full circle, a cluster of seven dots that seems to be the Pleiades, and other stars.
They sold it on the black market. In 2002 Swiss police recovered it in a sting operation in Basel, and the looters later led archaeologists to the spot where they'd found it.
Explanations offered
It's usually dated to around 1600 BC, which would make it the oldest known concrete picture of the cosmos. Gold arcs added along its edges match the angle between sunrise at midsummer and midwinter at that latitude, suggesting it was used to follow the year. A 2020 study argued it may be centuries younger, though most researchers still favour the Bronze Age date.
- When
- Found in 1999
- Where
- Mittelberg, near Nebra, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany
- Witnesses
- Looters, police and archaeologists
- Status
- Partly explained
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