Humanity first tried to understand our place in the Universe long before the birth of Jesus Christ. One great proof is the Nebra Sky Disk, being the world’s oldest depiction of the Cosmos and one of Germany’s most significant archaeological finds. But according to a research done by archaeologists from Ludwig-Maximilian University from Munich and Goethe University Frankfurt, it seems like the disk is younger than previously thought.
The conclusion is that the Nebra Sky Disk is dated somewhere during the Iron Age (500 BC – 332 BC), and not during the Early Bronze Age as researchers previously believed.
1,000 years younger
Dr. Rupert Gebhard declared:
“The discovery context was important for the scientific dating, as the disk itself could neither be scientifically nor archeologically dated by comparison with other objects,”
“Many years of investigations by several research groups attempted to verify both the attribution to the supposed discovery site as well as the common origins of the objects independent of the vague information given by the looters.”
The researchers believe that there’s no convincing evidence that the Bronze Age swords, axes, and bracelets are forming an ensemble of common origins. Therefore, the team wasn’t dealing with a typical Bronze Age deposit at the excavation site, and the disk wasn’t present alongside other objects in an original state. Another official statement concludes:
“This means that the disk must be regarded as an individual object in itself with regard to dating,”
More specifically, Rupert Gebhard (Director of the Munich Archäologischen Staatssammlung) and Rüdiger Krause (Prehistory Professor and Early European History at Goethe University Frankfurt) have analyzed the discovery circumstances and research results regarding the Nebra sky disk.
The study paper was published in the journal Archäologische Informationen: https://dguf.de/fileadmin/AI/ArchInf-EV_Gebhard_Krause_e.pdf