Nebra sky disc

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Template:Short description

File:Nebra disc 1.jpg
The Nebra sky disc, c. 1800–1600 BC

The Nebra sky disc (Template:Langx, Template:IPA) is a bronze disc of around Template:Convert diameter and a weight of Template:Convert, having a blue-green patina and inlaid with gold symbols.<ref name="Halle">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> These symbols are interpreted generally as the Sun or full moon, a lunar crescent, and stars, including a cluster of seven stars, axiomatically interpreted as the Pleiades.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=":02">Template:Cite book</ref>

Two golden arcs along the sides (one now missingTemplate:Citation needed) are thought to have marked the angle between the solstices. Another arc at the bottom with internal parallel lines is usually interpreted as a solar boat with numerous oars,<ref name="The World of Stonehenge">Template:Cite book</ref> although some authors have also suggested that it may represent a rainbow,<ref name="AT210511">Template:Cite magazine</ref> the Aurora Borealis,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> a comet,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> or a sickle.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 1999, the disc was found buried on the Mittelberg hill near Nebra in Germany.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> It is dated by archaeologists to Template:Circa and attributed to the Early Bronze Age Únětice culture.<ref name="Nebra Sky Disc: Nomination">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Various scientific analyses of the disc, the items found with the disc, and the find spot have confirmed the Early Bronze Age dating.<ref name="Pernicka et al">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="oeaw.ac.at">Template:Cite web</ref>

The Nebra sky disc features the oldest concrete depiction of astronomical phenomena known from anywhere in the world.<ref name="Halle" /><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Pernicka et al"/> In June 2013, it was included by UNESCO in its Memory of the World International Register and termed "one of the most important archaeological finds of the twentieth century."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Discovery

The disc, together with two bronze swords, two sets of remains of axes, a chisel, and fragments of spiral armbands were discovered in 1999 by Henry Westphal and Mario Renner while they were treasure-hunting with a metal detector. The detectorists were operating without a license and knew their activity constituted looting and was illegal. Archaeological artefacts are the property of the state in Saxony-Anhalt. They damaged the disc with their spade and destroyed parts of the site. The next day, Westphal and Renner sold the entire hoard for 31,000 DM to a dealer in Cologne. The hoard changed hands, probably several times, within Germany during the next two years, being sold for up to a million DM. By 2001 knowledge of its existence had become public.Template:Citation needed

In February 2002, the state archaeologist, Harald Meller, acquired the disc in a police-led sting operation in Basel from a couple who had put it on the black market for 700,000 DM.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The original finders were eventually traced. In a plea bargain, they led police and archaeologists to the discovery site. Archaeologists opened a dig at the site and uncovered evidence that supported the looters' claims. There were traces of bronze artefacts in the ground, and the soil at the site matched soil samples found clinging to the artefacts. The disc and its accompanying finds are held by the State Museum of Prehistory in Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.

The two looters received sentences of four months and ten months, respectively, from a Naumburg court in September 2003. They appealed, but the Appeals Court raised their sentences to six and twelve months, respectively.

The discovery site is a prehistoric enclosure encircling the top of a Template:Convert elevation in the Ziegelroda Forest, known as Template:Lang ("central hill"), some Template:Convert west of Leipzig. The surrounding area is known to have been settled in the Neolithic era, and Ziegelroda Forest contains approximately 1,000 barrows.

At the enclosure's location, the sun seems to set every summer solstice behind the Brocken, the highest peak of the Harz mountains, some Template:Convert to the northwest. The treasure hunters claimed the artefacts were discovered within a pit inside the bank-and-ditch enclosure.

Dating

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File:Nebra Schwerter.jpg
The swords found with the disc <ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
File:Nebra Hort.jpg
Other associated finds: chisel, axeheads, bracelets

Axes and swords found buried with the disc were dated typologically to Template:Circa–1500 BCE. Remains of birch bark found in the sword hilts have been Radiocarbon dated to between 1600 and 1560 BCE, confirming this estimate. This corresponds to the date of burial, at which time the disc had likely been in existence for several generations.<ref name="Nebra Sky Disc: Nomination"/> Analyses of metal radioactivity and the corrosion layer on the disc further support the early Bronze Age dating.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="BBC secrets">Template:Cite web</ref>

Origin of the metals

According to an initial analysis of trace elements by x-ray fluorescence by E. Pernicka, then at the University of Freiberg, the copper originated at Bischofshofen in Austria, whilst the gold was thought to be from the Carpathian Mountains.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> A more recent analysis found that the gold used in the first development phase (see below) was from the River Carnon in southern Cornwall in England.<ref name=Ehser>Template:Cite journal</ref> The tin present in the bronze was also of Cornish origin.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

History

As preserved, the disc was developed in four stagesTemplate:Citation needed:

  1. Initially the disc had thirty-two small round gold circles, a large circular plate, and a large crescent-shaped plate attached. The circular plate is interpreted as either the Sun or the full Moon, the crescent shape as the crescent Moon (or either the Sun or the Moon undergoing eclipse), and the dots as stars, with the cluster of seven dots likely representing a star cluster. The star cluster is thought to refer to the Pleiades,<ref name="Pernicka et al" /> or possibly the general symbol of a star cluster.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite journal</ref>
  2. At some later date, two arcs (constructed from gold of different origins, as shown by theirTemplate:Citation needed chemical impurities) were added at opposite edges of the disc. To make space for these arcs, one small circle was moved from the left side toward the centre of the disc and two of the circles on the right were covered over, so that thirty remain visible. The two arcs span an angle of 82°, correctly indicating the angle between the positions of sunsets at summer and winter solstice at the latitude of the Mittelberg (51°N).<ref name="McIntosh">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="BMworld">Template:Cite book</ref> The arcs relate to the Sun's path – the ecliptic. Given that ancient astronomers knew the planets and many stars that mark the ecliptic, they could observe it sweep across the horizon within the arcs, in a single winter night, not just sunrise and sunset over an entire year.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Thus, the arcs are consistent with wholly nighttime use.
  3. The final addition was another arc at the bottom, identified as a solar boat,<ref name=":04">Template:Cite book</ref> again made of gold, but originating from a different source.
  4. By the time the disc was buried it also had 38 to 40 holes punched out around its perimeter, each approximately Template:Convert in diameter. The exact number is obscured by damage to the disc edge.<ref name="tandfonline.com">Template:Cite journal</ref>

Significance

File:Die Himmelsscheibe von Nebra (CC BY 4.0) .webm
Video explaining the significance of the sky disc

The Nebra disc may have had both a practical astronomical purpose as well as a religious significance.<ref name="meller2002">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=":0" />

The find is regarded as reconfirming that the astronomical knowledge and abilities of the people of the European Bronze Age included close observation of the yearly course of the Sun and the angle between its rising and setting points at the summer and winter solstices. While older earthworks and megalithic astronomical complexes, such as the Goseck circle (c. 4900 BC) and Stonehenge (c. 2500 BC), had already been used to mark the solstices, the disc presents this knowledge in the form of a portable object.<ref name="BMworld" />

Timber circular enclosures with astronomical alignments were also built by the Únětice culture at Pömmelte and Schönebeck in Germany, dating from c. 2300-1900 BC.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> According to excavators of the Pömmelte site, close similarities with the layout of Stonehenge indicate that both monuments were built by "the same culture" (the Bell Beaker culture) with "the same view of the world".<ref name="Stonehenge's Continental Cousin">Template:Cite web</ref> The similarity between Pömmelte and earlier enclosures such as the Goseck Circle may indicate a continuation of traditions dating back to the early Neolithic.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="tandfonline.com2">Template:Cite journal</ref>

Calendar rule

The depiction of the Pleiades on the disc in conjunction with a crescent moon is thought to represent a calendar rule for synchronising solar and lunar calendars, enabling the creation of a lunisolar calendar.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> This rule is known from an ancient Babylonian collection of texts with the title MUL.APIN.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> According to one of the seven rules in the compendium, a leap month should be added when the Pleiades appear next to a crescent moon a few days old in the spring, as depicted on the disc. This conjunction occurs approximately every three years.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite AV media</ref>

Harald Meller suggests that knowledge of this rule may have come from Babylonia to Central Europe through long-distance trade and contacts, despite it being attested earlier on the Nebra disc than in Babylonia.<ref name="Meller 2021">Template:Cite book</ref> Baltic amber beads have been found in a foundational deposit under the large ziggurat of Aššur in Iraq dating from c. 1800-1750 BC, indicating that a connection existed between both regions when the Nebra disc was created.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> However some Assyriologists and astronomers have rejected the comparison of the Nebra Disc with MUL.APIN.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

File:Nebra solstice 2.jpg
Gold strips on the side of the disc mark the summer and winter solstices,<ref name="Meller 2021"/><ref>Template:Cite AV media</ref> and the top represents the horizon<ref name=":03">Template:Cite book</ref> and north. This is opposite to modern star charts which are intended to be held aloft and viewed from below, not like geographic maps where we (imagine we can) look down from above.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The number of stars depicted on the disc (32) is also thought to be significant, possibly encoding the calendar rule numerically. Firstly, the conjunction of lunar crescent and Pleiades depicted on the disc occurs after 32 days following the last "new light" (the first visible crescent moon of the month), and not before.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Secondly, because a lunar year (354 days) is eleven days shorter than a solar year (365 days), 32 solar years is equal in length to 33 lunar years (with an error of only two days). That is, 32 x 365 = 11680 days, and 33 x 354 = 11682 days.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> This 32 solar-year cycle may be represented on the disc by 32 stars, plus the sun (or full moon), adding up to 33.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

The archaeologist Christoph Sommerfeld has argued that the disc encodes knowledge of the 19-year lunisolar Metonic cycle.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> According to Sommerfeld the Metonic cycle is similarly encoded on the disc of the Trundholm sun chariot, dating from c. 1500 BC.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The Metonic cycle is also thought to be encoded on the Late Bronze Age Berlin Gold Hat, which features a band of 19 "star and crescent" symbols.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Some authors have argued that the number of pin holes around the rim of the disc (approximately 38 to 40) has an astronomical significance. The exact number is not known due to damage to the disc.<ref name="tandfonline.com"/><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

The Nebra Disc has been compared to a passage from the Greek poet Hesiod, written around 700 BC, which describes the role of the Pleiades for organizing the agricultural year:

"When the Pleiades, daughters of Atlas, are rising, begin your harvest, and your ploughing when they are going to set. Forty nights and days they are hidden and appear again as the year moves round, when first you sharpen your sickle. This is the law of the plains, and of those who live near the sea, and who inhabit rich country, the glens and hollows far from the tossing sea,—strip to sow and strip to plough and strip to reap, if you wish to get in all Demeter's fruits in due season, and that each kind may grow in its season."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Depictions of the Pleiades are also known from some rock carvings dating from the early Bronze Age, such as at Mont Bégo in the southern Alps<ref>Template:Cite thesis</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> and on the 'Calendar Stone' at Leodagger in Austria, a cult site associated with the Únětice culture which may have functioned as a calendar.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The Nebra Disc has some similarities to petroglyphs from the Nordic Bronze Age, some of which are thought to have a calendrical meaning.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Find site

The site on the Mittelberg hill where the Nebra disc was found is thought to have served as an enclosed 'sacred precinct', delimited by earthen ramparts on two sides of the hill. From this location, when the disc is aligned to the north, the upper terminus of the western gold arc points towards the Brocken mountain, where the sun is seen to set on the summer solstice (June 21st). Another distinctive marker on the horizon is the Kulpenberg hill, where the sun sets on May 1st (Beltane), a date also marked by an entrance to the Pömmelte enclosure built by the Únětice culture.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Mythology

The Nebra disc has been described as forming "the oldest evidence of a complex mythical world picture in Europe."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Connections with Greece

File:Mycenae ring 2.jpg
Gold signet ring from Mycenae with similar celestial imagery, fifteenth century BC <ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

A depiction of a sun and crescent moon similar to the Nebra disc appears on a gold signet ring from Mycenae in Greece, dating from the fifteenth century BC.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Beneath the sun and moon is a seated female figure holding three opium poppies in her hand, identified as a goddess of nature and fertility, possibly the Minoan poppy goddess, or an early form of the goddess Demeter.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref><ref>Template:Cite arXiv</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The gold arcs on the Nebra disc also bear a resemblance to the Minoan double-axe or labrys, which is centrally depicted on the gold signet ring and considered to be the main symbol of the Minoan goddess, as well as a symbol of Demeter.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":2">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> According to the archaeologist Kristian Kristiansen, imagery similar to that found on Mycenaean signet rings appears in Nordic Bronze Age petroglyphs from the Kivik King's Grave in Sweden, dating from the 16th to 15th centuries BC, whilst Baltic amber has been found in the elite shaft graves at Mycenae, attesting to connections between both regions.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Baltic amber probably reached Greece via the Únětice culture.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Opium poppy has also been found in settlements of the Únětice culture where it may have been used in cult rituals.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Solar boat

The gold arc at the bottom of the Disc is usually interpreted as a mythological solar boat or sun-ship, which carries the sun through the day and night.<ref name="Meller 2021"/><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The short lines on each side of the gold arc may represent the oars of a large crew.<ref name="The World of Stonehenge"/> According to the archaeologist Harald Meller this imagery was "hitherto unknown in Europe" and probably originated in Egypt, possibly reaching Central Europe through wide-ranging contacts and travel.<ref name="Meller 2021"/> In contrast the archaeologist Mary Cahill has argued that sun-ships were already depicted on gold lunulae from the Bell Beaker culture, from which the Únětice culture developed.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Solar boats may even be depicted on rock art dating from the Neolithic or earlier, such as on petroglyphs from the megalithic tomb of Newgrange in Ireland.<ref>Template:Cite thesis</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Solar boats or vessels also appear in later Indo-European traditions: in Latvian folk songs the sun goddess Saulė sleeps through the night in a golden boat, whilst in the Atharvaveda the Sun is twice told ‘O Aditya, thou hast boarded a ship of a hundred oars for well-being’.<ref name="West 2007 207–209">Template:Cite book</ref> In Greek mythology the Sun's vessel takes the form of a golden bowl or cup, which may resemble the bowl-like shape of the Nebra boat.<ref name="West 2007 207–209"/><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Gold cups are known from the Únětice culture and Wessex culture in Britain, as well as from northern Italy and Mycenaean Greece.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Possibly related artefacts from the later Bronze Age include the ship-like Caergwrle bowl from Wales, which features circular solar symbols embossed in gold.<ref>Template:Cite AV media</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Gold bowls from central and northern Europe, such as from the Eberswalde Hoard in Germany, feature similar circular solar symbols and some of these may contain calendrical information, including the equivalence of 32 solar and 33 lunar years possibly depicted on the Nebra Disc.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite AV media</ref>

Circular solar symbols also appear on a hoard of nearly one hundred miniature gold boats from Nors in Denmark, dating from c. 1700-1100 BC.<ref>Template:Cite AV media</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> A much later miniature gold boat dating from c. 100 BC is known from Broighter in Ireland, which was deposited together with a miniature gold cauldron or bowl, a gold torc, and gold jewellery from the eastern Mediterranean, possibly from Roman Egypt.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Numerous depictions of solar boats appear in Nordic Bronze Age art dating from c. 1600 BC onwards, often in the form of petroglyphs or engraved images on bronze razors.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Some of these depictions show people performing backward bends or backward leaps over ships, which the archaeologist Rune Iversen has connected to similar depictions from Egypt, which show backward-bend dances performed during festivals for the goddess Hathor.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The Nordic depictions may be related to a later account from the Roman historian Tacitus, who stated that the Germanic Suebi worshipped the goddess Isis in the form of a ship.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Isis was equated with Hathor from the New Kingdom onwards, and both goddesses were associated with the solar barque, often being depicted at the prow of the ship, which they steered and protected.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Both were also associated with the goddess Demeter by the later Greeks.<ref name=":2" />

The historians Joseph S. Hopkins and Haukur Þorgeirsson have connected Tacitus' 'Isis of the Suebi' with the Norse goddess Freyja, arguing for a strong association between Freyja and ship imagery within Old Norse texts, and particularly with the stone ships of Scandinavia.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Both Freyja and her twin brother Freyr have characteristics associated with solar gods,<ref>Template:Cite thesis</ref> including the golden ship Skíðblaðnir belonging to Freyr, which may represent a solar boat.<ref>Template:Cite thesis</ref>

Divine Twins

According to Kristian Kristiansen the pairs of swords and axes deposited with the Nebra Disc represent the mythological Divine Twins, later known as the Dioscuri in Greece and as the Ashvins in India, among other Indo-European traditions.<ref name="Kristiansen 2011">Template:Cite book</ref> Similar depositions are known from a number of other Bronze Age burials. Kristiansen further suggests that the constellation of Gemini, which is associated with the Dioscuri, might be represented in the lower part of the Disc next to the solar boat.<ref name="Kristiansen 2011"/> The archeologist Timothy Darvill has suggested a connection between these paired depositions and the Nebra Disc with the trilithons at Stonehenge, which may also represent an early form of the Divine Twins.<ref name=":3">Template:Cite AV media</ref> The central trilithon in particular may have embodied "a pair of deities representing day and night, the sun and moon, summer and winter, life and death, perhaps even the prehistoric equivalents of the twins Apollo and Artemis as they are known in later pantheons across the Old World."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> According to Darvill the Nebra disc represents "an evolution on from Stonehenge".<ref name=":3">Template:Cite AV media</ref> In Greece Apollo and Artemis were associated with the sun and the moon respectively, whilst the Pleiades were known as 'the companions of Artemis', echoing the depiction on the Nebra Disc.<ref name=":3" /> According an account recorded by the Greek historian Herodotus, the ancient Egyptians maintained that Apollo and Artemis were the children of Isis, equivalent to the gods Horus and Bubastis, and that Isis was Demeter.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Connections with Britain

Archaeoastronomist Emília Pásztor has argued against a practical astronomical function for the disc. According to Pásztor "the close agreement of the length of the peripheral arcs with the movement of the sun's risings or settings might be a pure coincidence".<ref>Template:Citation</ref> This claim is undermined by the finding of a similar feature on the roughly contemporary gold lozenge from Bush Barrow at Stonehenge, where the acute angles of the overall design (81°) correspond to the angle between the solstices at the latitude of Stonehenge.<ref>Template:Cite AV media</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> According to Euan MacKie (2009) "The Nebra disc and the Bush Barrow lozenge both seem to be designed to reflect the annual solar cycle at about latitude 51° north."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

MacKie further suggests that both the Nebra disc and Bush Barrow lozenge may be linked to the solar calendar reconstructed by Alexander Thom from his analysis of standing stone alignments in Britain.<ref name="MacKie2006">Template:Cite book</ref> Both the Nebra sky disc and Bush Barrow lozenge were made with gold from Cornwall, providing a direct link between them.<ref name=Ehser /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> According to the archaeologist Sabine Gerloff the gold plating technique used on the Nebra sky disc also originated in Britain, and was introduced from there to the continent.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Authenticity

There were some initial suspicions that the disc might be an archaeological forgery. Peter Schauer of the University of Regensburg, Germany, argued in 2005 that the Nebra disc was a fake and that he could prove that the patina of the disc could have been created with urine, hydrochloric acid, and a blow torch within a short amount of time. He had to admit in court that he had never held the disc in his own hands, unlike the eighteen scientists who had examined the disc.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Scientific analyses of the patina (or corrosion layer) have confirmed its authenticity.<ref name="BBC secrets" />

Richard Harrison, professor of European prehistory at the University of Bristol, stated in a BBC documentary that "When I first heard about the Nebra Disc I thought it was a joke, indeed I thought it was a forgery", due to the extraordinary nature of the find, although he had not seen the sky disc at the time. The same documentary presented scientific analyses confirming the authenticity of the disc.<ref name="BBC secrets" />

A paper published in 2020 by Rupert Gebhard and Rudiger Krause questioned the Early Bronze Age dating of the Nebra disc and proposed a later Iron Age date instead.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> A response paper was published in the same year by Ernst Pernicka and colleagues, rejecting the arguments of Gebhard and Krause.<ref name="Pernicka et al" /> Scientific analyses of the disc, the items found with the disc, and the find spot have all confirmed the Early Bronze Age dating.<ref name="Halle" /><ref name="oeaw.ac.at"/>

Exhibition

The disc was the centre of an exhibition entitled Template:Lang (German "The forged sky"), showing 1,600 Bronze Age artefacts, including the Trundholm sun chariot, shown at Halle from 15 October 2004 to 22 May 2005, from 1 July to 22 October 2005 in Copenhagen, from 9 November 2005 to 5 February 2006 in Vienna, from 10 March to 16 July 2006 in Mannheim, and from 29 September 2006 to 25 February 2007 in Basel.

On 21 June 2007, a multimedia visitor centre was opened near the discovery site at Nebra.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The disc is part of the permanent exhibition in the Halle State Museum of Prehistory (Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte) in Halle.

The disc was on display at the British Museum in London as part of The World Of Stonehenge Exhibition from 17 February to 17 July 2022.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The disc was on display at the Drents Museum in Assen from 6 August to 18 September 2022.<ref>Template:Cite webTemplate:Dead link</ref>

Replica on the ISS

In November 2021, a replica of the Nebra Sky Disc was launched to the International Space Station on the Crew-3 mission, taken by German astronaut Matthias Maurer. Maurer, who was part of the European mission Cosmic Kiss, designed the mission's patch with inspiration from the Nebra Sky Disk, as well as the Pioneer plaques and Voyager Golden Records that were sent into the unknown carrying messages from Earth.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

File:Himmelsscheibe.jpg
Replica of the find situation of the Nebra Sky Disc for the German exhibition Template:Lang (German "The forged sky")

The state of Saxony-Anhalt registered the disc as a trademark, which resulted in two lawsuits. In 2003, Saxony-Anhalt successfully sued the city of Querfurt for depicting the disc design on souvenirs. Saxony-Anhalt also successfully sued the publishing houses Piper and Heyne over an abstract depiction of the disc on book covers.<ref>Himmelsscheibe von Nebra Template:Cite web</ref> The Magdeburg court assessed the case's relevance according to German copyright law.

The defenders argued that as a cult object, the disc had already been "published" approximately 3,500 years earlier in the Bronze Age and that consequently, all protection of intellectual property associated with it has long expired. The plaintiff, on the other hand, argued that the Template:Lang of the disc is recent, and according to German law protected for 25 years, until 2027. Another argument concerned the question of whether a notable work of art may be registered as a trademark in the first place. The Magdeburg court decided in favour of the State of Saxony-Anhalt.

The case was appealed and on the basis of decisions from the Oberlandesgericht Düsseldorf in 2005 and the Federal Court of Justice in 2009, the initial ruling was overturned and the German Patent and Trademark Office withdrew the trademark rights.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Thereafter, the state of Saxony-Anhalt registered the design of the disc as a trademark with the European Union Intellectual Property Office.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2023, the state of Saxony-Anhalt filed a DMCA take down notice requesting removal of nine images of the Nebra sky disc from Wikimedia Commons, asserting that they were the "owner of the exclusive copyright in the Sky Disk of Nebra".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Wikimedia Deutschland, a chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation, subsequently filed a DMCA counter-notice stating that since the implementation of Article 14 of the Directive 2019/790 of the European Parliament, there can be no such copyrights on reproductions of visual works that are in the public domain.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

See also

References

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Further reading

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