Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff production of iHeartRadio, Hey brain Stuff Lauren
Speaker 1: Boggi boom Here. At some point in ancient history, a
Speaker 1: starry scene was immortalized on a disc of bronze. That
Speaker 1: artifact is an enigma today, recovered by treasure hunters in
Speaker 1: It's been named the Nebra Sky Disc, after the town
Speaker 1: of Nebra, Germany, near the site where the disc was found.
Speaker 1: Some experts say this object might be the oldest surviving
Speaker 1: attempt to portray astronomical objects like stars in a realistic way,
Speaker 1: but we're missing some important context. While the Nebrasky disc
Speaker 1: is undoubtedly valuable, its age is open to debate. The
Speaker 1: artifact measures about twelve inches or thirty centimes wide and
Speaker 1: weighs about four and a half pounds or two kilos.
Speaker 1: A series of about forty tiny holes were made along
Speaker 1: the perimeter. The disc has a bluish green backdrop punctuated
Speaker 1: by golden symbols. Special attention has been paid to seven
Speaker 1: tightly packed dots on the disc. They most likely depict plaits,
Speaker 1: a star cluster visible from both hemispheres. There's also a
Speaker 1: large golden circle thought to represent the Sun or the Moon.
Speaker 1: It faces a crescent shaped object that might be an
Speaker 1: artist's take on an eclipse or a lunar phase. Finally,
Speaker 1: there are twenty five golden dots, a curved line towards
Speaker 1: the bottom, and two long arcs hugging the sides of
Speaker 1: the disk the ladder of oak horizons possible reference to
Speaker 1: the solstices. Who knows. Perhaps the disc helped farmers time
Speaker 1: their harvests in accordance with the changing seasons. It could
Speaker 1: have had religious value as well. The arcs, stars, and
Speaker 1: other ornaments were made of gold, and the disc itself
Speaker 1: is corroded bronze, hence its blue green color. Following its discovery,
Speaker 1: the Nebrous guide discs spent three years on the black
Speaker 1: market until authorities seized the relic in a two thousand
Speaker 1: two sting operation. Short thereafter, in two thousand five, Regensburg
Speaker 1: University archaeologist Peter Schauer claimed the disc was a modern forgery.
Speaker 1: His arguments have been dismissed. The corrosion and other lines
Speaker 1: of evidence are testimony to the objects advanced age. Still,
Speaker 1: the nature of its recovery raises questions. The two men
Speaker 1: who found the Sky Disc claimed they unearthed it at
Speaker 1: a site near Nebra, Germany, about a hundred and ten
Speaker 1: miles or a hundred eighty kilometers southwest of Berlin. Since
Speaker 1: the disc was considered property of the state, they had
Speaker 1: no legal right to dig it up or to attempt
Speaker 1: to sell it, but these guys did both, and in
Speaker 1: two thousand five they were found guilty of illegal excavation.
Speaker 1: Before the sting, the looters tried to sell the disc
Speaker 1: as part of a collection that also included two axes,
Speaker 1: to swords and other artifacts allegedly taken from the same location.
Speaker 1: Right now, the disc is on display at the State
Speaker 1: Museum of Prehistory in Hell, Germany. According to the locally
Speaker 1: based State Office for the Preservation of Monuments and Archaeologies
Speaker 1: official website, it cannot be directly dated using radiometric dating techniques,
Speaker 1: yet all is not lost. Radiocarbon dating shows that the
Speaker 1: bark on one of those associated sword hilts is about
Speaker 1: three thousand, six hundred years old. If the sky disc
Speaker 1: was indeed made at the same time more or less,
Speaker 1: then it's definitely a Bronze Age treasure. However, a controversial
Speaker 1: paper released in September proposes that the discs place of
Speaker 1: origin may not have been reported accurately. The authors also
Speaker 1: suspect it could be a thousand years younger than previously thought,
Speaker 1: making it an iron Age relic. But the director of
Speaker 1: the Hell State Museum isn't sold. Neither is Deputy State
Speaker 1: Archaeologist Alfred Reichenberger, who wrote a press release questioning paper
Speaker 1: in which he said the colleagues not only ignore the
Speaker 1: abundance of published research results in recent years, their various
Speaker 1: arguments are also easily refuted looters, a court case and
Speaker 1: rejected fakery charges. After everything it's been through just in
Speaker 1: the past twenty one years or so, one wonders what
Speaker 1: the future has in store for this mysterious nebra Sky
Speaker 1: disc Today's episode was written by Mark Mancini and produced
Speaker 1: by Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots of
Speaker 1: other curious topics, visit how stuff works dot com. Brain
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