Oldest Star Chart Found in Europe

[informant]

Recently recovered from smugglers in a covert action of the Swiss police.
It seems that it's older than Stonehenge.

Star Search (http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0401/feature4/index.html), by Harald Meller

[kucharek]

The keywords are "Nebra sky disc" (Himmelsscheibe von Nebra), if you want to google for more information.

Harald

Eg
http://www.himmelsscheibe-online.de/main_englisch.html

[milli360]

Or, you can look over in Bad doughnut! (http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=10260) :)

[Russell]

Hello:
I read about it in Scientific American. Rather interesting.

[informant]

Or, you can look over in Bad doughnut! (http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=10260) :)
I'm sorry. I hadn't seen your topic. #-o

[milli360]

No,I think it is appropriate in both places. It's a neat little piece of ancient astronomy, as you noticed. I just think that they went a little overboard in their interpretation.

[ToSeek]

Nebra Sky Disk amazes and confuses more than ever after first big conference (http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror/287.html)

There isn't a verdict yet, but according to numerous reports, things went very well for the disk faction: Not only could they present hard physical evidence for the disk being really 3600+ years old and having spent many centuries in the ground, they could even point to strong traces of copper at the discovery site, indicating that there really was a major ancient deposit of metal artefacts. One of the few witnesses for the defense even switched sides that day in court and is now regarding the Nebra Sky Disk as a genuine early bronze age phenomenon, too! But - and that's perhaps the quintessence of the conference - it is a most unique piece of art in its era, almost isolated from the rest of the world of 1600 BCE. Even the extreme hypothesis cannot be dismissed out of hand that it is just an astonishing aberration, a work by some prehistoric 'Leonardo' centuries ahead of his day. Many previously claimed direct links to established iconographic concepts of the same era are now in doubt, and we have actually fewer clues than before to what the artist may have been thinking:

[Manchurian Taikonaut]

Here is another European place that could be an old Sky watching site like Stonehenge

wikiverse.org says it was originally built c. 3,200 BC

old passage tomb (http://merganser.math.gvsu.edu/myth/myth-gal/newgrange-all.jpg)

close up view of part of the passage grave (http://www.transvision.com/vision.html)


Neolithic monument again (http://www.celticemporium.co.uk/newgrange.htm)

[ToSeek]

On the other hand:

Ancient sky map or fake? German experts row over star disc (http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1427546,00.html)

One of Germany's most acclaimed archaeological finds - a 3,600-year-old disc depicting the stars and the planets - is at the centre of a dispute following claims that it is a modern forgery.

According to Germany's museum establishment, the Sky Disc of Nebra is the oldest depiction of the heavens discovered and offers an insight into the Bronze Age mind.

But the authenticity of the disc has been challenged by one of the country's leading archaeologists, Peter Schauer of Regensburg University. He told a court in Halle that the artefact was nothing more than an amateurish forgery.