The earliest genuine depiction of the cosmos ever to have been discovered embossed in gold on a 3,600-year-old Bronze Age disc. The disc bearing elaborate gold leaf images of the sun, 32 stars, and a crescent moon, was found at the site of a Bronze Age camp near the town of Nebra in east Germany. The disc, valued at ยฃ6.4 million, was uncovered with a help of metal detectors. The site where it was discovered functioned around 1600bc as an astronomical observatory. Photographs of the disc were published in Germany last week
Note: needs date instead of ‘last week’ |
. They show a round shield-like bronze plate covered in verdigris as a result of being buried underground for thousands of years. Yet the 12-inch diameter disc clearly bears the i
Note: looks like unfinished sentence |
The plate is also studded with 32 stars, but most significant according to the archaeologists, is a group of objects thought to be the Pleiades star cluster, which appear at the time of the autumn equinox. A curved scythe-like object at its base is thought to represent the “sun ship” that the pharoahs believed pulled the stars through the heavens.