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The Nebra sky disc (German: Himmelsscheibe von Nebra, pronounced ) is a bronze disc of around 30 cm (12 in) diameter and a weight of 2.2 kg (4.9 lb), having a blue-green patina and inlaid with gold symbols.

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. In 1999, the disc was found buried on the Mittelberg hill near Nebra in Germany. 1800–1600 BC and attributed to the Early Bronze Age Únětice culture. Various scientific analyses of the disc, the items found with the disc, and the find spot have confirmed the Early Bronze Age dating. The Nebra sky disc features the oldest concrete depiction of astronomical phenomena known from anywhere in the world.

The Nebra disc may have had both a practical astronomical purpose as well as a religious significance.

The archaeologist Euan MacKie suggests that the Nebra Disc and other artefacts such as the Bush Barrow Gold Lozenge from Britain provide evidence for the existence of "a class of astronomer priests" in the Early Bronze Age, which may have already existed in the Neolithic and been responsible for the creation of monuments such as Stonehenge.

The Nebra Disc has some similarities to petroglyphs from the Nordic Bronze Age, some of which are thought to have a calendrical meaning.

The Nebra disc has been described as "the oldest evidence of a complex mythical world picture in Europe." According to the archaeologist Miranda Aldhouse-Green, the Nebra Disc combines symbols of a religious and mythological nature that were part of a "complex European wide belief system".

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.

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.

In ancient 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.

Both the Nebra sky disc and Bush Barrow lozenge were made with gold from Cornwall, providing a direct link between them. 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.

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. 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. 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.

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.

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".

Quick Facts

• Various scientific analyses of the disc, the items found with the disc, and the find spot have confirmed the Early Bronze Age dating.
• In 1999, the disc was found buried on the Mittelberg hill near Nebra in Germany.
• The Nebra sky disc features the oldest concrete depiction of astronomical phenomena known from anywhere in the world.
• 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".
• 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.

Source material: Wikipedia - "Nebra sky disc". Adapted and summarized for DiscoverScroll. Original contributors are credited through the linked Wikipedia article. Read original on Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes were made from the original.