ScienceEurope

The Nebra sky disc

1,601 BCE

The oldest known depiction of the night sky

In depth

The disc encodes a calendar rule: when the thin crescent stands with the Pleiades, an intercalary month must be inserted to keep lunar and solar years aligned. That rule is otherwise known only from Babylonian texts a thousand years later. Its gold came from Cornwall, the copper from the Alps, the tin from Britain — Bronze Age Europe was far more tightly connected than long assumed.

For children

A bronze disc with sun, moon and stars in gold, buried on a hilltop in Germany three and a half thousand years ago. The cluster of stars is the Pleiades, which tells you when to sow and when to reap.

Connects to

Stonehenge3,001 BCE – 1,601 BCE
Bronze and the wheel3,301 BCE
The megaliths rise4,801 BCE – 2,501 BCE

Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org