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SAXONY-ANHALT

What the mysterious ‘Nebra Sky Disk’ tells us about ancient German history

Twenty years ago, a stunning Bronze Age artifact was discovered in an eastern German forest. The subject of a new book, it reveals how people once saw the world - and the night sky above it.

What the mysterious 'Nebra Sky Disk' tells us about ancient German history
The Nebra Sky Disk on display at the 'Restless Times' exhibit at the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin at an archaeology exhibit in September 2018. Photo: DPA

Were it not for the treasure hunters, it might never have been found.

Buried in the woods near Nebra, in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt, the artifact, along with jewellery and swords lay for over three thousand years, until the whine of metal detectors disturbed its silence one day in 1999.

Once uncovered, the Nebra Sky Disk would help us understand just how the ancestors of modern Germans viewed the world around them.

For now, however, this was all in the future.

Travelling through Europe

The Disk, considered just another ornamental adornment, was taken by the treasure hunters, Henry Westphal and Mario Renner, and found its way into the lucrative black market for archaeological artifacts, stretching across Europe.

There, the Disk, along with the artifacts uncovered with it, changed hands for two years until too many people became aware of it. Then, in a police sting worthy of Tatort, the treasures from Nebra were recovered and sent back to Saxony-Anhalt, to the care of Harald Meller, the state archaeologist.

Harald Meller (l), Saxony-Anhalt's state archeologist, and Matthias Wemhoff, Director of the Berlin Museum for Prehistory and Early History, take a look at the Nebra Sky Disk in the Martin-Gropius-Bau before it goes on display with 1,000 impressive artifacts found throughout Germany. Photo: DPA

That’s when Meller and his team discovered something extraordinary.

At first glance, the Disk – 30 cm in diameter and made of bronze, appeared to show the night sky, the moon and sun both present in gold. Two gold bands were also present – it appeared one had slipped from its original position.

Subsequent tests, however, that dated the deposition of the disk to around 1600 BCE and a manufacture date of 200 years before, revealed that the Bronze Age artifact was quite possibly much more than simple adornment.

When aligned properly and held flat, the gold bands aligned with the spread of sunrise and sunsets over the course of a year. The cluster of stars towards the top right appear to be the Pleiades constellation, possibly an aid in aligning the disk.

The Disk was also the subject of a recent Der Spiegel bestseller, co-authored by Kai Michel and the archaeologist who examined it, Harald Meller. The book is called ‘The Nebra Sky Disc: The Key to a Lost Culture in the Heart of Europe’, and while it is only available in German at present, an English edition with stunning illustrations is planned.

Unetice people: understanding the night sky

While the Unetice people, to whom it belonged, left no written records, the existence of the Disk does go a long way to supporting the idea that they had a complex understanding of the cycles of the night sky, and a developing understanding of navigation.

It is hypothesised that the Nebra Sky Disk was a ritual item, used by a priestly class at certain times of the year to remind and reaffirm the movements of the heavens, the path of sun and moon. This idea is supported by the provenance of the metals, that originate from all across Europe – this was no everyday item, and took a great deal of work to put together.

The Nebra Sky Disk is usually kept in the Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte in Halle, but it sometimes lent out for exhibitions. It recently featured in the major exhibit of German archaeological artefacts, ‘Restless Times’, that brought thousands of visitors to Berlin.

The Nebra visitor centre in Saxony-Anhalt. Photo: DPA

For those who want to understand more about the world of the people who created the Nebra Sky Disk up close and personal, the ‘Nebra Ark’, a wonderfully-designed visitor centre, does a lot to interpret the world of the Bronze Age in an engaging, interactive fashion.

We may never know the exact use and provenance of the Nebra Sky Disk, but still it remains one of Germany’s most priceless archaeological treasures, and a reminder of the timeless relationship humanity has with the skies above.

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Mike Stuchbery, historian and author, contributes to The Local German on all things history.

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ELECTIONS

Germany’s far-right AfD ahead in regional poll with anti-shutdown stance

Best known as an anti-migrant party, Germany's far-right AfD has seized on the coronavirus pandemic to court a new type of voter ahead of regional elections in the state of Saxony-Anhalt on Sunday: anti-shutdown activists.

Germany's far-right AfD ahead in regional poll with anti-shutdown stance
Björn Höcke, party chairman in Thuringia, at an election event in Merseburg, Saxony-Anhalt on May 29th. Photo: picture alliance/dpa/dpa-Zentralbild | Sebastian Willnow

“Sending so many people into poverty with so few infections is problematic for us,” is how Oliver Kirchner, the AfD’s top candidate in Saxony-Anhalt, views the measures ordered by the government to halt Covid-19 transmission.

The anti-shutdown stance seems to be paying off in the former East German state. The party is riding high in the polls and even stands a chance of winning a regional election for the first time.

READ ALSO: Germany’s far-right AfD chooses hardline team ahead of national elections

Surveys have the AfD neck-and-neck with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU, with the Bild daily even predicting victory for the far-right party on 26 percent, ahead of the CDU on 25 percent.

In Saxony-Anhalt’s last election in 2016, the CDU was the biggest party, scoring 30 percent and forming a coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens.

But the CDU has taken a hammering in the opinion polls in recent months, with voters unhappy with the government’s pandemic management and a corruption scandal involving shady coronavirus mask contracts.

Social deprivation

A victory for the AfD would spell a huge upset for the conservatives just four months ahead of a general election in Germany — the first in 16 years not to feature Merkel.

They started out campaigning against the euro currency in 2013. Then in 2015 they capitalised on public anger over Merkel’s 2015 decision to let in a wave of asylum seekers from conflict-torn countries such as Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The party caused a sensation in Germany’s last general election in 2017 when it secured almost 13 percent of the vote, entering parliament for the first time as the largest opposition party.

Troubled by internal divisions and accusations of ties to neo-Nazi fringe groups, the party has more recently seen its support at the national level stagnate at between 10 and 12 percent.

READ ALSO: Germany’s far-right AfD investigated over election ties

The party is also controversial in Saxony-Anhalt itself. In state capital Magdeburg, posters showing local candidate Hagen Kohl have been defaced with Hitler moustaches and the words “Never again”.

For wine merchant Jan Buhmann, 57, victory for the far-right party would be a “disaster”.

“The pandemic has shown that we need new ideas. We need young people, we need dynamism in the state. For me, the AfD does not stand for that,” he said.

Yet the AfD’s core supporters have largely remained unwavering in the former East German states.

For pensioner Hans-Joachim Peters, 73, the AfD is “the only party that actually tells it like it is”.

Politicians should “think less about Europe and more about Germany”, he told AFP in Magdeburg. AfD campaigners there were handing out flyers calling for “resistance” and “an end to all anti-constitutional restrictions on our liberties”.

Political scientist Hajo Funke of Berlin’s Free University puts the AfD’s core strength in eastern Germany down to “social deprivation and frustration” resulting from problems with reunification.

The party’s latest anti-corona restrictions stance has also helped it play up its anti-establishment credentials, adding some voters to its core base, he said.

Other east German states in which the AfD has a stronghold, such as Saxony and Thuringia, continue to have the highest 7-day incidences per 100,000 residents in the country. Saxony-Anhalt’s 7-day incidence, however, currently is below the national average (31.3) as of Wednesday June 3rd.

READ ALSO: Why are coronavirus figures so high in German regions with far-right leanings?

Hijab snub

Funke predicted the AfD would attract broadly the same voters in
Saxony-Anhalt as it did in 2016, when it won 24 percent of the vote.

“Some have dropped off because the party is too radical, some radicals who didn’t vote are now voting and some of those who are anti-corona are also voting for the AfD,” he said.

The Sachsen-Anhalt-Monitor 2020 report, commissioned by the local government, found that the main concern for voters in the region was the economic fallout from the pandemic. But the AfD’s core selling point — immigration and refugees — was number two on their list.

According to AfD candidate Kirchner, many people in Saxony-Anhalt still view the influx of refugees to Germany “very critically”.

“And I think they are right,” he said at a campaign stand in Magdeburg decked in the AfD’s signature blue. “Who is going to rebuild Syria? Who is going to do that if everyone comes here?”

When a young woman wearing a hijab walked past the stand, no one attempted to hand her a flyer.

By Femke Colborne

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