The gate of the year

Figure above and below:

Bronze disk with golden inlays, known as the “Nebra Sky Disk”, attributable to the Bronze Age (between 2100 and 1700 B.C.). The object has been found near the town of Nebra (Saxony-Anhalt, Germany) and is now in the State Museum of Prehistory (Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte), Halle, Germany. On the disk surface are represented some heavenly bodies: the sun or full moon, the crescent, the Pleiades. Some German scholars have speculated that it contained astronomical meanings, linked to the equinoxes and solstices. The presence of the Pleiades could recall the period marking the beginning and end of the agricultural works.

[Images: http://www.donsmaps.com/skydisc.html]




Seasonal Cycles

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Figure above and below: Bronze disk with golden inlays, known as the “Nebra Sky Disk”, attributable to the Bronze Age (between 2100 and 1700 B.C.). The object has been found near the town of Nebra (Saxony-Anhalt, Germany) and is now in the State Museum of Prehistory (Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte), Halle, Germany. On the disk surface are represented some heavenly bodies: the sun or full moon, the crescent, the Pleiades. Some German scholars have speculated that it contained astronomical meanings, linked to the equinoxes and solstices. The presence of the Pleiades could recall the period marking the beginning and end of the agricultural works. [Images: http://www.donsmaps.com/skydisc.html]