Calendar Question Over Star Disc

BBC ^ | 6-26-2007

[blam]

GGG Ping.

[RightWhale]

It’s a foot across, which is somewhat large for a piece of jewelry. It could be some kind of astronomical tool although it was used more to impress the duke and the pesants than to do something useful. Anybody could keep track of the seasons with a stick and a sharp rock.

[Calvin Locke]

I was thinking an ag calendar tool, myself. Rocks and sticks can easily be misplaced, borrowed, kicked, etc.

Remember that epi of Gilligan's Island in which Gilligan moves the Professor's "ice caps are melting" or "the island is sinking" stick?

A foot across for a piece of metal might mean it was on public display, like clocks were later.

OTOH, it looks as if it could be the predecessor to the "smiley face", if done by Dali.

[CholeraJoe]

I could be wrong but I thought the 7th star in the Plieides wasn’t visible with the naked eye.

[Caramelgal]

But Ernst Pernicke...”If you urinate on a piece of bronze and then hide it in the ground for a few weeks you can produce the same patina as on the disc”

Peter Schauer…"The patina on all the pieces is different," he said, "If you urinate on a piece of bronze and then hide it in the ground for a few weeks you can produce the same patina as on the disc."

That’s just too weird. Two German scientists mention urination in the same article. Is urination on antiquities a common thing or a form of carbon dating over there? Or is it just part of an Oktoberfest tradition?

Wouldn’t carbon dating the piece (sans any urine) solve the mystery as to how old it really is?

[kitchen]

I could be wrong but I thought the 7th star in the Plieides wasn’t visible with the naked eye.

Who would have named this group The Seven Sisters if they could only see six stars? The seventh star has been an eye test for thousands of years.

[gcruse]

” Who would have named this group The Seven Sisters if they could only see six stars? ‘

Now, that’s the best refutation I’ve seen in years. LOL

[CholeraJoe]

I looked the constellation up in Wikipedia and wouldn't you know, they had a picture of this disc? Link

[CholeraJoe]

I guess the ancient Hindus were nearsighted. They called the constellation “the Six mothers of Skanda.”

[blam]

Seven Sisters

"Seven Sisters Below are twelve versions of the Seven Sisters story as circulated among Aboriginal peoples. Its most common name is Kungarangkulpa."

[Calvin Locke]

Well, you throw in all the light pollution of industrial societies...

[muawiyah]

Definitely Oktoberfest.

The pointed stick method is used to spear fish and hold them over smoking charcoal.

You eat that with strips of peeled turnip.

[gcruse]

“Well, you throw in all the light pollution of industrial societies...’

That’s right. In Los Angeles, the Orion constellation is called, “the Lone Star.”

[Calvin Locke]

That bad? I'll get the sodium light glow from the North on hazy/misty nights.

It washes out the color from auroras, too.

[gcruse]

Nah, I’m just funnin’ you. You can’t see ANY stars at night in the LA basin.

[BlazingArizona]

Archaeologists have revived the debate over whether a spectacular Bronze Age disc from Germany is one of the earliest known calendars.

The world's first PDA!

[RightWhale]

See the furrows in the arc at the bottom? That means the fields are plowed and producing then.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Blam. "shamanistic rituals" and "shamanic rituals"... shaman 'em.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.

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[Fred Nerks]

I think it’s a shield...and on the LHS there’s some gold missing.

Many shields were elaborately decorated:

http://www.myarmoury.com/feature_shield.html