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Tuesday, 26th June 2007 (1882 views)

A debate over whether a Bronze Age disc is an early calendar has been reignited, claims a report.

Scientists have written in the Antiquity journal that the Nebra disc, which was reportedly found near the German town of Nebra, is not a calendar but a tool for shamanistic rituals, according to the BBC.

Thought to be 3,600 years old, the artefact contains gold mined in the Carpathian basin and copper believed to originate in the eastern Alps.

Some archaeologists believe that two golden arcs displayed on the disc represent the movement of the sunrise and the sunset along the horizon in winter and summer.

However, Curt Roslund, an astronomer at Gothenburg, told BBC News: "It's a difficult question to answer, but I do not think it was used as an instrument for observing objects in the sky."

The Carpathian basin is situated in central Europe, divided by the River Danube.

 

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