#Unetice culture

[fromthedust]

The Nebra Sky Disc - bronze, gold - Unetice culture - Early Bronze Age - c.1800-1600 BCE

The Nebra sky disc is a bronze disc of around 30 cm (12") diameter and a weight of 2.2 kg (4.9 lb), having a blue-green patina and inlaid with gold symbols. These symbols are interpreted generally as the Sun, a lunar crescent, and stars (including a cluster of seven stars interpreted as the Pleiades). Two golden arcs along the sides, interpreted to mark the angle between the solstices, were added later. A final addition was another arc at the bottom with internal parallel lines, which is usually interpreted as a solar boat with numerous oars, though some authors have also suggested that it may represent a rainbow, the Aurora Borealis, or a comet.

The disc was found buried on the Mittelberg hill near Nebra in Germany. It is dated by archaeologists to c. 1800–1600 BCE and attributed to the Early Bronze Age Unetice culture. It served as a reminder of when it was necessary to synchronize the lunar and solar years by inserting a leap month. This phenomenon occurred when the three-and-a-half-day-old moon —the crescent moon on the disc— was visible at the same time as the Pleiades. As preserved, the disc was developed in four stages:

Initially the disc had thirty-two small round gold circles, a large circular plate, and a large crescent-shaped plate attached. The circular plate is interpreted as the Sun, the crescent shape as the Moon, and the dots as stars, with the cluster of seven dots likely representing the Pleiades star cluster.  At some later date, two arcs (constructed from gold of a different origin, as shown by its chemical impurities) were added at opposite edges of the disc. To make space for these arcs, one small circle was moved from the left side toward the center of the disc and two of the circles on the right were covered over, so that thirty remain visible. The two arcs span an angle of 82°, correctly indicating the angle between the positions of sunset at summer and winter solstice at the latitude of the Mittelberg (51°N).  The final addition was another arc at the bottom, identified as a solar boat, again made of gold, but originating from another different source. By the time the disc was buried it also had 38 to 40 holes punched out around its perimeter, each approximately 3 millimetres (0.12 in) in diameter. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebra_sky_disc

[ownencyclopedia]

☀ "The Nebra sky disk" (from Germany)

The disc was found buried on the Mittelberg hill near Nebra in Germany. It is dated by archaeologists to c. 1800–1600 BCE and attributed to the Early Bronze Age Unetice culture.

The Nebra sky disk is a bronze disk about 30 centimeters (11 3/4 inch) in diameter and weighing 2.2 kilograms (4.9 lb), having a blue-green patina and inlaid with gold symbols. These symbols are interpreted generally as the Sun or full moon, a lunar crescent, and stars (including a cluster of seven interpreted as the Pleiades).

Two golden arcs along the sides, interpreted to mark the angle between the solstices, were added later. A final addition was another arc at the bottom surrounded with multiple strokes (of uncertain meaning, variously interpreted as a Solar Barge with numerous oars, the Milky Way, or a rainbow).

The find is regarded as reconfirming that the astronomical knowledge and abilities of the people of the European Bronze Age included close observation of the yearly course of the Sun, and the angle between its rising and setting points at the summer and winter solstices.

[celtic-canvas-culture]

Pre-Roman Timeline of Europe

Neolithic Cultures: 6000 BC - 3000 BC

Bronze Age Influence: 4000 BC (pre-Yamnaya) - 2000 BC

Megalithic Era: 3000 BC (Yamnaya Expansion)

Corded Ware Culture: 3000 BC - 2500 BC

Bell Beaker Culture: 2800 BC - 2200 BC

Unetice Culture: 2200 BC - 1600 BC

Tumulus Culture: 1600 BC - 1300 BC

Unfiled Cultures: 1300 BC (Bonze Age Collapse & Rise of Celtic Culture) - 750 BC 

Hallstatt Culture: 1200 BC - 500 BC (Rome founded in 753 BC)

La Tene Culture: (450 BC - 43 AD)

Roman Era: (50 BC - 476 AD) 

Dates are not approximate 

[venusianchic]

The Nebra Sky Disc

The Nebra sky disc is a bronze disc. These symbols are interpreted generally as the Sun or full moon, a lunar crescent, and stars (including a cluster of seven stars, axiomatically interpreted as the Pleiades or simply as a symbol for star clusters.

Two golden arcs along the sides, interpreted to mark the angle between the solstices, were added later. A final addition was another arc at the bottom with internal parallel lines, which is usually interpreted as a solar boat with numerous oars,[6] though some authors have also suggested that it may represent a rainbow, the Aurora Borealis, or a comet.

The disc was found buried on the Mittelberg hill near Nebra in Germany.[10] It is dated by archaeologists to c. 1800–1600 BCE and attributed to the Early Bronze Age Unetice culture.

[archaeologicalnews]

Face of wealthy Bronze-Age Bohemian woman revealed in stunning reconstruction

Researchers have reconstructed the face of a petite, dark-haired woman who was among the richest residents of Bronze-Age Bohemia.

The woman was buried with five bronze bracelets, two gold earrings and a three-strand necklace of more than 400 amber beads. Also entombed with her were three bronze sewing needles. She was part of the Únětice culture, a group of peoples from early Bronze Age Central Europe known for their metal artifacts, including ax-heads, daggers, bracelets and twisted-metal necklaces called torcs.

While it's unclear who the woman was, she was very wealthy, said archaeologist Michal Ernée of the Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.

"It's maybe the richest female grave from the whole Únětice cultural region," Ernée told Live Science. Read more.

[mybeingthere]

Markéta Luskačová (born 1944), a Czech photographer - “On Death and Horses and Other People”. 

Luskacova began to document the Czech Carnival (Masopust) in 1998 and has photographed more than 40 carnivals in Bohemian cities, towns and villages, where this pre-Lenten procession involves music, dance, costumes and feasting. The exhibit at the MSU Museum is comprised mostly from photographs made as the people of Roztoky, a small town near Prague, walked across fields and over Bare Hill to the neighboring village of Unetice. It also has a few of her earliest Czech Carnival photographs that were made in Prague. Masopust was widely suppressed in communist Czechoslovakia, and has only reappeared in a cultural renaissance since the democratization of the Czech Republic.

[thatshowthingstarted]

The Nebra disc. 

The Nebra sky disc is a bronze disc of around 30 cm (12 in) diameter and a weight of 2.2 kg (4.9 lb), having a blue-green patina and inlaid with gold symbols. These symbols are interpreted generally as the Sun or full moon, a lunar crescent, and stars (including a cluster of seven stars interpreted as the Pleiades). 

Two golden arcs along the sides, interpreted to mark the angle between the solstices, were added later. A final addition was another arc at the bottom with internal parallel lines (of uncertain meaning, variously interpreted as a solar barge with numerous oars, the Milky Way or a rainbow).

The disc has been attributed to a site in present-day Germany near Nebra, Saxony-Anhalt and was originally dated by archaeologists C1600 BCE, based on the provenance provided by the looters who found it.Researchers initially suggested the disc is an artefact from the Bronze Age Unetice culture, although a later dating to the Iron Age has also been proposed.

If its Bronze Age dating is accurate, the Nebra sky disc features the oldest concrete depiction of the cosmos yet known from anywhere in the world.

Credit: State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt, Juraj Lipták

[salonduthe]

The Nebra Sky Disc.

From NASA:

Some consider it the oldest known illustration of the night sky. But what, exactly, does it depict, and why was it made? The Nebra sky disk was found with a metal detector in 1999 by treasure hunters near Nebra, Germany, in the midst of several bronze-age weapons. The ancient artifact spans about 30 centimeters and has been associated with the Unetice culture that inhabited part of Europe around 1600 BC. Reconstructed, the dots are thought to represent stars, with the cluster representing the Pleiades, and the large circle and the crescent representing the Sun and Moon. The purpose of the disk remains unknown -- hypotheses including an astronomical clock, a work of art, and a religious symbol.

[sciencemanic]

The Nebra sky disk, considered by some the oldest known illustration of the night sky. The artifact, found near Nebra Flag of Germany, in the midst of several bronze-age weapons, is associated with the Unetice culture, inhabiting part of Europe around 1600 BC.

[blueiscoool]

Bronze Age Tomb of Female Ruler Discovered in Spain

About 3,700 years ago, a man and a woman were buried together in the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula. Their tomb was an ovoid jar beneath the floor of a grand hall in an expansive hilltop complex known as La Almoloya, in what is now Murcia, Spain. It’s one of many archaeological sites associated with the El Argar culture of the Early Bronze Age that controlled an area about the size of Belgium from 2200 B.C. to 1500 B.C.

Judging by the 29 high-value objects in the tomb, described Thursday in the journal Antiquity, the couple appear to have been members of the Argaric upper class. And the woman may have been the more important of the two, raising questions for archaeologists about who wielded power among the Argarics, and adding more evidence to a debate about the role of women in prehistoric Europe.

She died in her 20s, possibly of tuberculosis, and had been placed on her back with her legs bent toward the man. In life, she had a range of congenital anomalies such as a shortened, fused spine and a stunted left thumb.

On and around her were sublime silver emblems of wealth and power. Her hair had been fastened with silver spirals, and her silver earlobe plugs — one larger than the other — had silver spirals looped through them. A silver bracelet was near her elbow, and a silver ring was still on her finger. Silver embellished the diamond-shaped ceramic pot near her, and triple plates of silver embellished her oak-wood awl — a symbol of womanhood.

Her most fantastic silver artifact is an impeccably crafted diadem — a headband-like crown — that still rested on her head. Only six have been discovered in Argaric graves.

She would have shimmered in life. “Imagine the diadem with a disc going down to the tip of her nose,” said Cristina Rihuete Herrada, an archaeologist and professor of prehistory at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, and one of the discoverers of the burial. “It’s shining. You could actually see yourself in the disc. Framing the eyes of that woman, it would be a very, very impressive thing to see. And the ability of somebody to be reflected — their face in another face — would have been something shocking.”

The sound of her would have been dramatic too: “Think about the noise — this clink clink clink, because it’s silver against silver in these very large earlobes,” Dr. Rihuete Herrada said. “That would make for a remarkable person.”

The man, who was in his 30s when he died, had been interred with his own fineries, including flared gold plugs in his ears. The silver ring that had once been on his finger had fallen off and lay near his lower back. By his side was a copper dagger fitted with four silver rivets.

Like their contemporaries — such as the Minoans of Crete, the Wessex of Britain and the Unetice of Central Europe — the Argarics had the hallmarks of a state society, with a ruling bureaucracy, geopolitical boundaries, complex settlement systems and urban centers with monumental structures. They had divisions of labor and class distinctions that persisted after death, based on the wide disparity of grave goods discovered at archaeological sites.

And while most of these systems have long been considered deeply patriarchal, the double burial at La Almoloya and other Argaric graves are making archaeologists reconsider life in ancient Iberia. Was she the one wielding the power? Was she a symbol of power but held none of her own? Did they share power or wield it in different realms?

They were buried beneath the floor of a great hall, where long benches lined the walls, and a podium stood before a hearth meant for warmth and light, not cooking. The space was big enough to hold about 50 people. “There have been hundreds of El Argar buildings excavated, and this one is unique. It’s quite clearly a building specialized in politics,” Dr. Rihuete Herrada said. The couple had at least one child together — an infant discovered buried beneath a nearby building was a genetic match to both of them.

In the El Argar culture, girls were given grave goods at an earlier age than boys were, indicating they were considered women before boys were considered men. Diadems are exclusively found with women, and their graves hold a richer variety of valuable goods. Some male elite warriors were buried with swords.

As for the power structure the two occupied, Dr. Rihuete Herrada suggests that perhaps they held potency in different realms. The swords could suggest “that enforcement of government decisions will be in the hands of men. Maybe women were political rulers, but not alone,” she said.

She suggests that perhaps the Argarics were similar to the matrilineal Haudenosaunee (known also as the Iroquois), with women holding political and decision-making power — including over matters of chiefdom, war and justice — but men being in control of the military.

These intriguing ideas fit into an emerging body of research from various archaeological studies in Europe that are re-examining female power during the Bronze Age.

“The fact that most of the grave goods, including all of those made of silver, were associated with the female clearly points to an individual that was considered highly important,” said Karin Frei, a research professor in archaeometry at the National Museum of Denmark. “It makes sense to raise the question of whether a class-based state society could be ruled by women.”

Dr. Frei is the director of Tales of Bronze Age People, which uses methods such as biogeochemical and biomolecular analyses to study the remains from both elite and commoner burials in Denmark. “In several parts of Bronze Age Europe, females might have played a much bigger role in political and/or long-distance networks than previously thought,” she said.

Joanna Bruck, an expert in the Bronze Age of Britain and Ireland and head of the School of Archaeology at University College Dublin, says that the assumption that elite women of this era were “bartered brides,” exchanged as objects in networks of male power, is ripe for reconsideration.

he burial at La Almoloya “provides such clear evidence that women could hold special political power in the past,” Dr. Bruck said. “I think we’ve got to be open to the possibility that they wielded power and agency. Of course, power is a really complex thing. You can have power in some contexts but not in others. We shouldn’t think of power being something that you have or don’t have.”

By Jennifer Pinkowski.

[scotiaeire]

WHERE DID CELTS COME FROM?

“ Celtic Genetics and Paganism explained... Celts are known for tartan, faeries, druids, bagpipes and the British Isles - but the origins of the Celtic culture lie in the Unetice culture of Bronze age central Europe and it spread out with the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures. In this history documentary, I look at the genetic evidence for the spread of Celts into Britain and Ireland in the Iron Age, as well as the Galatian Celts into Anatolia. Then I examine some Celtic archaeological artefacts such as the Gundestrup cauldron and the Marlborough bucket and I introduce the viewer to some of the basic aspects of Druidry and the Indo-European religion of the ancient Celts. “

[just--space]

The Nebra Sky Disk : It is considered the oldest known illustration of the night sky. But what, exactly, does it depict, and why was it made? The Nebra sky disk was found with a metal detector in 1999 by treasure hunters near Nebra, Germany, in the midst of several bronze-age weapons. The ancient artifact spans about 30 centimeters and has been associated with the Unetice culture that inhabited part of Europe around 1600 BC. Reconstructed, the dots are thought to represent stars, with the cluster representing the Pleiades, and the large circle and the crescent representing the Sun and Moon. The purpose of the disk remains unknown -- hypotheses including an astronomical clock, a work of art, and a religious symbol. Valued at about $11 million, some believe that the Nebra sky disk is only one of a pair, with the other disk still out there waiting to be discovered. via NASA

[anirobot]

Bronze Age regicide? German forensics team say prince of Helmsdorf ...

Nebra sky disk - Wikipedia

Unetice culture - Wikipedia

[maximaxoo]

#History: the Nebra Sky Disk, c. 1600BC, associated with the Bronze Age Unetice culture - http://bit.ly/ZQqfxa

[usedcarheaven]

“The disc has been attributed to a site in present-day Germany near Nebra, Saxony-Anhalt, and was originally dated by archaeologists to c. 1600 BCE, based on the provenance provided by the looters who found it. Researchers initially suggested the disc is an artefact from the Bronze Age Unetice culture, although a later dating to the Iron Age has also been proposed.”

If its Bronze Age dating is accurate, the Nebra sky disc features the oldest concrete depiction of the cosmos yet known from anywhere in the world. In June 2013, it was included in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register and termed "one of the most important archaeological finds of the twentieth century." If, however, the Iron Age dating is sustained, "then that title could go to a star clock in a grave's wall painting found in Thebes, Egypt", which is dated to 1463 BCE.”

The Nebra Disc, The British Museum, London

[sciencespies]

Dazzling treasures unearthed in Bronze Age grave likely belonged to a queen

https://sciencespies.com/humans/dazzling-treasures-unearthed-in-bronze-age-grave-likely-belonged-to-a-queen/

Dazzling treasures unearthed in Bronze Age grave likely belonged to a queen

The burial of a woman who lived and died thousands of years ago could shift our perceptions of one of the most sophisticated European Bronze Age civilizations, the El Argar.

It’s one of the most lavish burials of the European Bronze Age; and, although the woman was buried with a man, most of the expensive grave goods were hers, suggesting that she was of much higher social status.

By comparing her grave to that of other El Argar women, researchers led by archaeologist Vicente Lull of the Autonomous University of Barcelona in Spain have concluded that women in this culture could have played a more important political role than we previously knew.

The grave itself, a large ceramic jar named grave 38, was discovered in 2014, at the La Almoloya archaeological site on the Iberian Peninsula, Spain. It was found beneath the floor of what seems to be the governing hall filled with benches in a palace, an interpretation bolstered by the richness of the grave contents.

(Arqueoecologia Social Mediterrània Research Group, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)

“The general lack of artifacts on the floor of [the hall] H9, combined with the structural prominence of the benches, indicate that social gatherings of up to 50 individuals could be held in this large room,” the researchers wrote in their paper.

“We can only speculate as to whether such meetings were intended for discussion and participation in shared decision making or, rather, for the transmission of orders within a hierarchical chain of command. That the grave offerings of grave 38 far exceed those from any other contemporaneous tomb in La Almoloya, and in many other sites, suggests the second option.”

The jar contained the remains of two individuals – a man, who died between the ages of 35 and 40, and a woman, who died between the ages of 25 and 30. Genetic analyses confirmed that they were unrelated, but radiocarbon dating shows they died at the same time or very close together, around 1730 BCE. Remains found not far from the grave were related to both – their daughter.

The man’s bones showed signs of wear and tear consistent with long-term physical activity, perhaps horse-riding, and a healed traumatic injury to the front of his head.

The woman’s bones showed signs of congenital abnormalities, including a missing rib, only six cervical vertebrae, and fused sacral vertebrae. Markings on her ribs could have been produced by a lung infection when she died.

(Arqueoecologia Social Mediterrània Research Group, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)

Nevertheless, she seemed to have been wealthy. The pair was buried with 29 items, most of which were made of silver, and most of which seemed to belong to the woman – necklaces, bracelets on her arms, an awl with a silver-coated handle, and silver-coated ceramic pots, the latter two of which would have required a great deal of skill in silversmithing.

The man wasn’t without ornaments: his arm was adorned with a copper bracelet; he wore a necklace of seven large, colored beads; a dagger with silver rivets lay alongside him; and two gold ear tunnels were likely his, too.

But it was what the woman wore on her head that really excited the research team: a silver circlet, or diadem, placed with a silver disc that would have extended down to her forehead or the bridge of her nose. It’s similar to four other diadems found in the 19th century in richly appointed women’s graves.

(Arqueoecologia Social Mediterrània Research Group, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)

“The singularity of these diadems is extraordinary. They were symbolic objects made for these women, thus transforming them into emblematic subjects of the dominant ruling class,” said archaeologist Cristina Rihuete-Herrada of the Autonomous University of Barcelona in Spain.

“Each piece is unique, comparable to funerary objects pertaining to the ruling class of other regions, such as Brittany, Wessex and Unetice, or in the eastern Mediterranean of the 17th century BCE, contemporary to our Grave 38.”

The silver in the grave goods had a combined weight of around 230 grams (8 ounces). This is a staggering amount of wealth to bury: in Babylon at this time, the daily wages for a laborer were around 0.23 to 0.26 grams of silver. These two people were buried with 938 days’ worth of Babylonian wages.

Previous analyses had proposed that the women buried in such rich graves were either sovereigns, or the wives of sovereigns. It’s still impossible to tell, but the research team believes that the evidence points towards the former.

“In the Argaric society, women of the dominant classes were buried with diadems, while the men were buried with a sword and dagger,” they explained.

“The funerary goods buried with these men were of lesser quantity and quality. As swords represent the most effective instrument for reinforcing political decisions, El Argar dominant men might have played an executive role, even though the ideological legitimation as well as, perhaps, the government, had lain in some women’s hands.”

As women have wielded political power often throughout history, would that really be such a surprise?

The research has been published in Antiquity.

#Humans