Home » The Nebra sky disk and a rather unusual plea bargain

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The Nebra sky disk and a rather unusual plea bargain — 17 Comments

  1. While this is interesting, I find one ancient artifact, the Greek Antiykythera mechanism,** dated to 100-200 B.C., to be head and shoulders above other such ancient artifacts, in pointing to the Ancients as having much more mature scientific knowledge–of things like Astronomy, mathematics and gearing ratios–much more design ability, and more technological knowledge and skill- in things like metallurgy–than we currently think them to have had.

    The production of this calculation and display mechanism is just a stupendous achievement, especially for the time period of 100-200 B.C., and makes me wonder if there were predecessor civilizations–whose knowledge they had some access to–that we, as yet, have no knowledge of.

    P.S. A la the actual vs. the idealized mechanism for scientific advancement pointed out in Kuhn’s “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,” it is very hard for supposedly scientifically/evidence based scholars –Archeologists and Ancient Historians in this case–to give up the chronology, understandings, and explanations they have been taught and have invested in–and on which their publications and careers rest–in favor of some new chronology that calls into question and invalidates the old paradigm, .

    ** See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

  2. This may find a place in the recent interest in the Neolithic/ Bronze age collapse.


    Invasions, destruction and possible population movements during the collapse of the Bronze Age, c.? 1200 BC.
    Bronze Age vte
    ? Chalcolithic
    Near East (c. 3300–1200 BC)
    Anatolia, Caucasus, Elam, Egypt, Levant, Mesopotamia, Sistan, Canaan
    Late Bronze Age collapse
    South Asia (c. 3300–1200 BC)
    Indus Valley Civilization
    Bronze Age South Asia
    Ochre Coloured Pottery
    Cemetery H
    Europe (c. 3200–600 BC)
    Aegean (Cycladic, Minoan, Mycenaean), Caucasus, Catacomb culture, Srubna culture, Beaker culture, Unetice culture, Tumulus culture, Urnfield culture, Hallstatt culture, Apennine culture, Canegrate culture, Golasecca culture,
    Atlantic Bronze Age, Bronze Age Britain, Nordic Bronze Age
    East Asia (c. 2000–300 BC)
    Erlitou, Erligang, Gojoseon, Jomon, Majiayao, Mumun, Qijia, Siwa, Wucheng, Xindian, Yueshi
    arsenical bronzewritingliteratureswordchariot
    ?Iron Age
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    Human history
    ? Prehistory
    Recorded history
    Ancient
    Earliest records
    Africa Americas
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    See also
    Contemporary Modernity Futurology
    ? Future
    vte
    The Late Bronze Age collapse involved a dark-age transition period in the Near East, Asia Minor, Aegean region, North Africa, Caucasus, Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age, a transition which historians believe was violent, sudden, and culturally disruptive. The palace economy of the Aegean region and Anatolia that characterised the Late Bronze Age disintegrated, transforming into the small isolated village cultures of the Greek Dark Ages. The half-century between c.?1200 and 1150 BC saw the cultural collapse of the Mycenaean kingdoms, of the Kassite dynasty of Babylonia, of the Hittite Empire in Anatolia and the Levant, and of the Egyptian Empire;[1] the destruction of Ugarit and the Amorite states in the Levant, the fragmentation of the Luwian states of western Asia Minor, and a period of chaos in Canaan.

    There is interest in this recently because of the political unrest in the US and Europe. David Goldman, in particular, is interested.
    I’m not quite that pessimistic but close.

  3. @Steve no, in Germany and most of Europe anything you dig up out (or find on) of the ground belongs to the owner of that land if the owners of the item can’t be found.

    Prevents people from going onto other peoples’ land that has known mineral deposits on it, digging them up, and taking them as their own among other things.
    And it allows the government to claim any treasure discovered, of course, on public land.

  4. Mike K…

    The collapse is solved in my new history book…

    I wish everyone would wait until it’s in print.

  5. “The two looters received sentences of four months and ten months, respectively, from a Naumburg court in September 2003. They appealed, but the appeals court raised their sentences to six and twelve months, respectively.”

    Cornhead on December 11, 2018 at 11:37 pm at 11:37 pm said:
    That’s a nice trick. Appeal your case and the appellate court gives you a longer sentence.
    * * *
    In some cases, such as this one, I think that’s entirely fitting.
    That’s kind of what happens when a District Court gets reversed by The Supremes.

    It’s been known to happen in lesser arenas.
    When I was a teaching assistant, one of the other TAs confided his secret to not being badgered for re-grades. When a student brought in a test booklet (you all remember the dreaded blue covers, don’t you?), he would flip the cover so he couldn’t see the grade written on the front, peruse it thoughtfully, and then deliver the judgement: “You’re right. I should have given you a C+ on this one.”
    Flips the cover and says with great surprise: “I already gave you a B?”
    The student (it’s never one of the truly ignorant ones, just the ones who got too many participation trophies in lower schools) mumbles and shuffles off to spread the news.
    Of course, the TA knew exactly what grade he gave that student.

    I had the opposite experience one time, of handing back the tests and realizing I had given a D to a girl who usually did grade-A work; asked if she wanted to retake the test, but she declined; she passed the course with ease, even so.

  6. Mike K on December 11, 2018 at 8:57 pm at 8:57 pm said:
    There is interest in this recently because of the political unrest in the US and Europe. David Goldman, in particular, is interested.
    I’m not quite that pessimistic but close.
    * * *
    That was a very interesting review (and I’ve marked the site), but did we really learn anything important from Goldman’s analysis and predictions in his book?
    https://theworthyhouse.com/2017/07/19/book-review-how-civilizations-die-david-goldman/

    (I added “important” because I learned a lot of interesting things, as one would expect from a collection of columns loosely bound together.)

    This might be noted in reference to Neo’s prior post on overpopulation:
    ” He points out something often forgotten—that each person in the modern world produces vastly more than he consumes, and thus the most common arguments against alleged overpopulation fail before they get started. ”

    And this was news, though not an unexpected shock:
    “The only country joining America in this pullout from the demographic plunge is Israel, where the birth rate is still well above replacement, driven in part (but only in part) by the Orthodox birth rate of an incredible 8.5 children per women.”

    Goldman’s book was written in 2011, the review in 2017, and this is almost a tautology:
    “But the rub with a book of predictions is that, sooner or later, the future arrives. “

  7. That’s a nice trick. Appeal your case and the appellate court gives you a longer sentence.

    In Conrad Black’s case, an appeal resulted in a charge that had been dismissed (As I recall) being reinstated by the Appeals Court. I read his book about it several years ago.

    He REALLY does not like the American legal system. He got railroaded by FitzGerald, the same one.

  8. The disk is a remarkable piece of work. We fools pride ourselves on our advanced civilization, but this disk dates back some 3000 years, a remarkable piece of metalwork. Its makers were able!
    I wonder if there is some astronomic relevance to the star dots.

  9. Archaeological artifacts are the property of the state in Saxony-Anhalt.

    thereby making the business more lucrative and making it worth destroying and seeking such..

    lots of places have lots of different laws on it.
    some of the BEST are laws in which the state gets first choice to buy

    some of the worst, like above, create a situation where the longer you can keep a site secret, the longer you can loot it to earn money…

    then there is of course, the dems and lefist ilk and islam, they just destroy it

  10. Thanks, Phillipa. The star cluster is thought to represent an important constellation, the Pleiades, per Wiki.

  11. The U.S. has similar silly treasure laws. But in the UK the finder gets market value. The government brings in the archaeologists and everything is done properly. Less damage that way.

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