Werner Warland
EAAE Summer School Working Group (Germany)
Abstract
The sky disk of Nebra is the earliest representation of the night sky, which has considerable implications on archeo-astronomy, history of religion, archeology and history of metallurgy and of technology. It was dated to approximately 1600 BC on the
basis of bronze artifacts found in same hoard in Nebra, Eastern Germany. According to the scientific and astronomical examinations the current results concerning the manufacture, the use and the importance of the find will be given.
In the second part several group activities with students are described. Each participant of the workshop designs his own astronomical sky disk for a chosen location. The length of its lateral arcs depends on the horizon region which is accessible to the sun over the year. By the use of software or demonstrators of yearly solar motion the azimuth regions are determined. The rest depends on the artificial skill of the builder: an important astronomical event like a sun or moon eclipse can be presented or the historical situation is presented or the brightest stars of the starry night due to different seasons are shown.