SOLAR BARGES
A solar symbol is a symbol which symbolises the Sun. Solar symbols can have significance in psychoanalysis, symbolism, semiotics, astrology, religion,mythology, mysticism, divination, heraldry, and vexillology, among other fields.
SUN CROSS
A sun cross (also solar cross, wheel cross) is the term for a symbol consisting of an equilateral cross inside a circlewhen considered as a solar symbol.
The design is frequently found in the symbolism of prehistoric cultures, particularly during the Neolithic to Bronze Ageperiods of European prehistory. The symbol's ubiquity and apparent importance in prehistoric religion have given rise to its interpretation as a solar symbol, whence the modern English term "sun cross" (a calque of GermanSonnenkreuz).
The symbol can be depicted in Unicode as U+2295 (⊕ globe with equator and a meridian) or as U+2A01 (⨁). The same symbol is in use as a modern astronomical symbol representing the Earth rather than the Sun.
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[hide]Interpretation as solar symbol[edit]
The interpretation of the simple equilateral cross as a solar symbol in Bronze Age religion was widespread in 19th-century scholarship. The cross-in-a-circle was interpreted as a solar symbol derived from the interpretation of the disc of the Sun as the wheel of the chariot of the Sun god.[1] Wieseler (1881) postulated an (unattested) Gothic rune hvel("wheel") representing the solar deity by the "wheel" symbol of a cross-in-a-circle, reflected by the Gothic letter hwair(𐍈).[2]
The English term "Sun-Cross", on the other hand, is comparatively recent, apparently loaned from GermanSonnenkreuz and used in the 1955 translation of Rudolf Koch's Book of Signs ("The Sun-Cross or Cross of Wotan", p. 94).
The German term Sonnenkreuz was used in 19th-century scholarly literature of any cross symbol interpreted as a solar symbol, an equilateral cross either with or without a circle, or an oblique cross (Saint Andrew's cross). Sonnenkreuz was used of the flag design of the Paneuropean Union in the 1920s.[3] In the 1930s, a version of the symbol with broken arms (resembling a swastika) was popular as a link between Christianity and Germanic paganism in the völkisch German Faith Movement.[4]
Popular legend in Ireland says that the Celtic Christian cross was introduced by Saint Patrick or possibly Saint Declan, though there are no examples from this early period. It has often been claimed that Patrick combined the symbol of Christianity with the sun cross to give pagan followers an idea of the importance of the cross. By linking it with the idea of the life-giving properties of the sun, these two ideas were linked to appeal to pagans. Other interpretations claim that placing the cross on top of the circle represents Christ's supremacy over the pagan sun.
Archaeological record[edit]
Bronze Age[edit]
In the prehistoric religion of Bronze Age Europe, crosses in circles appear frequently on artifacts identified as cult items, for example the "miniature standard" with an amber inlay that shows a cross shape when held against the light, dating to the Nordic Bronze Age, held at the National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen.[5] The Bronze Age symbol has also been connected with the spoked chariot wheel, which at the time was four-spoked (compare the Linear B ideogram 243 "wheel" 𐃏). In the context of a culture that celebrated the Sun chariot, it may thus have had a "solar" connotation (c.f. the Trundholm sun chariot).
Iron Age[edit]
Further information: Wheel-god
The wheel appears as a solar motif in Celtic mythology, presumably associated with Taranis,[clarification needed] e.g. on the Gundestrup cauldron, and at an altar to the sun god at Lypiatt, Gloucestershire.[citation needed] The symbol appears also on the Snoldelev stone.[6]
Solar Cross in modern culture[edit]
Astronomy[edit]
The same symbol represents the Earth in astronomical symbols, while the Sun is represented by a circle with a center point.
Ethnography[edit]
The Native Americans and other indigenous peoples continue using the solar cross on their symbolic and as decoration practices.
Music[edit]
In modern music tablature, the solar cross denotes a change of an acoustic guitar tone distortion.
Politics[edit]
The Sassanian Empire in Persia used a similar solar cross on their banner, called the Derafsh Kaviani symbol.
The Norwegian party Nasjonal Samling used a golden sun cross on a red background as an official symbol from 1933 to 1945. The cross with the circle was attached to Olaf II of Norway, patron saint of Norway, and the colors were the Coat of arms of Norway.
Several neo-Nazi groups use the solar cross to represent white supremacy.
Religion and Neopaganism[edit]
In Wicca, the solar cross represents not only the Sun but also the four quadrants of the Wheel of the Year, the cycle of the four seasons.
Among other symbols, neo-paganism used the sun cross for the reconstruction of faith and pagan culture, particularly the Celtic neopaganism, theheathenism, especially the Ásatrú, and other beliefs such as Norse paganism.
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BERLIN GOLDEN HAT
The Berlin Gold Hat or Berlin Golden Hat (German: Berliner Goldhut) is a Late Bronze Age artefact made of thin gold leaf. It served as the external covering on a long conical brimmed headdress, probably of an organic material. It is now in the Neues Museum on Museum Island in Berlin, in a room by itself with an elaborate explanatory display.
The Berlin Gold Hat is the best preserved specimen among the four known conical Golden hats known from Bronze Age Europe so far. Of the three others, two were found in southern Germany, and one in the west ofFrance. All were found in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is generally assumed that the hats served as the insigniaof deities or priests in the context of a sun cult that appears to have been widespread in Central Europe at the time.[1] The hats are also suggested to have served astronomical/calendrical functions.
The Berlin Gold Hat was acquired in 1996 by the Berlin Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte as a single find without provenance. A comparative study of the ornaments and techniques in conjunction with dateable finds suggests that it was made in the Late Bronze Age, circa 1,000 to 800 BC.
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[hide]Description[edit]
The Berlin gold hat is a 490 g gold hat with a long and slender conical shaft and a differentiated convex foot, decorated all over with traced motifs, applied with small stamps and wheels. Its composition is very similar to the previously known Golden Cone of Ezelsdorf-Buch.
At the bottom of the cone, the sheet gold of the Berlin hat is reinforced by a 10 mm wide ring of sheet bronze. The external edge of the brim is strengthened by a twisted square-sectioned wire, around which the gold leaf is turned upwards.
The overall height is 745 mm. The hat was hammered from a gold alloy of 87.7% Au, 9.8% Ag, 0.4% Cu and 0.1% Sn. It was made of a single piece; its average thickness is 0.6 mm. The cone is ornamented with 21 zones of horizontal bands and rows of symbols along all of its length. Fourteen different stamps and three decorated wheels or cylindrical-stamps were used. The horizontal bands were decorated systematically with repeated similar patterns.
The individual ornamental bands were optically separated traced ribs and bulges, mostly achieved with the use of cylindrical stamps. The bands of ornaments contain mostly buckle and circle motifs, most with a circular central buckle surrounded by up to six concentric circles.
One of the bands is distinctive: It is decorated with a row of recumbent crescents, each atop an almond- or eye-shaped symbol. The point of the cone is embellished with an eight-spoke star on a background of decorative punches.
An overview of the type and number of stamps used in the ornamental zones is shown on the right.
The meeting of the shaft with the foot is taken up by a wide vertically ribbed band. The foot is decorated with similar motifs to the cone itself. Near the reinforcing bronze band, it turns into a brim, also decorated with disk-shaped symbols.
Calendar[edit]
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Modern scholarship has demonstrated that the ornamentation of the gold leaf cones of the Schifferstadt type, to which the Berlin example belongs, represent systematic sequences in terms of number and types of ornaments per band. A detailed study of the Berlin example, which is the only fully preserved one, showed that the symbols probably represent a lunisolar calendar. The object would have permitted the determination of dates or periods in both lunar and solar calendars.[1][2]
The functions discovered so far would permit the counting of temporal units of up 57 months. A simple multiplication of such values would also permit the calculation of longer periods, e.g. metonic cycles. Each symbol, or each ring of a symbol, represents a single day. Apart from ornament bands incorporating differing numbers of rings there are special symbols and zones in intercalary areas, which would have had to be added to or subtracted from the periods in question.
The system of this mathematical function incorporated into the artistic ornamentation has not been fully deciphered so far, but a schematic understanding of the Berlin Golden Hat and the periods it delimits has been achieved.
In principle, starting with zone Z_i, a sum is achieved by adding a relevant contiguous number of neighbouring sections: Z_i..Z_i+n. To reach the equivalent lunar or solar value, from this initial sum must be subtracted the sum of symbols from the intercalary zone(s) within the area counted.
The illustration depicts the solar representation on the left and the lunar one on the right. The red or blue fields in zones 5, 7, 16 and 17 are intercalary zones.
The values in the individual fields are reached by multiplying the number of symbols per zone with the number of rings or circles incorporated in each predominant symbol. The special symbols in zone 5 are assigned the value of "38", as indicated by their number.
- Example
- Zone 12 is dominated by 20 repetitions of punched symbol No. 14, a circular disc symbol surrounded by 5 concentric circles.
- Thus, the symbol has the value of 20 x 5 = 100.
- The smaller ring symbols placed between the larger repetitions of No. 14 are considered as mere ornaments and thus not counted.
Through this system, the Hats can be used to calculate a lunisolar calendrical system, i.e. a direct reading in either lunar or solar dates, as well as the conversion between them.
The table can be used in the same way as the original Golden Hats. To determine the number of days in a specific time period (yellow fields), the values of the coloured fields above are added, reaching an intermediate sum. If any of the red intercalary zones are included, their sum has to be subtracted. This allows the calculation of 12, 24, 36, 48, 54 and 57 synodic months in the lunar system and of 12, 18, 24, 36, 48, 54 and 57 sun months (i.e. twelfths of a tropical year).
- Example
- To determine a 54 month cycle in the lunar system, the numerical values of the green or blue zones 3 to 21 are added, reaching a sum of 1,739 days. From this, the values of the red intercalary fields 5, 16 and 17 are subtracted, The result is 1739-142=1597 days, exactly 54 synodic months of 29.5305 days each.
The overall discrepancy of 2 days to the astronomically accurate value is probably the result of a slight imprecision in the Bronze Age observation of synodic and solar month.[citation needed]
Provenance and find history[edit]
The Berlin Gold Hat was put on sale in the international arts trade in 1995. In 1996, the Berlin Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte bought it as an important Bronze Age artefact. The seller claimed that the object came from an anonymous Swiss private collection which had been assembled in the 1950s and 1960s. It assumed that the Hat was found in Southern Germany or Switzerland. No further details are known. The good preservation of the cone suggests that, like the Schifferstadt example, it must have been carefully filled with soil or ashes and then buried upright in relatively fine soil.
Manufacture[edit]
The Berlin Gold Hat is made of a gold alloy of 87.7% Au, 9.8% Ag, 0.4% Cu and 0.1% Sn. It is hammered seamlessly from a single piece. The amount of gold used would form a cube of only 3 cm dimensions. The average thickness is 0.6 mm.
Because of the tribological characteristics of the material, it tends to harden with increasing deformation (see ductility), increasing its potential to crack. To avoid cracking, an extremely even deformation was necessary. Additionally, the material had to be softened by repeatedly heating it to a temperature of at least 750 °C.
Since gold alloy has a relatively low melting point of circa 960 °C, a very careful temperature control and an isothermal heating process were required, so as to avoid melting any of the surface. For this, the Bronze Age artisans used a charcoal fire or oven similar to those used for pottery. The temperature could only be controlled through the addition of oxygen, using a bellows.
Considering the tribologic conditions and the technical means available at the time, the production even of an undecorated Golden hat would represent an immense technical achievement.
In the course of its further manufacture, the Berlin Hat was embellished with rows of radial ornamental bands, chased into the metal. To make this possible, it were probably filled with a putty or pitch based on tree resin and wax - in the Schifferstadt specimen, traces of this survived. The thin gold leaf was structured by chasing: stamp-like tools or moulds depicting the individual symbols were repeatedly pressed into (or rolled along) the exterior of the gold. At least 17 separate tools (17 stamps and 3 cylindrical stamps) were used.
NEBRA SKY DISK
Nebra sky disk
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Nebra sky disk is a bronze disk of around 30 cm diameter and a weight of 2.2 kg, with a blue-green patinaand inlaid with gold symbols. These are interpreted generally as a sun or full moon, a lunar crescent, and stars (including a cluster interpreted as the Pleiades). Two golden arcs along the sides, marking the angle between thesolstices, 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, as the Milky Way, or as a rainbow).
The disk is attributed to a site near Nebra, Saxony-Anhalt, in Germany, and associatively dated to c. 1600 BC. It has been associated with the Bronze Age Unetice culture.
The disk is unlike any known artistic style from the period, and was initially suspected of being a forgery, but is now widely accepted as authentic.
The Nebra sky disk features the oldest concrete depiction of the cosmos worldwide. In June 2013 it was included in the UNESCO's Memory of the World Register and termed "one of the most important archaeological finds of the 20th century."[1]
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[hide]Discovery[edit]
The disk, two bronze swords, two hatchets, a chisel, and fragments of spiral bracelets were discovered in 1999 by Henry Westphal and Mario Renner while they were treasure-hunting with a metal detector. Archaeological artifacts are the property of the state in Saxony-Anhalt. The hunters were operating without a license and knew their activity constituted looting and was illegal. They damaged the disk with their spade and destroyed parts of the site. The next day, Westphal and Renner sold the entire hoard for 31,000 DM to a dealer in Cologne. The hoard changed hands within Germany over the next two years, being sold for up to a million DM. By 2001 knowledge of its existence became public. In February 2002 the state archaeologist Harald Meller acquired the disk in a police-led sting operation in Basel from a couple who had put it on the black market for 700,000 DM.[2] The original finders were eventually traced. In a plea bargain, they led police and archaeologists to the discovery site. Archaeologists opened a dig at the site and uncovered evidence that supports the looters' claims. There are traces of bronze artifacts in the ground, and the soil at the site matches soil samples found clinging to the artifacts. The disk and its accompanying finds are now held at the State Museum of Prehistory in Halle.
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 actually raised their sentences to six and twelve months, respectively.
The discovery site is a prehistoric enclosure encircling the top of a 252 metres (827 ft) elevation in the Ziegelroda Forest, known as Mittelberg ("central hill"), some 60 km west of Leipzig. The surrounding area is known to have been settled in the Neolithic era, and Ziegelroda Forest contains around 1,000barrows.
The enclosure is oriented in such a way that the sun seems to set every solstice behind the Brocken, the highest peak of the Harz mountains, some 80 km to the north-west. The treasure-hunters claimed the artifacts were discovered within a pit inside the bank-and-ditch enclosure.
Dating[edit]
The precise dating of the Nebra skydisk depended upon the dating of a number of Bronze Age weapons, which were offered for sale with the disk and said to be from the same site. These axes and swords can be typologically dated to the mid 2nd millennium BC. Radiocarbon dating of a birchbark particle found on one of the swords to between 1600 and 1560 BC confirmed this estimate. This corresponds to the date of burial, at which time the disk had likely been in existence for several generations.
Origin of the metals[edit]
According to an initial analysis of trace elements by x-ray fluorescence by E. Pernicka, then at the University of Freiberg, the copper originated at Bischofshofen in Austria, while the gold was thought to be from the Carpathian Mountains.[3] A more recent analysis found that the gold used in the first phase was from the river Carnon inCornwall, United Kingdom.[4] The tin content of the bronze was also from Cornwall.[5]
History[edit]
The disk as preserved was developed in four stages (Meller 2004):
- Initially the disk had thirty-two small round gold circles, a large circular plate, and a large crescent-shaped plate attached. The circular plate is interpreted as either the Sun or the full Moon, the crescent shape as the crescent Moon (or either the Sun or the Moon undergoing eclipse), and the dots as stars, with the cluster of seven dots likely representing the Pleiades.
- 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 disk. To make space for these arcs, one small circle was moved from the left side toward the center of the disk 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[original research?] indicating the angle between the positions of sunset at summer and winter solstice at the latitude of the Mittelberg (51°N). Given that the arcs relate to solar phenomena, it is likely the circular plate represents the Sun not the Moon.[citation needed]
- The final addition was another arc at the bottom, the "sun boat", again made of gold from a different origin.
- By the time the disk was buried it also had thirty-nine or forty holes punched out around its perimeter, each approximately 3 mm in diameter.
Significance[edit]
The disk is possibly an astronomical instrument as well as an item of religious significance. The blue-green patina of the bronze may have been an intentional part of the original artifact.[6]
If authentic, the find reconfirms 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 summer and winter solstice. While much older earthworks and megalithicastronomical complexes such as the Goseck circle or Stonehenge had already been used to mark the solstices, the disk is the oldest known "portable instrument" to allow such measurements. Pásztor, however, sees no evidence that the disk was a practical device for solar measurements.[7]
Euan MacKie suggests that the Nebra disk can be linked to the solar calendar reconstructed by Alexander Thom from his analysis of standing stone alignments in Britain.[8]
Authenticity[edit]
There were initial suspicions that the disk might be an archaeological forgery. Peter Schauer of the University of Regensburg, Germany, argued in 2005 that the Nebra disk was a fake and that he could prove that the patina of the disk could be created with urine, hydrochloric acid and a blow torch within a short amount of time. However, he had to admit in court that he had never held the disk in his own hands, unlike eighteen scientists who had examined the disk.[9]
Richard Harrison, professor of European prehistory at the University of Bristol and an expert on the Beaker people, allowed his initial reaction to be quoted in a BBC documentary:[10]
- "When I first heard about the Nebra Disc I thought it was a joke, indeed I thought it was a forgery. Because it’s such an extraordinary piece that it wouldn’t surprise any of us that a clever forger had cooked this up in a backroom and sold it for a lot of money."
Though Harrison had not seen the skydisk when he was interviewed, his skepticism was reasonable at that point, but the disk is now widely accepted as authentic and dated to roughly 1600 BC on grounds of typological classification of the associated finds. As the item was not excavated using archaeological methods, even its claimed provenance may be made up, hence authenticating it has depended on microphotography of the corrosion crystals,[10] which produced images that could not be reproduced by a faker.
Dr. Harald Meller, lecturing to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in April 2008, gave a list of facts supporting the authenticity of the disc, and for its having been found at the site on the Mittelberg. The most persuasive of the latter was the discovery by the archaeologists — in the pit in which the looters said they had found the metalwork — of a fragment of gold leaf exactly fitting the gap present in the gold leaf covering of the 'sun' symbol when it was originally recovered.
Exhibition[edit]
The disk was the center of an exhibition titled Der geschmiedete Himmel (German "The smithied sky"), showing 1,600 Bronze Age artifacts, including the Trundholm sun chariot, shown at Halle from 15 October 2004 to 22 May 2005, from 1 July to 22 October 2005 in Copenhagen, from 9 November 2005 to 5 February 2006 in Vienna, from 10 March to 16 July 2006 in Mannheim and from 29 September 2006 to 25 February 2007 in Basel.
On 20 June 2007 a multimedia visitor center was opened near the discovery site at Nebra.
The disk is part of the permanent exhibition in the Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte (State Museum of Prehistory) in Halle.
Legal issues[edit]
The state of Saxony-Anhalt has registered the disk as a trademark, which has resulted in two lawsuits. In 2003, Saxony-Anhalt successfully sued the city of Querfurt for depicting the disk design on souvenirs. Saxony-Anhalt also successfully sued the publishing houses Piper and Heyne over an abstracted depiction of the disk on book covers.[11] The Magdeburg court assessed the case's relevance according to German copyright law. The defenders argued that as a cultic object, the disk had already been "published" in the Bronze Age, and that consequently all protection of intellectual property associated with it has long expired. The plaintiff on the other hand argued that the editio princeps of the disk is recent, and according to German law protected for 25 years, until 2027. Another argument concerned the question whether a notable work of art may be registered as a trademark in the first place.
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AVANTON GOLD CONE
The Avanton Gold Cone or Avanton Cone (French: Cône d'Or d'Avanton or Cône d'Avanton) is a late Bronze Age artefact, belonging to the group of Golden hats, only four of which are known so far.
The Avanton Cone was the second such object to be discovered (after the Golden Hat of Schifferstadt). It was found in 1844 in a field near the village of Avanton, about 12 km north of Poitiers, France. The object was damaged; comparison with other finds suggests that a part (the brim) is missing. The remaining part of the Avanton cone is 55 cm long and weighs 285 g. Originally dated to the Middle Bronze and suggested to be a fertility symbol, it now appears to be of later date and more complex function (see Golden hats).
The Avanton Cone is on display in the Musée d'Archéologie Nationale at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris.
TRUNDHOLM SUN CHARIOT
The Trundholm sun chariot (Danish: Solvognen), is a Nordic Bronze Age artifact discovered inDenmark. It is a representation of the sun chariot, a bronze statue of a horse and a large bronze disk, which are placed on a device with spoked wheels.
The sculpture was discovered with no accompanying objects in 1902 in a peat bog on the Trundholm moor in West Zealand County on the northwest coast of the island of Zealand (Sjælland) in Denmark, in a region known as Odsherred (approximately 55°55′N 11°37′E). It is now in the collection of the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen.
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[hide]Description[edit]
The horse stands on a bronze rod supported by four wheels. The rod below the horse is connected to the disk, which is supported by two wheels. All of the wheels have four spokes. The artifact was cast in the lost wax method.
The whole object is approximately 54 cm × 35 cm × 29 cm (21 in × 14 in × 11 in) in size (width, height, depth).[1]
The disk has a diameter of approximately 25 cm (9.8 in). It is gilded on one side only, the right-hand side (when looking in the direction of the horse). It consists of two bronze disks that are joined by an outer bronze ring, with a thin sheet of gold applied to one face. The disks were then decorated with punches and gravers with zones of motifs of concentric circles, with bands of zig-zag decoration between borders. The gold side has an extra outer zone which may represent rays, and also a zone with concentric circles linked by looping bands that "instead of flowing in one direction, progress like the steps of the dance, twice forward and once back". The main features of the horse are also highly decorated.[2]
The two sides of the disk have been interpreted as an indication of a belief that the sun is drawn across the heavens from East to West during the day, presenting its bright side to the Earth and returns from West to East during the night, when the dark side is being presented to the Earth. A continuation around a globe would have the same result. It is thought that the chariot was pulled around during religious rituals to demonstrate the motion of the sun in the heavens.[3]
Date[edit]
The sculpture is dated by Nationalmuseet to about 1800 to 1600 BCE, though other dates have been suggested. Unfortunately it was found before pollen-dating was developed, which would have enabled a more confident dating.
A model of a horse-drawn vehicle on spoked wheels in Northern Europe at such an early time is surprising; they would not be expected to appear until the end of the Late Bronze Age, which ranges from 1100 BC to 550 BC. This and aspects of the decoration may suggest a Danubian origin or influence in the object, although the Nationalmuseet is confident it is of Nordic origin.[4]
Possible function as a calendar[edit]
Klaus Randsborg, professor of archeology at the University of Copenhagen, has pointed out that the sum of an addition of the number of spirals in each circle of the disk, multiplied by the number of the circles in which they are found, counted from the middle (1x1 + 2x8 + 3x20 + 4x25), results in a total of 177, which comes very close to the number of days in six synodic months, only 44 min 2.8 s shorter each.
The synodic cycle is the time that elapses between two successive conjunctions of an object in the sky, such as a specific star, with the sun. It is the time that elapses before the object will reappear at the same point in the sky when observed from the Earth, so it is the apparent orbital period observed from Earth.
He asserts his belief that this demonstrates that the disk was designed by a person with some measure of astronomic knowledge and that the sculpture may have functioned as a calendar.
The Sun chariot in Indo-European mythology[edit]
Main article: Sun chariot
Norse mythology[edit]
The chariot has been interpreted as a possible Bronze Age predecessor to Skinfaxi,[5] the horse that pulled Dagr, the personification of day, across the sky.
Celtic Pantheon[edit]
The sky god Taranis is typically depicted with the attribute of a spoked wheel.
Rigveda[edit]
Main article: Historical Vedic religion
The Rigveda also reflects the mytheme of the Sun chariot. RV 10.85 mentions the sun god's bride as seated on a chariot pulled by two steeds. The relevant verses are the following (trans. Griffith):
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