On being a history geek.

...after all, archeology is fun. Hell, I don't break the soil periodically to 'reaffirm my status'. I do it because archeology is still the most fun you can have with your pants on.
SourceKent V. Flannery. 1982. The golden Marshalltown. American Anthropologist 84:265-278.zSB(3,3)

image c- :http://www.thefab.net/topics/culture_history/hg06_german-stonehenge_02.htm

Archaeology is fun. Archaeology is one of the reasons we parted company with BSDE [Brisbane School of Distance Education] & began homeschooling choosing our own curriculum. The straw that broke the camel's back was the Nebra Sky Disc. It got worse after this but this was a pivotal moment.

Unless you are a complete history geek [which I am] you have probably never even heard of this but the Nebra Sky Disc is the most fascinating discovery of recent times & has forced Academia to re¬evaluate the way they think about Bronze Age man; more specifically European Bronze Age man.

I am biased. I have very little interest in Ancient Egypt or the Babylonians. The Romans are terrible, the Greeks immoral. What I like are the Goths & the Vandals, the Huns & the Celts ~ that marauding horde the *civilized* Romans referred to as Barbarians. The thinking stuck. These ancient peoples were somehow seen as less civilized, less intelligent, less able than their Mediterranean & Middle Eastern counterparts. I've seen Stonehenge so I sorta found that a little hard to believe. The Nebra Sky Disc proves it.

The 7'' wide disc could be as much as 3,600 years old & thus is the oldest visual representation of the cosmos in existence. It was found near Goseck in the Black Forest by grave robbers & the history of its theft & recovery is an interesting detective story all on its own.

From the hill near Goseck it is possible to see the sun behind the Bocken [the highest peak of the Harz Range] at every equinox. Thus the disc was from the first considered some sort of calendar.

Now I was watching this on one of the archaeological shows I like & doing my oooh & aaah thing when poor old Ditz, who was watching by default & not terribly interested [being only 8 or 9 at the time], piped up with, 'It works just like Stonehenge doesn't it?' I thought then & think now that was a very acute & correct observation from a little girl. We did our own study on the disc & sent it in with her regular work where it received a very frosty reception ~ mainly I suspect because her teacher had never heard of the thing & had no idea what Ditz was rabbiting on about, let alone whether or not she was correct.

It was at this point I became disenchanted with BSDE. Seriously, this is a major historical discovery & a school didn't want to know about it! What's more, following up on the continuing investigation into this artifact, Ditz has been proved even more correct than she could possibly have been at the time because the astronomer, Hansen, consulted the 6th/7th century Babylonian Mul~Apin in an effort to throw more light on the disc. The Mul~Apin rule says a 13th month should be added to the year when the moon & the Pleiades look exactly as represented on the disc ~ which would occur every 2 ~ 3 years. The disc in effect co~ordinates the solar & lunar calendars. So hello. The Bronze Age Europeans had a much better grasp on maths, astronomy & time than was believed. They may also have had this knowledge before the Babylonians did.

I think that's pretty cool. So did Ditz. She may have reached the eye rolling stage of adolescent development but she can still tell you something about this disc [with appropriate eye~rolls] along with several fascinating tid~bits about Michelangelo. Did you know he began his career as an art faker? The materials he used to fake his sculptures included yogurt & human waste. It's not the sort of information Ditz is likely to ever forget. Why don't they teach this fascinating stuff in school?