An Ancient Artifact

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Janne

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Feb 10, 2016
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The traditional Swedish Christmas table cloth is decorated with Tomtar, ( a type of Christmas gnome) trees and such.
Traditionally with male goats ( rams?) and not reindeer.

I guess if they should find one of those in 4000 years they will think it was a sacred cloth to be put on the sacrifice altar?
:)
 
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Nomad

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We will never know!
The correct term is present tense - we do not know. There could be new information in the future that changes our understanding. Of course, there's scope to speculate in the meantime...

I reckon it's a Powerpoint presentation for farmers, and later, an observation tool. Most of it is pictorial or representative rather than realistic: here be stars, here be ye sun, here be ye moon, from which ye may infer that our discourse be about ye celestial objects. The significant features from the point of view of transferring useful farming information are the two large arcs and the group of seven stars close together. For this to be viable, we need to accept the following...

The two arcs represent the range of places along the eastern and western horizons where the sun rises and sets throughout the year.
The group of seven stars close together represent the Pleiades star cluster.

If you happen to be a farmer at this sort of latitude, the visibility or not of the Pleiades can be a handy indicator of when to sow seeds and harvest crops - it's only visible over the winter period. Outside of that, it's more or less close to the sun and is thus obscured. The transitions between visible and obscured, and back again, are pretty close to suitable sowing and harvest times.

If we first imagine the disc without the arcs (which were added later), then it could serve as a visual aid as part of an explanation on when to sow and harvest... Blah, blah.. night sky... blah.. look for the group of seven stars during winter... blah... when you can't see them any more, it's time to sow... blah... after summer and you can see them again, it's time to harvest.

So where do the arcs come in? It's possible that they could be used to aid in the timing of sowing and harvesting. Let's say the disc was attached to a fixed object like the neatly-flattened top of a tree stump, perhaps nailed down. Every day, we hang about in the evening and wait for the sunset. When the sun sets, we make a couple of marks in the edge of the tree stump, on opposite sides, to act as sights towards the position of the sunset. After a year, we end up with series of marks spanning the eastern and western parts of the circumference of the stump. We might watch this for another year, or even several years, and eventually conclude that the sun only rises and sets somewhere within these arcs. We further note that, when the sun rise and set points are moving northwards along the horizons, the Pleiades become obscured at about mid-way.

The correlation between the movement of the rise and set points and the obscuration of the Pleiades means we can tell when the obscuration of the Pleiades is getting close, which gives us time to prepare for sowing. Likewise, when the rise and set points are moving southwards from mid summer, and approaching the mid-point, we can tell when the reappearance of the Pleiades is getting close and can prepare for harvest. For all the other times, when the rises and sets are well away from the east-west line, or close but moving away, we don't have to concern ourselves with sowing or harvesting and can get on with other things (like going down the local caves and painting Powerpoints for budding hunters).

If we consider this additional aspect of tracking the sun, giving us an element of planning, to be useful, we could mark the range of rise and set points on the disc with a couple of arcs. We could then incorporate a description of the sun's rise and set points, and how they can help with timing of sowing and harvesting, into our Powerpoint of How To Succeed As A Farmer. We could even drag our farming acolytes up to the disc at suitable times of year to demonstrate that the sun rises and sets in different directions and how the Pleiades appear and disappear when the sun is rising and setting somewhere along the east-west line between the mid-points of the two arcs.

Note that sunset seems to me to be more useful than sunrise because you can look for the Pleiades in the night sky after the sun has gone down. If it was all about sunrise, you'd have to wait all day before you can look for the star cluster.

This is just speculation, but is based on the notion that astronomy had to come from somewhere, and that the regular motion of some celestial objects could well have been correlated with notable times of the year, like new plant growth in spring and maturity in autumn. Couple that with the idea that plants drop seeds to make new plants, then a hunter-gatherer might do 2+2 and develop the concept of planting seeds now to get edible mature plants later. If there's a celestial correlation with this, and if you've had a few bad growing seasons when there wasn't much food, you might want to look at the celestial motions in more detail and synchronise your planting and harvesting with particular celestial events.
 

Janne

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Feb 10, 2016
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Or it was an aid in telling tales about the Gods.
Something dimilar to that excellent cloak our famous forumer and his wife are creating.

I do not think farmers of past needed celestial help in sewing. Their animals ( and weather) told them.
 

Tengu

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Jan 10, 2006
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Yes, I dont think many would have had access to almanacs.

They used soil tempreture for sowing. Tested with their bottoms.

And of course observances of nature.

I think this is something more fancy than practical...given the trade routes and expensive materials. (That is the interesting bit to me, I hold little belief in arcane knowlege)

Would a modern farmer use something liike this?
 

Robson Valley

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Nov 24, 2014
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Very sophisticated paleo agriculture existed right up into the 20th century, all across North America.
Watch the trees. We were taught that when the oak leaves were the size of a mouse's ear, the corn was planted,
Dozens of different varieties of the 5 basic types of maize ( flint, flour, dent, sweet & popcorn.)

I can believe that exactly this same sort of scenario was played out, all across the UK, Europe and the Middle east.
Wheat is approx 12,000 years old. The early farmers must have understood sustainability.
 
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Janne

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What gods?


Proto farmers.


What did they tell them, and how?
They worshipped multiple gods. The first monotheic culture ( proved to be the first) is the Jewish one.
Protofarmers ? Farming started around 4000BC in Europe.
So around 2500 years before the disc was made.
No, those were proper farmers. Obviously they knew what they did, had a good surplus production so they could trade in luxury goods, and part of the population could do other stuff.

I guess they told them uplifting, moral boosting and learning tales.
Similar to what BBC does today!

Remember, the human mind ( or body) has not changed for tens of thousands of years.
Same fears, same wishes.
 

Toddy

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Jan 21, 2005
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You're ignoring climate change. Nothing stays the same, nothing is reliable year after year after year but the tides and the skies, and the need to eat. People plan, it's one of humanities defining characteristics, but even the best laid plans don't always hold up in the reality of the world.
 

Tengu

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Oh, so they had climate change. (Quick check of lake sediment and Greenland ice caps says it is so.)

Did they blame politicians like we do?

Or the gods?

(First Monotheists Zorzastrians, Janne, BTW...)
 

Janne

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Nope, Judaism is the first. Or, considered the first.
I guess it depends on who you ask, but that is what I was taught!

Does not the sky / star positions change over the time too?

Whatever it was, one thing we can be sure about: it was an expensive and precious item.
Deemed important enough to make changes to instead of scrapping and recycling the metals.
 
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Toddy

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Oh, so they had climate change. (Quick check of lake sediment and Greenland ice caps says it is so.)

Did they blame politicians like we do?

Or the gods?

(First Monotheists Zorzastrians, Janne, BTW...)

They just tried to make sense of it, and figure out how to plant crops without losing their seed.

M
 

Robson Valley

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Nov 24, 2014
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Or, they had to emigrate or starve to death. There is factual proof of a decades-long drought in the American south west (dendrochronology).
Essentialy an agriculture of the "trinity" = corn, beans and squash. Approx 1,000 - 1,200 AD.
Bat Cave, New Mexico has a stash of more than 30,000 cobs of corn = not good enough, apparently.

Sciencedaily.com is reporting on the origins of the pigs consumed at Stonehenge festivals(?) from all over the UK.
Might very well have been a monotheistic cultural congregation. Earth Mother, not a carpenter.
 

Janne

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I read that about the pigs. Interesting. Wonder if they analysed the DNA ( did they find any piggy DNA?) and compared to modern pigs.

Huge climate change in those days. Huge. But mainly change in the environment, as the landscape was still from the ice age.
I believe there was a warmer period during the Bronze Age?

Swedish bod/sediment cores show that.
In Store Mosse bog a short bit from my old childhood fishing grounds the peat core goes back 12000 years, right back to when the ice retreated.
 
Jul 30, 2012
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I read that about the pigs. Interesting. Wonder if they analysed the DNA ( did they find any piggy DNA?) and compared to modern pigs.

Huge climate change in those days. Huge. But mainly change in the environment, as the landscape was still from the ice age.
I believe there was a warmer period during the Bronze Age?

Swedish bod/sediment cores show that.
In Store Mosse bog a short bit from my old childhood fishing grounds the peat core goes back 12000 years, right back to when the ice retreated.
Radio carbon probably. https://www.radiocarbon.com/carbon-dating-bones.htm
And I may or may not have links to the above site!


My guess is that the piggies like thoes of today where a general mix of selective breeding. Probably from europe, as britian was so young when they built the henge, almost certainly linked to europe in original planning, thepeople where almost certainly of the same culture. I bet sveeden was not too well populated either. I forget now but there is a special reason why the henge was built where it was, lattitude or something.
 

Robson Valley

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The question arose long ago about the home origins of the people who attended events at Stonehenge.

By examining the isotope ratios of carbon, nitrogen and trace mineral elements in the pig bones,
It is possible to define the landscape of origin. Rather exactly, as a matter of fact. Usually trace elements in the local feed water.
Clearly the pigs did not take themselves from northern Scotland and elsewhere to Stonehenge.
Thus by inference, it's possible to show that the attendees were from all over the UK.
Help out the hosts with the food at the BBQ, as it were.

In a similar way, here in BC, the technique is used routinely to identify the specific marine feeding grounds in salmon catch quotas.
 
N

Nomad

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I ended up not doing any more brass bashing. Instead, I made a think consisting of a bit of MDF and four screws...

Support 01.jpg

The screws have some tape around the shanks where they pass through the MDF, to help hold them in place while still having a bit of wiggle room.

The wiggle room allows me to put the disc on top, with the tips of the screws locating in holes at the edge...

NSD 40.jpg

Add some egg cups full of chopped-up hard-boiled eggs that were well out of date (and a dish under the disc with more of the same)...

NSD 41.jpg

Put the lid on...

NSD 42.jpg

...and we have a patination chamber. I've no idea how well this will work, but it's expected to be the first stage of at least three in aging the main disc. There was only a slight eggy smell when I took the shells off (they were boiled a few days ago), so I'm hoping they'll start to pong as they oxidise. The lid on the plastic box clips on, and everything inside is pretty stable, so it's easy to move it out of the way if it looks like it will take a while.
 
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Nomad

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Well, the eggs didn't really do much. After 24 hours, no obvious change other than maybe a slight loss of shine on the underside, and no noticeable darkening. I decided that my eggs were nowhere near minging enough to do the job in a sensible amount of time (I'd read that it's quite a quick method), so I binned that idea and switched to...

Patina Juice 01.jpg

...also known as "B&Q own-brand cheapo paint stripper that's pretty bad at stripping paint, but happens to be quite good at patinating brass", which is a bit long-winded.

I haven't used this on such a large area before, so decided to try it on the underside first...

NSD 43.jpg

That's a thin coat applied with a soft paintbrush (arty type brush for acrylics, about 1/2" wide). What I've found in the past with the Patent Patina Potion is that oxidisation seems to help. The stuff looks to have water in it, and the darkening doesn't really start to happen until that has evaporated. When I applied it to a lacquered brass buckle, the end result was a bit blotchy because I had washed the stripper off when thinner areas were fairly well dried out but the thicker globs were still wet (meaning a lack of oxygen in those areas). The brass under the thin bits had darkened better. So, there's a technique to using this stuff, which I'm still trying to get a handle on.

After 24 hours, the disc looked like this...

NSD 44.jpg

That's before washing off the remaining stripper, although there was very little to come off, and there wasn't much difference after washing. A bit streaky and patchy, but not too bad. I dried it off and did a second application...

NSD 45.jpg

Quite a bit more applied this time, and it was done with the fingers in a nitrile glove, rather than using a brush. I'm happy to report that the paint stripper didn't get through the glove for the 3 minutes or so I was spreading it about, although I noticed that bits of it were turning slightly green (from blue).

It's quite hard to spread the stuff on evenly, and I expect this to still be quite patchy, but I'm not too bothered about that. I'll see how this looks tomorrow. I should mention that the initial thin coat was already showing signs of darkening after about half a day (from evening to early next morning, so I expect this to be substantially done after 24 hours.
 
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Toddy

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Jan 21, 2005
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Interesting, but honestly, I think I'd just have bought a couple of bottles of non-brewed condiment (39p in Tesco) and just soaked it in that.
 

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