Tonight a rather interesting alignment occurs as the Pleiades are in conjunction with the Moon, something depicted in ancient scientific art.
A few years ago I was introduced to a remarkable piece of bronze age science, the Nebra Sky Disk. It is thought to date to around 1600BCE and shows what could be seen as the crescent moon, the full moon and the Pleiades. I had the good fortune to visit both the museum in Halle, where the disk is on display, and Mittelberg where it was found.
The configuration shown on the disk points to two dates in the year. The crescent moon conjunction would occur in the western sky just after sunset, approximately 3 days after new moon in April. This is the point where the Pleiades disappear into the Earth at sunset, which in some cultures is seen as the handful of seeds being planted into the ground.
The full moon conjunction will occur today! This is almost aligned with the achronycal rise of the Pleiades, something which may be seen as the timing behind the origins of the day of the dead. The Pleiades are related to the ancestors and this is the day on which they take their place amongst the stars. The Stellarium screenshot I used below shows the rise of the moon and the Pleiades at Halle in Germany, where the conjunction will be most pronounced.
One thing to note, however, is that this is not the same months with which the disk would have originally worked. The cycle of precession of the equinoxes has changed our skies in the last 3600 years. This would mean that the spring event would occur just before the March equinox and the autumn event would occur just after the autumn equinox. Perhaps these may have been even more connected with both the planting and harvest seasons.
Thanks for sharing this juicy bit of astronomy. Where I live, in northwest New Mexico, the full moon just rose and the Pleiades is very visible in the Eastern sky.
Tomorrow evening the moon will be even closer to the Pleiades, but it is really at its closest in Germany and a little to he east
THANKS for this beautiful message!!!!!
How nice, thanks for pointing this out Mark! I already heard people stopped in the streets of Berlin yesterday, being impressed by the moon. I’ll make sure to go for a walk tonight and look for the conjunction spectacle here in the country side 🙂
Thank you, Henrike, that day we journeyed to Halle is a wonderful memory for me. It’s such a close conjunction in Germany, here the Pleiades will be a bit further away from the moon. I’m still hoping to have a clear sky to go take a picture though
This is so lovely, Mark! Thank you for sharing. My sun sits on 29* Taurus, with the Pleiades, so this alignment seems extra potent and aligned with our star sis’s and bro’s!
Full explanation of all design elements is at dcwalley.com/sky-disk
Hi, I have been looking at your page and your ideas are very interesting. I particularly like the Vega arc idea. The Egyptian solar boat never really worked for me. The Vega arc is a much better explanation.
One of the interesting things that can be done with Stellarium is to change the date. It is interesting to change to what is the proposed date of the sky disk, around 1600bc. Then Vega kisses the horizon at midnight on December 15th. It would be very interesting to see the rest of the ideas you put into Stellarium with the 1600BCE date rather than 2025. I found that if it was regarding the full moon/new moon conjunct Pleiades, that would occur much closer to the equinoxes than we see it today. Maybe it would have a similarly interesting effect on your theories too? I agree, this is a bronze age scientific instrument. No doubt it was revered as we might revere anything of high technology, but that doesn’t make it a religious artefact.