Calendar question over star disc

Archaeologists have revived the debate over whether a spectacular Bronze Age disc from Germany is one of the earliest known calendars. The Nebra disc is emblazoned with symbols of the Sun, Moon and stars and said by some to be 3,600 years old. Writing in the journal Antiquity, a team casts doubt on the idea the disc was used by ancient astronomers as a precision tool for observing the sky. They instead argue that the disc was used for shamanistic rituals. But other archaeologists who have studied the Himmelsscheibe von Nebra (Nebra sky disc) point to features which, they say, helped Bronze Age people to track four key dates during the year. The Nebra disc is considered one of the most sensational - and controversial - discoveries in archaeology in the past 10 years. The artefact was allegedly found by two treasure hunters near the town of Nebra, Germany, in 1999.Police in the Swiss city of Basel arrested the treasure hunters in a sting, and they were eventually convicted.

The pair said they found the disc on a 252m-high hilltop called Mittelberg in the German federal state of Saxony-Anhalt. While many scholars support its status as an object from the Bronze Age, it is claimed to be a fake by others, notably the German researcher Peter Schauer from the University of Regensburg. "German archaeologists don't say clearly that this is a fake. They hide, thinking that the thunderstorm will blow over," Dr Schauer told BBC News.