Salzburg bronze disc
The so-called Salzburg bronze disk is a fragment of a Roman bronze disk that was found in Salzburg around 1898 . It probably dates from the 1st or 2nd century AD and was part of an astronomical water clock .
The piece has a length of 50 cm in the chord of the circular section, 42 cm in radius and a thickness of 3 mm. The front shows constellations ( triangle , Andromeda , Perseus , Fuhrmann ), and on the edge of the disc corresponding to the ecliptic , images of signs of the zodiac ( Pisces , Aries , Taurus , Gemini ) in line engraving, partly with corresponding inscriptions, the back names of zodiac signs (inside) and below the corresponding month names (outside).
As already mentioned, the course of the edge of the disk corresponds to the ecliptic in the sky, i.e. the course of the apparent path of the sun over a year. The edge of the pane is evidently a breaking edge along a row of closely spaced holes. The number of these boreholes on the entire edge of the circle should have been 182 or 183, so that one borehole corresponded to two days of the year. It is believed that a small stake or plug should be inserted into these holes, which then marked the current position of the sun in the ecliptic and thus in the sky.
The complete piece must have a radius of about 60 cm and a weight of over 40 kg.
The circumstances of the find are not known, but the piece was probably found after 1896 during construction work on the northern foot of the Kapuzinerberg near today's Linzer Gasse in Salzburg. In 1900 the original heavily clumped find was acquired by the Salzburg Museum , where the disc is still to be found (Inv.-No. 3985). In particular, due to the spelling of the month's name Maiius with I longa , the find was dated to the imperial era. The original disk was apparently broken along the row of holes, the radial break edges show traces of a hoe or a similarly coarse tool with which the disk was broken. Iuvavum , the Roman Salzburg, was completely destroyed in the Marcomann Wars in 171 . One can assume that the fractures visible on the fragment are traces of looting at the time.
literature
- Otto Benndorf , Edmund Weiß , Albert Rehm : To the Salzburg bronze disk with constellations. In: Annual Books of the Austrian Archaeological Institute in Vienna, Vol. 6 (1903), pp. 32–49 digitized
- Ernst Maass : Salzburg bronze plaque with constellations. In: Annuals of the Austrian Archaeological Institute in Vienna, Vol. 5 (1902), pp. 196–197 digitized
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ The fact that signs of the zodiac and not constellations are shown here can be seen from the fact that the signs are shifted in relation to the constellations according to the migration of the vernal equinox caused by the precession of the earth's axis .
- ^ Joseph V. Noble, Derek J. de Solla Price: The Water Clock in the Tower of the Winds. In: American Journal of Archeology, Vol. 72, No. 4 (Oct. 1968), p. 352