Italy, Lupine Piccolo—newsweek A carved stone disk discovered in a hill fort in northeastern Italy may be an ancient celestial map, reports researchers.hillfort, or Castelliere, the site where the disc was recovered was in use between approximately 1800 BC and 400 BC, so the stone disc may date back approximately 2,400 years. Archaeologist Federico Bernardini and astronomer Paolo Molaro from Italy’s National Institute of Astrophysics said the 29 marks carved into the stone were likely made by the same person with a chisel. 24 marks are on one side of the stone and 5 marks are on the other side. The researchers used software to map the marks and found that they matched groups of stars in the constellations Scorpius, Orion, Cassiopeia, and the Pleiades. However, not a single imprint of him carved in stone could be identified. Researchers suggest it could represent a star in the Orion cluster that may have exploded as a supernova, or perhaps a failed supernova that left behind a black hole. . Bernardini and Molaro believe that searching for black holes in the region could test their interpretation. They also believe that people living in hillforts may have used the disks to track seasonal changes and the agricultural calendar.Read the original academic paper about this research Astronomical memo. For a celestial map excavated in Germany, see Mapping the Past: The Nebra Sky Disc.