- Trundholm sun chariot
The Trundholm sun chariot (Danish: "Solvognen"), is a late
Nordic Bronze Age artifact discovered inDenmark , that has been interpreted as a depiction of thesun being pulled by a mare that may have relation to laterNorse mythology attested in 13th century sources.Description
The Trundholm
sun chariot is abronze statue of amare and a large bronze disk, which are placed on a device with spoked wheels. The horse stands on a bronze rod supported by four wheels. The rod below the horse is connected to the disk, which is supported by two wheels. All of the wheels have fourspoke s. The artifact was cast in the lost wax method.The sculpture was discovered in
1902 in the Trundholm moor inWest Zealand County on the northwest coast of the island ofZealand ("Sjælland") in Denmark, in a region known asOdsherred (approximately coord|55|55|N|11|37|E|). The sculpture is in the collection of theNational Museum of Denmark inCopenhagen .The disk alone has a diameter of approximately 25 cm (9.8 inches). It is gilded on one side only, the right-hand side (relative to the horse). This has been interpreted as an indication of a belief that the
sun is drawn across the heavens from East to West during the day, presenting its bright side to the Earth and returns from West to East during the night, when the dark side is being presented to the Earth. A continuation around a globe would have the same result.Date
The sculpture has been dated to the 18th to the 16th century BC. A model of a horse-drawn vehicle on spoked wheels in Northern Europe at such an early time is astonishing; they would not be expected to appear until the end of the Late Bronze Age, which ranges from 1100 BC to 550 BC.
In Europe, the earliest known "
chariots "—rather than ox-drawn carts having solid wheels without spokes—are from theIron Age , dating from circa the6th century BC (seeEtruscan chariot ). Artifacts from the LateBronze Age , bearing single-spoked wheels, have been found in Switzerland (Corcelettes), Drenthe (Netherlands), andStade (Germany).Interpretations
Norse mythology
In Norse mythology,
Sól is the personifiedgoddess of the Sun, the correspondingOld English name is Siȝel (/ˈsɪ jel/), continuing reconstructed Proto-Germanic *Sôwilô or *Saewelô. TheOld High German Sun goddess isSunna . Every day, Sól rode through the sky on herchariot , pulled by the two horsesArvak and Alsvid . The sun chariot has been interpreted as representing a bronze age predecessor to the goddess.Fact|date=May 2008
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