The Trundholm sun chariot ( da, Solvognen), is a

Nordic Bronze Age The Nordic Bronze Age (also Northern Bronze Age, or Scandinavian Bronze Age) is a period of Scandinavian prehistory from c. 2000/1750–500 BC. The Nordic Bronze Age culture emerged about 1750 BC as a continuation of the Battle Axe culture (th ...

artifact discovered in Denmark. It is a representation of the sun chariot, a bronze statue of a horse and a large bronze disk, which are placed on a device with spoked wheels. The sculpture was discovered with no accompanying objects in 1902 in a

peat bog A bog or bogland is a wetland that accumulates peat as a deposit of dead plant materials often mosses, typically sphagnum moss. It is one of the four main types of wetlands. Other names for bogs include mire, mosses, quagmire, and muskeg; a ...

on the Trundholm moor in

Odsherred Odsherred is a peninsula in the north-western part of the island Zealand (Sjælland) in Denmark. Odsherred stretches from the Sjællands Odde in the north-west to the now drained Lammefjord in the south, covering an area with a wide range of the ...

in the northwestern part of

Zealand Zealand ( da, Sjælland ) at 7,031 km2 is the largest and most populous island in Denmark proper (thus excluding Greenland and Disko Island, which are larger in size). Zealand had a population of 2,319,705 on 1 January 2020. It is the 1 ...

, (approximately ). It is now in the collection of the

National Museum of Denmark The National Museum of Denmark (Nationalmuseet) in Copenhagen is Denmark's largest museum of cultural history, comprising the histories of Danish and foreign cultures, alike. The museum's main building is located a short distance from Strøget ...

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

. It is prominently featured on the 1000- krone banknote of the 2009 series.

Description

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 four spokes. The artifact was cast in the

lost wax Lost-wax casting (also called "investment casting", "precision casting", or ''cire perdue'' which has been adopted into English from the French, ) is the process by which a duplicate metal sculpture (often silver, gold, brass, or bronze) is ...

method. The whole object is approximately in size (width, height, depth). Trundholm sun chariot Nationalmuseet

The disk has a diameter of approximately . It is gilded on one side only, the right-hand side (when looking at the horse from behind). It consists of two bronze disks that are joined by an outer bronze ring, with a thin sheet of

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...

applied to one face. The disks were then decorated with punches and gravers with zones of motifs of concentric circles, with bands of zig-zag decoration between borders. The gold side has an extra outer zone which may represent rays, and also a zone with concentric circles linked by looping bands that "instead of flowing in one direction, progress like the steps of the dance, twice forward and once back". The main features of the horse are also highly decorated. The two sides of the disk have 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. It is thought that the chariot was pulled around during religious rituals to demonstrate the motion of the Sun in the heavens.

Date

The sculpture is dated by the National Museum to about 1400 BC, though other dates have been suggested. It was found before the development of pollen-dating, which would have enabled a more confident dating. A model of a horse-drawn vehicle on spoked wheels in Northern Europe at such an early time is surprising; they would not be expected to appear until the end of the Late Bronze Age, which ranges from 1100 BC to 550 BC. This and aspects of the decoration may suggest a Danubian origin or influence in the object, although the National Museum of Denmark is confident it is of Nordic origin.

Sun chariot in Indo-European mythology

Norse mythology

The chariot has been interpreted as a possible

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second prin ...

predecessor to Skinfaxi, Lindow, John. (2001)
Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs
', page 272.

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

. the horse that pulled

Dagr Dagr (Old Norse: , "day")Lindow (2001:91). is the divine personification of the day in Norse mythology. He appears in the ''Poetic Edda'', compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and the ''Prose Edda'', written in the 13th ...

, the personification of day, across the sky.

Celtic Pantheon

The sky god

Taranis In Celtic mythology, Taranis (Proto-Celtic: *''Toranos'', earlier ''*Tonaros''; Latin: Taranus, earlier Tanarus) is the god of thunder, who was worshipped primarily in Gaul, Hispania, Britain, and Ireland, but also in the Rhineland and Danube r ...

is typically depicted with the attribute of a spoked wheel. Surya chariot

Hindu scriptures

The

Rigveda The ''Rigveda'' or ''Rig Veda'' ( ', from ' "praise" and ' "knowledge") is an ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (''sūktas''). It is one of the four sacred canonical Hindu texts ('' śruti'') known as the Vedas. Only one ...

in Hindu scriptures also reflects the mention of the Sun chariot. RV 10.85 mentions the sun god's bride as seated on a chariot pulled by two steeds. The relevant verses are the following (trans. Griffith): Helius kalyx-krater puglia british museum

Helius kalyx-krater puglia british museum

10. Her spirit was the bridal car; the covering thereof was heaven: Bright were both Steeds that drew it when Surya approached her husband's home.
11. Thy Steeds were steady, kept in place by holy verse and Sama-hymn: All car were thy two chariot wheels: thy path was tremulous in the sky,
12. Clean, as thou wentest, were thy wheels, wind was the axle fastened there. Surya, proceeding to her Lord, mounted a spirit-fashioned car.

Greek mythology

Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities ...

, the solar deity Helios was said to wear a radiant crown as his horse-drawn chariot raced across the sky, bringing daylight.Madanjeet Singh, Ahmad Hasan Dani (1993), ''The Sun: Symbol of Power and Life'', H.N. Abrams, p. 293, ISBN 978081093838.

References

Sources

*Sandars, Nancy K., ''Prehistoric Art in Europe'', Penguin (Pelican, now Yale, History of Art), 1968 (nb 1st edn.)

External links

{{Commons, Solvognen, Trundholm Sun Chariot
Reconstructing the Trundholm Sun Chariot
Anders Söderberg, Sweden, 2002. Söderberg demonstrates how part of the chariot might have been made using the lost-wax method.

exhibition, Bonn. 1999. Catalogue introduction, wall panel information
(.doc format)
Prehistoric objects in the National Museum of Denmark Archaeological discoveries in Denmark 2nd-millennium BC works Archaeoastronomy Prehistory of Denmark Nordic Bronze Age Germanic archaeological artifacts Bronzeware Bronze Age art Horses in art Sun in art Danish Culture Canon Solar chariot Ancient art in metal