The New Warfare4 Chariot from tomb at Egyptian Thebes.spoke-lashings of birch bark. 28 Occasionally, chariot wheels
were bound in bronze, but heavy materials were avoided wher-
ever possible. So light was a good chariot in the Late Bronze
Age that a man could pick it up and carry it above his head. 29
The manufacture and repair of chariots were evidently
highly specialized crafts. Although Near Eastern texts of the
second millennium tell us little about the subject, some details
can be learned from workshop scenes in Egyptian tombs.' 0
- For the specifications of the Florence chariot, and for a technical
and lavishly illustrated description of chariotry in the Late Bronze Age, see
Y. Yadin, The Art of Warfare in Biblical Lands in the Light of Archaeological
Study, 2 vols. (New York: McGraw-Hill, n.d.), i: 86—90 and 240—41. - As Diomedes thinks of doing at Iliad 10.505, and as several
charioteers are shown doing in Late Bronze Age paintings and reliefs. Lit-
tauer and Crouwel do not list the weight of the Florence chariot in their
otherwise meticulous description of it and other Egyptian specimens
(Wheeled Vehicles, 76—81), nor does Yadin (see n. 28). Hangar, Das Pferd,
491, reports the weight of the Florence chariot as "nur 3 kg" and general-
izes that many chariots weighed "nicht mehr als 3 bis 4 kg." These are im-
possible figures, which ultimately stem from a misunderstanding of an
Egyptian poem that boasts of the lightness of His Majesty's chariots. On
the other hand, the suggestion of Lefebvre des Noettes (La force motrice,
24)—that the weight of the typical chariot "ne depassait vraisemblablement
pas 100 kilos"—is too conservative. A recently built replica of an Egyptian
chariot weighs 34 kilograms: see Piggott, Earliest Wheeled Transport, 89. - Littauer and Crouwel, Wheeled Vehicles, y6n.i8.