- chapter 41: Princely chariots and carts –
Figures 41.1–3 Etruscan amphorae of the Heptachord Painter. Princeton University Museum of Art
(loan from private collection). Photographs D. Niccolini, New York.tombs, and extends the study to what is known about the roads, about the draft animals
and about the manner of harnessing and driving them, as well as the uses for which such
teams were intended (Crouwel 2012).
As in Cyprus, the Celtic world and among the non-Greek peoples of the Italian
peninsula, in Etruria it was the custom to deposit in the tombs of members of the elite
the vehicles that in life had marked their social status. The chariots found in Etruria
and datable from 775–750 to 475 bc are all two-wheeled, whether we are dealing with
chariots (Latin currus) and with carts (Latin carpentum and cisium), or whether we are
dealing with utilitarian carts. A deceased person, man or woman, could be accompanied
by a chariot alone, by a chariot and a cart, and in exceptional cases, also by a utility cart,
ultimately used for the funeral ceremony.^4 In some cremation tombs there are found the
metal remains of vehicles with obvious traces of fi re, a sign that they had been burned on
the pyre of the dead person. When they are not burnt, as happens in all the inhumation
burials, the vehicles sometimes come to be buried complete, sometimes disassembled
and stacked or otherwise deprived of their functionality (for example, with the draft pole
broken), according to the ritual practices in use in a given place and time, but perhaps
also dependent upon the amount of space available in the tomb.
From the end of the eighteenth century right up to today, in Italy the remains of more
than 300 vehicles have been found, half of them in princely tombs in Etruscan territory.
Such remains generally consist of the tire rims of iron and of other accessories belonging
to the wheels, because the body of the chariot was composed of organic materials – wood,
leather and rawhide – connected by joints and ligatures of rawhide, without the aid of
nails. Sometimes a vehicle was enriched by decorations in bronze, sometimes inlaid in
iron or encrusted with ivory.
CHARIOTSFrom their fi rst appearance in the tombs of the elite (775–750 bc) until the end of
the Orientalizing period (circa 575 bc) chariots to be driven from a standing position
were designed for speed and served for transporting the warrior prince to and from the
battlefi eld, for the hunt and for ceremonial processions (Fig. 41.4).
By using seasoned wood the axle was made robust and rectilinear, intended to keep
the wheels steady, to support the chariot body and to fasten the draft pole. The result of
the joining of these parts was a compact and rigid structure, in which only the wheels