148 Chapter 7
literary and artistic evidence shows that the idea of flying “machines” in
the form of wheeled chariots was current in archaic times.
Three of the many vase paintings depicting these flying chairs/chariot-
cars are by the Berlin Painter, while the earliest known example is a vase
of about 525 BC attributed to the Ambrosios Painter. The scene shows
Hephaestus himself seated in a wheeled chair or chariot- car with wings,
illustrating another unknown story (Hephaestus, we recall, was lame).
Several other vases portray Triptolemus, associated with Demeter and
the Eleusinian Mysteries, seated in or about to mount his flying wheeled
chair- chariot (fig. 7.11). In this myth, the goddess sends Triptolemus to
Fig. 7.11. Triptolemus in his flying chair, with Kore, red- figure Attic cup found in Vulci, by the
Aberdeen Painter, about 470 BC, Louvre G 452, Canino Collection, 1843, photo by Marie- Lan
Nguyen, 2007.