taken as just landing in it or taking off from it. Such an interpretation seems
irresistible in the case of two of the bronze razors from Denmark.^49 On one
the ship sits at the left, and the flying horse with the sun attached is just
ahead of its prow, as if having just taken off. On the other, both the prow
and the stern of the ship are crowned with haloes of rays. Behind the prow a
horse, outlined with stippling to suggest radiance, is landing from above, his
fore legs already on the deck, his hind legs still high in the air. The radiant
sun-disc, unattached, hangs low over the after deck.
A sensational find was made recently at Nebra in central Germany. It is
dated to around 1600 .^50 It is a bronze disc, 31–32 cm. in diameter, with
gold embellishments representing the sun, the crescent moon, and about
thirty stars, including a cluster suggestive of the Pleiades. Two arcs were later
added on opposite sides of the rim (one of them is now lost): they subtended
angles of 82° from the centre, and evidently represented the range of sunrise
and sunset points on the horizon between midwinter and midsummer.
A separate arc, touching the rim of the sky at the southern horizon, was
added later still. It is divided by lines into three bands and outlined with a
bristle pattern that has been compared to the lines of oars on some Bronze
Age representations of ships. But the ends of the arc are cut off square with
no suggestion of a prow or stern, and if it is meant for a solar vessel, as some
have argued, it would seem to be a plain round bowl rather than a regular
ship. If the bristles stand for oars, we are reminded of the hundred-oared
ship of the Atharvaveda and the implication that a powerful driving force is
required.
A round bowl or cup, not a ship, is the form that the Sun’s vessel takes in
Greek poetry and usually in Greek art. Like the horses and chariot, it finds no
mention in the Iliad or Odyssey but appears in other seventh- and sixth-
century poets. It conveys Helios at night along the river Oceanus that
encircles the earth, and needs no rowers:
A wondrous couch (ε1ν ) bears him across the waves ––
winged, by Hephaestus intricately wrought
in precious gold –– as he in grateful sleep
skims o’er the water from the Hesperides
to Aethiopia, where a chariot
and steeds await the early birth of Dawn;
and there the god mounts his new equipage,
Hyperion’s son. (Mimnermus fr. 12. 5–11)(^49) F. Kaul in Meller (2004), 61 (centre and bottom right), 62 f.; cf. Gelling–Davidson (1969),
133 fig. 58b.
(^50) M. Kerner, Helvetia Archaeologica 34 (2003), no. 134; Meller (2004).
208 5. Sun and Daughter