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| front side with gilding |
The sun chariot (the Trundholm Sun
Chariot) is a Danish national treasure and a uniqe find from Bronze Age
made in bronze and gold. The sun chariot is a horse drawing a sun disk.
The horse and the disk stand upon the rests of six wheels - and both
horse and disk have eyelets in order to fasten the strings. The sun disk
is coated with gold in fine patterns and circular motifs.
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| landmark/Odsherred municipality |
The sculpture was found on 7th September 1902 in
Trundholm Mose (a peat bog) in the northwestern part of Zealand in the region
Odsherred
in connection to the first ploughing of the moor. The finder Frederik
Willumsen brought his discovery back home and let his son play with the
horse, he thought it was just an old piece of toy. The sun chariot had
however already been damaged once in Bronze Age when it was placed in
the moor as a sacrifice to the gods. A metal detector revealed in 1998
new fragments of the six wheels in the same spot. The sculpture is dated
by the
Nationalmuseet to about 1800 to 1600
BCE though other dates have been suggested. Unfortunately the chariot was found
before pollen-dating was developed, which would have enabled a more
confident dating. The sun chariot is now in the collection of the
National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen.
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| backside with no gilding |
The disk has a diameter of approximately 25 cm (9.8 inches). It is
gilded on one side only, the right-hand side (when looking in the
direction of the horse). It consists of two bronze disks that are joined
by an outer bronze ring, with a thin sheet of gold 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 gilded sun disk is placed upon the sun chariot and the chariot
noves from left to right towards the sun during the day The opposite
side of the chariot lacks the gilding on the sun disk - this is the
darkened sun at night on its way back from right to left to its starting
point at sun rise, so the sun chariot illustrates with the two
different sides the movement of the sun during day and night.
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| A Sun Horse in Mindeparken in Aarhus /photo gb. |
People
in Bronze Age did not believe in human gods as is known from the Viking
period. They worshipped powers which preserved nature, powers which
arranged for the rebirth of the day each morning and the rebirth of the
planets each spring. They worshipped the sun as a divine power. The sun
gave life and light at day, made the plants grow and the corn ripen in
the summertime. It was necessary that the sun's travel across the sky
continued day after day and year after year. The sun chariot was an
image of this travel - and it is possible that the priests of Bronze
Age used it in religious feasts to show how the horse was drawing the
sun across the sky.
The sun chariot is a witness of
the religion of Bronze Age. The sun was center of the religion. People
in Bronze Age imagined that the sun was being drawn across the sky in
the daytime. In the morning a fish brought the sun to a ship which
carried the sun until noon. The sun horse took over and brought the sun
to the afternoon ship. At evening a snake brought the sun back to the
underworld which lay below the flat earth. Down here the sun was dark
and it was by night ships brought back to the starting point in the
morning where the fish once again took over. Thus the cycle of the day
was kept for all eternity by the helpers of the sun - the fish, the
horse the snake and the ships.
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| petroglyphs/ Grevinge |
The
conceptual world of the sun chariot is supported by several petroglyphs
and decorations upon razors, upon jewelry, weapon and tools.Both in the
petroglyphs and on the razors the horse is drawing the sun in
a string, the wheels on the Danish sun chariot do actually not belong
to the story. The wheels were added so
the sun disk and the horse in ritual ceremonies could be drawn forth
and back to make an image of the solar motion. B
y
examining over 400 bronze artifacts the Danish archaeologist Flemming
Kaul found out that the figures show the Bronze Age man's experience of
the eternal travel of the sun. All these figures and creatures
were not only found in the Danish Bronze Age but were also a part of the
religion of Egypt and large parts of Europe at that time. In Denmark
the Bronze Age people had contacts to people far away - they exchanged
wares and got the popular bronze in return for amber and fur.
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| Sól and Mani, drawing by Lorenz Frølich 1895 |
Norse mythology.
Despite
the enormous gap in time, between varying sources, particularly Norse
mythology,
known from 13th AD century sources, the distinct reference of the sun
being drawn by chariot is found in Norse mythology. Many attest that the
Norse myths were preserved orally for an unverifiable time period
before being written down, similar to the Vedic texts. In Norse
mythology, Sól is the personified goddess of the Sun, the corresponding
Old English name is Siȝel, continuing reconstructed Proto-Germanic
Sôwilô or Saewelô. The Old High German Sun goddess is Sunna.. Every day,
Sól rode through the sky on her chariot, pulled by the two horses Arvak
and Alsvid. The sun chariot has been interpreted as representing a
Bronze Age predecessor to the goddess. The chariot has also been
interpreted as a possible Bronze Age predecessor to Skinfaxi, the
horse that pulled Dagr, the personification of day, across the sky.
Source, Gyldendals og Politikens Danmarkshistorie, bd. 1, "I Begyndelsen";
samt Wikipedia dansk og engelsk og Nationalmuseet, København.
photo fra Wikipedia, Wikimedia,
photo Solhesten, Mindeparken, Aarhus: grethe bachmann
