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Chariot burial
 
 
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Chariot burials are tomb
Tomb

For the New York prison see The Tombs.A tomb is a repository for the remains of the death. The term generally refers to any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes....
s in which the deceased was buried together with his chariot
Chariot

The chariot is the earliest and simplest type of carriage, used in both peace and war as the chief vehicle of many ancient peoples. Chariots were built in Mesopotamia by the Mesopotamians as early as 3000 BC and in China during the 2nd millennium BC....
, usually including his (more rarely, her) horse
Horse

The horse is a hoofed mammal, a subspecies of one of seven extant species of the family Equidae. The horse has evolution of the horse over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, odd-toed ungulate animal of today....
s and other possessions.

The earliest chariots known are from chariot burials of the Andronovo
Andronovo culture

The Andronovo culture, or Sintashta-Petrovka culture is a collection of similar local Bronze Age cultures that flourished ca. 2300?1000 BCE in western Siberia and the west Asian Steppe....
 (Timber-Grave) sites of the Sintashta-Petrovka culture in modern Russia
Russia

Russia , or the Russian Federation , is a list of countries spanning more than one continent country extending over much of northern Eurasia....
, clustering along the upper Tobol river, southeast of Magnitogorsk
Magnitogorsk

Magnitogorsk is a mining and industrial types of inhabited localities in Russia located by the Ural River in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, with one of the largest iron and steel works in the country....
, from around 2000 BC, containing spoke-wheeled chariots drawn by teams of two horses.






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Chariot burials are tomb
Tomb

For the New York prison see The Tombs.A tomb is a repository for the remains of the death. The term generally refers to any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes....
s in which the deceased was buried together with his chariot
Chariot

The chariot is the earliest and simplest type of carriage, used in both peace and war as the chief vehicle of many ancient peoples. Chariots were built in Mesopotamia by the Mesopotamians as early as 3000 BC and in China during the 2nd millennium BC....
, usually including his (more rarely, her) horse
Horse

The horse is a hoofed mammal, a subspecies of one of seven extant species of the family Equidae. The horse has evolution of the horse over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, odd-toed ungulate animal of today....
s and other possessions.

The earliest chariots known are from chariot burials of the Andronovo
Andronovo culture

The Andronovo culture, or Sintashta-Petrovka culture is a collection of similar local Bronze Age cultures that flourished ca. 2300?1000 BCE in western Siberia and the west Asian Steppe....
 (Timber-Grave) sites of the Sintashta-Petrovka culture in modern Russia
Russia

Russia , or the Russian Federation , is a list of countries spanning more than one continent country extending over much of northern Eurasia....
, clustering along the upper Tobol river, southeast of Magnitogorsk
Magnitogorsk

Magnitogorsk is a mining and industrial types of inhabited localities in Russia located by the Ural River in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, with one of the largest iron and steel works in the country....
, from around 2000 BC, containing spoke-wheeled chariots drawn by teams of two horses. This culture is at least partially derived from the earlier Yamna culture
Yamna culture

The Yamna is a chalcolithic/early Bronze Age culture of the Bug /Dniester/Ural region , dating to the 36th–23rd centuries BC. The culture was predominantly nomadic, with some agriculture practiced near rivers and a few hillforts....
, and is generally accepted as an early Proto-Indo-Iranian culture. The Krivoye Ozero
Krivoye Ozero

Krivoye Ozero is a small lake in the Chelyabinsk Oblast of Russia, southeast of Magnitogorsk, near the Kazakhstani border. Its name is translated from the Russian as "Crooked Lake"....
 chariot grave contained a horse skull, three pots, two bridle cheek pieces, and points of spears and arrows. The bones were dated to an average of 2026 BC.

Later chariot burials are found in China
China

China is a Culture of China, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
, the most famous was discovered in 1933 at Hougang, Anyang of central China's Henan
Henan

Henan , is a Province of the People's Republic of China, located in the central part of the country. Its one-Chinese character abbreviation is ? , named after Yuzhou , a Han Dynasty province that included parts of Henan....
 Province, dating to the rule of King Wu Ding
Wu Ding

Wu Ding was a Shang Dynasty King of China.His is the first historically verifiable name in the history of China dynasties. The records of later historians that recorded his reign were long thought to be little more than legends until contemporary records of his reign were discovered in oracle script inscriptions on oracle bone unearthed at...
 of the Yin Dynasty (ca. 1200 BC). A Western Zhou (9th century BC) chariot burial was unearthed at Zhangjiapo, Chang'an
Chang'an

Chang'an is an ancient Capital of more than ten Dynasties in Chinese history in Chinese history. Chang'an literally means "Perpetual Peace" in Classical Chinese....
 in 1955.

In Europe, chariot burial was mainly an Iron Age
Iron Age

In archaeology, the Iron Age was the stage in the development of any people in which tools and weapons whose main ingredient was iron were prominent....
 Celt
Celt

Celts , is a modern term used to describe any of the European peoples who spoke, or speak, a Celtic languages. The term is also used in a wider sense to describe the Modern Celts of those peoples, notably those who participate in a Celtic culture....
ic custom, most probably of Thraco-Cimmerian
Thraco-Cimmerian

Thraco-Cimmerian is a historiographical and archaeological term, composed of the names of the Thracians and the Cimmerians. It refers to 8th century BC to 7th century BC century BC cultures that are linked in Eastern Central Europe and in the area north of the Black Sea....
 origin (the Thraco-Cimmerians established themselves as the ruling class, over the proto-Celtic Hallstattian peoples
Hallstatt culture

The Hallstatt culture was the predominant Central European culture from the 8th to 6th centuries BC , developing out of the Urnfield culture of the 12th century BC and followed in much of Central Europe by the La T?ne culture....
, and their steppe
Steppe

In physical geography, a steppe , pronounced , is a grassland plain without trees . The prairie can be considered a steppe. It may be semi-desert, or covered with Poaceae or shrubs or both, depending on the season and latitude....
-culture influenced the subsequent Celtic La Tene culture). A tomb from the 4th century BC was discovered in La Gorge-Meillet (Marne
Marne

Marne is a departments of France in north-eastern France named after the Marne River which flows through the department. The prefectures in France of Marne is Ch?lons-en-Champagne ....
, France
France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
). The only Etruscan
Etruscan civilization

Etruscan civilization is the modern English name given to the culture and way of life of a people of ancient Italy and Corsica whom the ancient Romans called Etrusci or Tusci....
 find dates to ca. 530 BC, and is preserved in pristine quality, see Etruscan chariot.

In Britain
Great Britain

Great Britain is an island lying to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the List of islands by area, and the largest in Europe. With a population of 58.9 million people it is List of islands by population....
, the earliest sites date to around 500 BC, probably coinciding with the Celtic immigration to the British Isles. Finds of burials are rare, and the persons interred were presumably chieftains or wealthy notables. The Wetwang
Wetwang

Wetwang is a Yorkshire Wolds village and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is situated west of Driffield on the A166 road....
 chariot burial of ca. 300 BC is an exception in that a woman was interred with the chariot. Some 21 British sites are known, spanning approximately four centuries, virtually all in the East Riding of Yorkshire
East Riding of Yorkshire

The East Riding of Yorkshire, or simply East Yorkshire is a non-metropolitan district with unitary authority status, and is a ceremonial counties of England of England....
. The Ferrybridge and Newbridge
Newbridge chariot

The remains of an British Iron Age chariot burial, were found near the Bronze burial mound of Huly Hill, at Newbridge, Edinburgh, 10 km west of Edinburgh in advance of development at the Edinburgh Interchange....
 chariots, are unusual in Britain as they are the only ones to be buried intact. The burial custom seems to have disappeared with the Roman
Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the Roman Republic phase of the Ancient Rome, characterised by an autocracy form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
 occupation of Britain
Roman Britain

Roman Britain refers to those parts of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire between AD 43 and 410. The Romans referred to their province as Britannia....
.

See also

  • Ship burial
    Ship burial

    A ship burial or boat grave is a burial in which a ship or boat is used either as a container for the dead and the grave goods, or as a part of the grave goods itself....
  • Sun chariot
  • Prehistoric Britain
    Prehistoric Britain

    Prehistoric Britain was a period in the human occupation of Great Britain that was the later part of prehistory, conventionally ending with the Roman invasion of Britain in AD 43, though some historical information is available about Britain before this....
  • The King's Grave
    The King's Grave

    The King's Grave near Kivik in the southeastern portion of the Sweden province of Sk?ne is what remains of an unusually grand Nordic Bronze Age double burial c....
  • Arras culture
    Arras Culture

    The Arras culture is a name given by archaeologists to an Iron Age archaeological culture from what is today eastern Yorkshire. It is named after the cemetery site of Arras near Market Weighton in East Riding of Yorkshire which was discovered in the nineteenth century....
  • Newbridge chariot
    Newbridge chariot

    The remains of an British Iron Age chariot burial, were found near the Bronze burial mound of Huly Hill, at Newbridge, Edinburgh, 10 km west of Edinburgh in advance of development at the Edinburgh Interchange....


External links

  • (bbc.co.uk)
  • (bbc.co.uk)
  • (British Museum, with images of a chariot reconstruction)