Aegean Votive Bronze Carriage

Culture: Cypriot

Period: 9th century B.C.

Material: Bronze

Dimensions: 20.2 cm long

Price: Sold

Ref: 2250

Provenance: French private collection, acquired end of the 1980s. Accompanied by a French antiquities passport.

Condition: Wonderful cuprite patina, the wheels reattached. On the rear wall, sideways of the face minor breaks.

Description: Exceptional and very rare bronze model of a carriage. The large four-spoke wheels sit on a massive bronze wire turning into a twisted drawbar in the front. The carriage itself is of folded, thin bronze sheet in the typical D-form. On the rear wall an applied bust with a long, towards the bottom broadened neck. The archaic face with large eyes, pointy chin and long hair parted in the centre. The bottom of the carriage with a gradation providing space for the axis. The style of the four-spoke wheels suggests a Mycenaean influence. The depiction of the archaic face and the form of the carriage present Phoenician characteristics. The modell may therefore originiate from Cyprus, possibly from Kition. Regarding the form of the wheels and the carriage see a depiction on a funerary stone in Mycenae, Grave Circle A, Grave V. Mounted on an old, wooden base.