Trundholm Sun Chariot by UnknownNational Museum of Denmark
In 1902, a remarkable discovery was made in a former peat bog on the island of Zealand, Denmark. As the field was being ploughed, a metal artefact emerged from the mud - a horse pulling a ornate golden disc - this was the Trundholm Sun Chariot.
The sculpture was quickly recognised as a significant prehistoric artefact, and moved to the National Museum of Denmark. It is thought to have been made in Denmark, not far from where it was found, around 3400 years ago.
The Sun Chariot is thought to represent one of the most important aspects of prehistoric religion - the passage of the sun across the sky. The motif of the sun being carried by horses and by boats appears in many later Scandinavian artefacts, but this is the earliest.
The importance of the sun for prehistoric societies can't be overstated. Besides the daily light and warmth required for life, the sun also provided the most accurate form of timekeeping, and guided the annual cycle of farming.
The Sun Chariot is such a finely crafted, technically complex sculpture, that it can't have been in everyday use. It may have been a ceremonial object used by a select group of people.
The fact that its wheels spin freely means the sculpture can be moved. It may even have been used as an educational device, demonstrating how the sun moves across the sky.
The sun disc itself is a work of art. Around 25cm in diameter, it is decorated with punched designs, featuring lines, concentric circles, and knotted bands. It is only gilded on one side, assumed to the be day side. The other side may represent the night.
This decorative scheme has attracted the attention of archaeologists, because it resembles that of other European artefacts of the era, also thought to be associated with sun-worshipping religions: the Golden Hat of Schifferstadt and the Casco de Leiro.
Klavs Randsborg, professor of Archaeology at the University of Copenhagen has suggested that the number and location of the discs may encode a six-month calendar - useful for any astronomer looking to predict the solar solstice.
The calculation can be done by simply looking at the disc. Multiply the number of circles in each concentric ring by the number of the ring (counted from the middle) and add these numbers together. 1x1 + 2x8 + 3x20 + 4x25 = 177. In days, that's six months (minus one day).
Taken together, the sun disc is not only evidence of a sun-worshipping religion, but a rich society with the ability to accumulate precious metals, an artistic and technically-skilled society, and perhaps one with astronomical knowledge and basic mathematics.
The Trundholm Sun Chariot is one of the treasures of the National Museum of Denmark. If you'd like to learn more, take a moment to watch the video on the next slide, or visit the museum in Copenhagen.
