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For other uses, see Chariot (disambiguation).
A chariot drawn by horses
Approximate historical map of the spread of the spoke-wheeled chariot, 2000–500 BCE




The critical invention that allowed the construction of light, horse-drawn chariots was the spoked wheel. The earliest spoke-wheeled chariots date to ca. 2000 BCE. The use of chariots peaked around 1300 BCE (see Battle of Kadesh). Chariots had lost their military importance by the 1st century CE, but chariot races continued to be popular in Constantinople until the 6th century.

Eastern Europe[edit]

The domestication of the horse was an important step toward civilization. An increasing amount of evidence supports the hypothesis that horses were domesticated in the Eurasian Steppes (Dereivka centered in Ukraine) approximately 4000-3500 BCE.[1][2][3]

The invention of the wheel used in transportation most likely took place in Europe. Evidence of wheeled vehicles appears from the mid 4th millennium BCE near-simultaneously in the Northern Caucasus (Maykop culture), and in Central Europe. The earliest vehicles may have been ox carts.[4]


As David Anthony writes in his book The Horse, the Wheel and Language, in Eastern Europe, the earliest well-dated depiction of a wheeled vehicle (a wagon with two axles and four wheels) is on the Bronocice pot (c. 3500 BCE). It is a clay pot excavated in a Funnelbeaker settlement in Swietokrzyskie Voivodeship in Poland.[7]


Caucasus region[edit]

Horses were introduced to Transcaucasia at the time of the Kura-Araxes culture, beginning about 3300 BCE. Prior to that, horse bones were not found. During the Kura-Araxes period, horses seem to become rather widespread, with signs of domestication.[9]

Due to its geographical position, being located between the northern steppes and the Near East, the Caucasus region seems to have played an important role in the transmission of chariot-related technologies.

Early wheeled vehicles in the Near East[edit]

Relief of early war wagons on the Standard of Ur, c. 2500 BCE

It is widely believed that wheeled transport was invented in Mesopotamia. Nevertheless, recent archaeological evidence seems to indicate otherwise, pointing to Neolithic Europe.[6]

According to Christoph Baumer, the earliest discoveries of wheels in Mesopotamia come from the first half of the third millennium BCE – more than half a millennium later than the first finds from the Kuban region. At the same time, in Mesopotamia, some intriguing early pictograms of a sled that rests on wooden rollers or wheels have been found. They date from about the same time as the early wheel discoveries in Europe and may indicate knowledge of the wheel.[5]



Early Indo-Iranians[edit]



Over the next few centuries, the Andronovo culture spread across the steppes from the Urals to the Tien Shan, likely corresponding to the time of early Indo-Iranian cultures.


Ancient Near East[edit]

Some scholars argue that the horse chariot was most likely a product of the ancient Near East early in the 2nd millennium BCE.[15] Archaeologist Joost Crouwel writes that "Chariots were not sudden inventions, but developed out of earlier vehicles that were mounted on disk or cross-bar wheels. This development can best be traced in the Near East, where spoke-wheeled and horse-drawn chariots are first attested in the earlier part of the second millennium BCE..." and were illustrated on a Syrian cylinder seal dated to either the 18th or 17th century BCE.[16]


Hittite chariot (drawing of an Egyptian relief)

The oldest testimony of chariot warfare in the ancient Near East is the Old Hittite Anitta text (18th century BCE), which mentions 40 teams of horses (in the original cuneiform spelling: 40 ṢÍ-IM-TI ANŠE.KUR.RAḪI.A) at the siege of Salatiwara. Since the text mentions teams rather than chariots, the existence of chariots in the 18th century BCE is uncertain. The first certain attestation of chariots in the Hittite empire dates to the late 17th century BCE (Hattusili I). A Hittite horse-training text is attributed to Kikkuli the Mitanni (15th century BCE).

The Hittites were renowned charioteers. They developed a new chariot design that had lighter wheels, with four spokes rather than eight, and that held three rather than two warriors. It could hold three warriors because the wheel was placed in the middle of the chariot and not at the back as in Egyptian chariots. Hittite prosperity largely depended on their control of trade routes and natural resources, specifically metals. As the Hittites gained dominion over Mesopotamia, tensions flared among the neighboring Assyrians, Hurrians, and Egyptians. Under Suppiluliuma I, the Hittites conquered Kadesh and, eventually, the whole of Syria. The Battle of Kadesh in 1274 BCE is likely to have been the largest chariot battle ever fought, involving over 5,000 chariots.



The chariot and horse were introduced to Egypt by the Hyksos invaders in the 16th century BCE and undoubtedly contributed to the military success of the Egyptians. In the remains of Egyptian and Assyrian art, there are numerous representations of chariots, which display rich ornamentation. The chariots of the Egyptians and Assyrians, with whom the bow was the principal arm of attack, were richly mounted with quivers full of arrows. The Egyptians invented the yoke saddle for their chariot horses in c. 1500 BCE. The best preserved examples of Egyptian chariots are the four specimens from the tomb of Tutankhamun. Chariots can be carried by two or more horses.


Main article: Scythed chariot


A golden chariot made during Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BCE).

Herodotus mentions that the Libyans and the Indus satrapy supplied cavalry and chariots to Xerxes the Great's army. However, by this time, cavalry was far more effective and agile than the chariot, and the defeat of Darius III at the Battle of Gaugamela (331 BCE), where the army of Alexander simply opened their lines and let the chariots pass and attacked them from behind, marked the end of the era of chariot warfare (barring the Seleucid and Pontic powers, India, China, and the Celtic peoples).

Chariots in the Bible[edit]

See also: Merkabah


Examples from The Jewish Study Bible[17] of Tanakh (Jewish Bible) include:

  • Isaiah 2:7 Their land is full of silver and gold, there is no limit to their treasures; their land is full of horses, there is no limit to their chariots.[18]
  • Jeremiah 4:13 Lo, he[I.e., the invader of v.7.] ascends like clouds, his chariots are like a whirlwind, his horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to us, we are ruined![19]
  • Ezekiel 26:10 From the cloud raised by his horses dust shall cover you; from the clatter of horsemen and wheels and chariots, your walls shall shake−when he enters your gates as men enter a breached city.[20]
  • Psalms 20:8 They [call] on chariots, they [call] on horses, but we call on the name of the LORD our God.[21]
  • Song of Songs 1:9 I have likened you, my darling, to a mare in Pharaoh's chariots [22]

Examples from the King James Version of Christian Bible include:


Jezreel (city) has been identified as the chariot base of King Ahab.[24] And the decorated lynchpin of Sisera's chariot was identified at a site identified as his fortress Harosheth Haggoyim.[25]

Indian subcontinent[edit]

Main article: Ratha
Horse-drawn chariot carved onto the mandapam of Airavateswarar temple, Darasuram, c. 12th century CE (left). The chariot and its wheel (right) are sculpted with fine details
Coach driver 2000 B.C.E. Harappa, Indus Valley Civilization

Chariots figure prominently in the Rigveda, evidencing their presence in India in the 2nd millennium BCE. Among Rigvedic deities, notably Ushas (the dawn) rides in a chariot, as well as Agni in his function as a messenger between gods and men.


The scythed chariot was invented by the King of Magadha, Ajatashatru around 475 BCE. He used these chariots against the Licchavis.[citation needed] A scythed war chariot had a sharp, sickle-shaped blade or blades mounted on each end of the axle. The blades, used as weapons, extended horizontally for a metre on the sides of the chariot.



Powerful landlord in chariot (Eastern Han, 25–220 CE, Anping County, Hebei)
Main article: Chariot (China)

The earliest archaeological evidence of chariots in China, a chariot burial site discovered in 1933 at Hougang, Anyang in Henan province, dates to the rule of King Wu Ding of the late Shang Dynasty (c. 1200 BCE). Oracle bone inscriptions suggest that the western enemies of the Shang used limited numbers of chariots in battle, but the Shang themselves used them only as mobile command-vehicles and in royal hunts.[27]

Bronze Chinese charioteer from the Warring States period (403–221 BCE)


Jacques Gernet claims that the Zhou dynasty, which conquered the Shang ca. 1046 BCE, made more use of the chariot than did the Shang and "invented a new kind of harness with four horses abreast".[28] The crew consisted of an archer, a driver, and sometimes a third warrior who was armed with a spear or dagger-axe. From the 8th to 5th centuries BCE the Chinese use of chariots reached its peak. Although chariots appeared in greater numbers, infantry often defeated charioteers in battle.

Massed-chariot warfare became all but obsolete after the Warring-States Period (476–221 BCE). The main reasons were increased use of the crossbow, the adoption of standard cavalry units, and the adaptation of mounted archery from nomadic cavalry, which were more effective. Chariots would continue to serve as command posts for officers during the Qin dynasty (221-206 BCE) and the Han Dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE), while armored chariots were also used during the Han Dynasty against the Xiongnu Confederation in the Han–Xiongnu War (133 BCE to 89 CE), specifically at the Battle of Mobei (119 BCE).


Later developments in Europe[edit]

The goddess Nike riding on a two-horse chariot, from an Apulian patera (tray), Magna Graecia, 4th century BCE.


The earliest records of chariots are the arsenal inventories of the palacial centres in Mycenaean Greece, as described in Linear B tablets from the 15th-14th centuries BCE. The tablets distinguish between "assembled" and "dismantled" chariots.



Procession of chariots on a Late Geometric amphora from Athens (ca. 720–700 BCE)



The Charioteer of Delphi was dedicated to the god Apollo in 474 BCE by the tyrant of Gela in commemoration of a Pythian racing victory at Delphi



According to Greek mythology, the chariot was invented by Erichthonius of Athens to conceal his feet, which were those of a dragon.[32]



Northern Europe[edit]


In addition to the Trundholm chariot, there are numerous petroglyphs from the Nordic Bronze Age that depict chariots. One petroglyph, drawn on a stone slab in a double burial from c. 1000 BCE, depicts a biga with two four-spoked wheels.


Western Europe and British Isles[edit]

The Celts were famous for their chariots and modern English words like car, carriage and carry are ultimately derived from the native Brythonic language (Modern Welsh: Cerbyd). The word chariot itself is derived from the Norman French charriote and shares a Celtic root (Gaulish: karros). Some 20 iron-aged chariot burials have been excavated in Britain, roughly dating from between 500 BCE and 100 BCE. Virtually all of them were found in East Yorkshire - the exception was a find in 2001 in Newbridge, 10 km west of Edinburgh.

The Celtic chariot, which may have been called karbantos in Gaulish (compare Latin carpentum),[33][34] was a biga that measured approximately 2 m (6.56 ft) in width and 4 m (13 ft) in length.








Modern reconstruction of a Hussite war wagon




Detail of the Monteleone Chariot at the Met (c. 530 BCE)

The only intact Etruscan chariot dates to c. 530 BCE and was uncovered as part of a chariot burial at Monteleone di Spoleto. Currently in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,[36] it is decorated with bronze plates decorated with detailed low-relief scenes, commonly interpreted as depicting episodes from the life of Achilles.[37]

Urartu in the Caucasus[edit]



A winner of a Roman chariot race


An ancient Roman car or chariot drawn by four horses abreast together with the horses drawing it was called a Quadriga, from the Latin quadriugi (of a team of four). The term sometimes meant instead the four horses without the chariot or the chariot alone. A three-horse chariot, or the three-horse team drawing it, was a triga, from triugi (of a team of three). A two-horse chariot, or the two-horse team drawing it, was a biga, from biugi.


A popular legend that has been around since at least 1937 traces the origin of the 4 ft 8 12 in standard railroad gauge to Roman times,[39] suggesting that it was based on the distance between the ruts of rutted roads marked by chariot wheels dating from the Roman Empire.[b]

See also[edit]




  1. ^ Matossian Shaping World History p. 43
  15. ^ Raulwing 2000
  17. ^ The Jewish Study Bible (2014, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-997846-5)
  18. ^ TJSB commentary: "Criticism of the nation's sins: magic, amassing extraordinary amounts of wealth, pursuing military power, and idolatry. All these vices embody inappropriate confidence in humanity's own powers. This confidence is not only mistaken, but offensive to God."; TJSB 2014, p. 771
  19. ^ TJSB commentary: "A second passage on the enemy's approach, this time using weather images (clouds and whirlwind) and fauna (horses and eagles, see Hab. 1:8)"; TJSB 2014, p. 917
  20. ^ TJSB commentary: "Nebuchadrezzar conquered Tyre using cavalry and chariots surrounding the city and embankments placed against the city walls (..) the city was sacked and covered with water (..) In contrast, Ezekiel's description presupposes the tactics and weapons of land war, which were useless against an island state."; TJSB 2014, p. 1079
  21. ^ TJSB commentary: "The strength of divine Presence over military might is a central biblical theme."; TJSB 2014, p. 1289
  22. ^ TJSB commentary: "Throughout the Song, the lovers use comparison to praise one another's beauty and charm. Mare in Pharaoh's chariots, either an image of adorned majesty (..) or a reference to an ancient battle strategy in which a mare was let loose among cavalry to distrct the stallions."; TJSB 2014, p. 1562
  23. ^ TJSB commentary: "Only in the case of Judah is there a justification for non-dispossessing."; TJSB 2014, p. 499
  26. ^ Sparreboom 1985:87
  36. ^
  37. ^ The Golden Chariot of Achilles Archived March 16, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.
  38. ^ The Charioteer of Delphi: Circus Maximus. Archived March 16, 2008, at the Wayback Machine. The Roman Mysteries books by Caroline Lawrence.

Further reading[edit]


External links[edit]