| Sun Chariot
| | The sun chariot is a Danish national treasure – a unique Bronze Age find shaped in bronze and gold.
The sun chariot is dated to around 1.350 BC, but wasn´t found until 1902 in Odsherred, North Zealand.
The sun chariot is exhibited in the National Museum in Copenhagen. |
The Sun Chariot
The Sun Chariot is a Danish national treasure – a unique Bronze Age find shaped in bronze and gold. The Sun Chariot is a hollow cast figure of a horse drawing a sun disc. The horse and the disc are standing on the remnants of six wheels and the horse and the disc have eyes, wherein lines once were drawn. The sun disc is coated in gold and fine patterns i circular motives is marked on them.
The Sun Chariot was found September 7th , 1902 in Trundholm Bog in Odsherred, North Zealand, in conncetion with the first ploughing of the area. The finder, Frederik Willumsen, took home the find and let his son play with it believing that the figure was and old toy. However, the Sun Chariot was damaged already in the Bronze Age, when it was left behind – probably as a sacrificial gift in the bog. In 1998 they used a metal detector to find several fragments of the six wheels on the figure. The figure has been dated to the older Bronze Age – around 1350 BC.
The Sun Chariot testifies to the religion in the Bronze Age. The sun was then the central theme in religion. The people of the Bronze Age imagined that the sun was transported across the sky in the day. In the morning a fish took the sun to a ship, which transported the sun until noon. The sun horse took over then and brought the sun to the afternoon ship. In the evening a snake took the sun to the underworld, which was below the flat earth. Down here the sun was dark, while it was transported in night ships back to the starting point in the morning, where the fish took over again. Thus the day´s cycle was maintained forever by the helpers of the sun – the fish, the horse, the snake and the ships
The scheme of things on the Sun Chariot is supported by several petroglyphs as well as decorations on razors (1100 - 500 BC.). The gilt sun disc on the sun chariot is placed so you can see the chariot move from left to right, i.e. in the sun´s direction. The opposite side of the Sun Chariot doesn´t have the gilt sun disc – it is the darkened sun at night o nits way from right to left with its starting point at sunrise. Thus the Sun Chariot illustrates, with its two different sides, the sun´s movement in the course of 24 hours.
In the petroglyphs and on the razors the horse draws the sun in one line. Thus the wheels on the Sun Chariot is not a part of the story. The wheels have been put there so the sun disc and the horse could be moved back and forth to illustrate the sun´s movements at religious ceremonies.
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The Back of the Sun Chariot |
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The Bronze Lures | 
The Town Hall Square in Copenhagen |
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