The Etruscan Wagon in the Vatican

Even though some media often concern with italic prehistoric-culture outside Italy, the Italians still have some culture left “at home”.

In the Vatican Museum an Etruscan bronze chariot is exhibited in the “Museo Etrusco Gregoriano”-gallery.

This chariot is made in the same style as the one in the NY Met, mentioned earlier, but the bronze parts is not well preserved in this one (see photo right). Compared to the Met-chariot, the Vatican wagon is much reconstructed, but this only make it more clear how the people in the museum believe this wagon was constructed; wooden parts with bronze-plates as decoration.

This wagon is in a museum, where one could say it might not belong, since the Vatican State has an exclusive status in the Italian Republic, but I have not heard of any Italian authorities demanding this one back to some local museum in the old Etruscan area.. and why not? This wagon is not a part of the Hecht-Medici-case, but it could be argued that the Vatican-chariot belong somewhere else.

This said, the research on Etruscan chariots has a ”missing link”: An over-view! I think it is a “need to be done”-work to gather all information on Etruscan chariots in and outside Italy, and hereby try to establish, if possible, some kind of typology in this material. Almost all wagons exhibited, that I know of, are dated between 550-500 BC, but I do not think it possible to be the only period of Etruscan bronze-chariots. Maybe the purpose of these wagons has nothing to do with war..

 

The Etruscan Wagon in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen

Troels Myrup (at iconoclasm) had, Sunday, a post on the ongoing investigation of “stolen” artefacts from Italy, asking if the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek is standing next in line. One of the artifacts in question is the newly re-exhibited Etruscan wagon from a Sabine-village.

The wagon, as seen in the exhibition “Middelhavshorisonten” (here on the left), is some kind of a “ritual-wagon”, but only metal-fittings from the wagon are now to be seen, along with other artifacts from the grave, in the large exhibition case. As seen on the photo, the wagon is reconstructed in a glass/metal-like material with most of the original iron-parts placed on the floor. The exhibition of this wagon is a job done in co-operation with the Italian archaeological authorities and the local museum from the Sabine-area, with whom the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek have had a good collaboration since the 1970’s.

It is nice to see so much energy and attention put into this, in danish collections, unique wagon, but I think the exhibition is missing a model of this wagon, in which non-preserved parts (of wood) should be reconstructed as good as possible. This wagon does not look like most preserved wagons and chariots from the Etruscan area, which is why, I think, it is important to “bring the wagon to life” and show the museum-guests the meaning and function of this wagon, before it was stashed away in a tomb.