Chariots

[JoatSimeon at aol.com]

>vidynath at math.ohio-state.edu (Vidhyanath Rao)

>You mean that the actual chariot was found. My understanding, based on
>photographs, (and what Littauer and Crowell explicitely say) is that only
>indentations made by the wheels and the axle part extending out were found,
>and the superstructure was fully decayed away. If a photograph (not a
>skectch) of whatever superstructure was ever found, I would like a reference.

-- ""The vehicles were placed in the burials with their wheels fitted into
holes dug into the grave floor.  As the buried rims and spokes rotted they
left stains in the earth that indicate their shapes.  In a burial at the
Krivoe Ozero cemetery north of Sintashta, stains from portions of a chariot
superstructure were also preserved...

Sintashta-Petrovka chariot wheels had eight to 12 spokes..."

-- that's Anthony and Vinogradov in "Archaeology".  They're chariots; light
spoked wheels, bentwood and wicker construction, and paired draught by horses.

There are also the interesting parallels to Vedic ritual at the burial sites,
of course; not surprising, since we're almost certainly talking about very
early Indo-Iranians here.