LOT 0262

Elamite War Chariot Wheel Fittings

LATE 3RD-EARLY 2ND MILLENNIUM B.C.

38 1/2 in. (19.35 kg, 98 cm diameter).

Comprising five large wheel clamps and twenty conical rivets; each C-section clamp with tongue-shaped later lugs with rivets to both sides; mounted on a custom-made wheel-shaped display mount.

Acquired before 1983.
Ex London gallery, 1990s.

Accompanied by an academic report by Dr Raffaele D’Amato.
This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by a search certificate number no.12038-216335.

See Caubet, A. & Yon, M., ‘Pommeaux de chars, du Levant à la Mésopotamie et à l’Élam’ in Études Mésopotamiennes: Recueil de Textes Offert à Jean-Louis Huot, Paris, 2001, pp.69-78; Gökce, B., 'On Urartian Chariots' in Veldmeijer, A.J. & Ikram, S., Chasing Chariot/Proceedings of the First İnternational Chariot Conference (Cairo, 2012), Cairo, 2013, pp.107-122; a similar wheel is on display at the National Museum of Iran in Tehran, and was excavated from Choqa Zanbil, an ancient Elamite site in Khuzestan province; important similar specimens (3) were found in Susa, see Kawami, T.S. ‘That Strange Equid from Susa’ in Crouwel, H.J., ‘Wheeled Vehicles and their Draught Animals in the Ancient Near East—an Update’ in Raulwing, P., Linduff, K.M., Crouwel, J. H., Equids and Wheeled Vehicles in the Ancient World, Essays in Memory of Mary A. Littauer, Oxford, 2019, pp.97-105, figs.5,7,9.

The custom of burying the deceased with chariots and the respective yoked animals has been documented since the 3rd millennium B.C. Bronze wheel clamps similar to these have been found in Elamite and Urartian graves, and are consistent with Assyrian and Elamite models. These clamps have important parallels, including those found from the Susa region which show an affinity with Assyrian iconography.