Archaeologists present a scientific reconstruction of a Bronze Age chariot

The first scientific replica of the Sintashta chariot prepared for a large-scale scientific experiment was presented at the site of the V Festival of Historical Reconstruction "The Flame of Arkaim". The chariot reconstruction project was supported by a grant from the Governor of the Chelyabinsk Region and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research.

The presentation of the chariot was the key event of the festival. The festival was visited by the Governor of the Chelyabinsk region Alexey Texler and even tried out the chariot in action.

The world's first war chariots, the remains of which have been repeatedly found by archaeologists, were created in the Southern Urals at the turn of the III and II millennia BC. The chariot-a key image of world culture, symbolizing the sun, divine transport, strength, and power appeared in the steppes of the Southern Urals.

Horses of the Bashkir breed were specially brought from a nursery located in Verkhneuralsk since they are more similar to those that lived in the Trans-Ural steppe in ancient times and have about 145 cm at the withers, which is on average 10 cm higher than the height of ancient horses.

The author of the idea, the organizer of the festival, and the head of the chariot reconstruction project is Ivan Semyan, a researcher at the Scientific and Educational Center for Eurasian Studies, head of the Laboratory of Experimental Archaeology, Director of the Association of Experimental Archaeology "Archeos". The co-author of the project is Igor Chechushkov, a specialist in ancient harness and chariots, a senior researcher at the Scientific and Educational Center for Eurasian Studies. The experiment team also includes such specialized specialists as carpenters, engineers, and tanners. For the reconstruction, the researchers took the remains of a chariot from a specific burial of the Bronze Age burial ground "Crooked Lake." The archaeologists plan to create two more models of ancient carts and their laboratory and field tests, with the subsequent publication of the results in rating publications.

"The chariot is a concentration of scientific and technical thought of that time. And it is like an archive of encrypted data, which allows us to understand how complex was the society that could produce such a structure, " notes Ivan Semyan.

Interestingly, the festival began with a lecture by Spyros Bakas, an archaeologist from Greece, a researcher at the Universities of Athens, and Warsaw, a specialist in Bronze Age military affairs, with whom Ivan Semyan had already worked on a joint project to reconstruct a unique Bronze Age bow. The results were published in the Journal of the World Association for Experimental Archaeology, EXARC.eveloped for the JSC Russian Electric Motors plant and have been successfully introduced into production.

Provided by South Ural State University