Dimensions
162 x 241 x 23mm
The first account ever written which deals with the whole spread of the chariot's use as a war machine right across the Old World, from Ireland to Korea.
The chariot - in its military, sporting, ceremonial and religious functions - has had an immense impact on the imagination throughout time. Yet when we look at the history of the chariot throughout the ages, different stories emerge. We know that the ancient Iranians restricted chariots for races long after their cousins - the Indo-Aryans - set off in them to conquer India (1500-1300 BC). Indian and Greek epics are full of chariots, even as these two peoples held opposing views about archers firing from them. While the Greeks thought such action unmanly, the crowd enthusiasm over a football match today pales in comparison with a Greco-Roman chariot races. In AD 532, a riot arising out of a chariot race left 30,000 dead, after the emperor Justinian was obliged to send in troops to restore order.
In this fascinating new book, Arthur Cotterell gives a cross-cultural study of chariot warfare and its eclipse as well as its ceremonial and religious functions in the days of the early Mesopotamian kings to the twentieth- century cinema goers who see chariots as an essential feature in most 'ancient' films.
