This magnificent bronze chariot once carried its distinguished owner on grand occasions – such as ceremonial processions – during the sixth century B.C. It was found in a tomb near Monteleone in what was ancient Etruria, present-day central Italy. Found with the chariot was a large number of utilitarian objects made of bronze, iron, and terracotta. They are exhibited in two cases on the wall between the nearby windows.

The chariot was constructed to hold two people – the driver and the passenger behind him. And, it would have been drawn by two horses, the size of our ponies. Like most chariots, the car itself has a wooden underlying structure, but this one is extraordinary for its remarkable bronze embellishment! The original wooden substructure deteriorated centuries ago. However, if you walk around to the back of the car, you can see how conservators at the Metropolitan Museum carefully reconstructed it according to recent scholarship and the chariot’s surviving metal parts.

Now walk back to the front of the car, and notice the tires made of iron and the wooden wheels revetted with bronze. This was an exceptional practice reserved only for the most elaborate chariots. Even more special was the decorative use of ivory inlays. Such precious material fractures easily, but you can see what remains in the cases nearby.

The three impressive bronze panels that embellish the front and sides of the car were decorated in repoussé, meaning that the artist hammered their designs from the reverse side. Each scene – exquisitely detailed – depicts an episode from the life of Achilles, the Greek hero of the Trojan War. This subject was widely known from the account in Homer’s Iliad and many representations in Greek art.

Let’s look more closely at the three panels of the car from the front. On the magnificent central panel, Achilles receives from his mother, Thetis, a shield and helmet. The panel on the left shows Achilles battling Memnon, king of the Ethiopians and a chief Trojan ally. In the panel on the right, Achilles ascends on a chariot drawn by winged horses. In fact, that chariot is a miniature version of the real one.

Just imagine how these bronze panels, when polished, would have gleamed in the bright Mediterranean sun! And, how the two small horses – harnessed to their yokes – slowly pulled the chariot forward in a stately procession.