Chariot

Chariot

The chariot is a type of horse carriage used in both peace and war as the chief vehicle of many ancient peoples. Ox carts, proto-chariots, were built by the Proto-Indo-Europeans and were also built in Mesopotamia as early as 3000 BC. The original chariot was a fast, light, open, two-wheeled conveyance drawn by two or more horses that were hitched side by side. The car was little more than a floor with a waist-high semicircular guard in front. The chariot, driven by a charioteer, was used for ancient warfare during the bronze and the iron ages. Armor was limited to a shield. The vehicle was used for travel and in processions, games, and races after it had been superseded by other vehicles for military purposes.

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Famous quotes containing the word chariot:

    Whose starward eye
    Saw chariot “swing low”? And who was he
    That breathed that comforting, melodic sigh,
    “Nobody knows de trouble I see”?
    James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938)

    Yet ere I can say where—the chariot hath
    Passed over them—nor other trace I find
    But as of foam after the ocean’s wrath
    Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

    Every man takes care that his neighbor shall not cheat him. But a day comes when he begins to care that he does not cheat his neighbor. Then all goes well. He has changed his marketcare into a chariot of the sun. What a day dawns, when we have taken to heart the doctrine of faith!
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)