1,800-Year-Old Chariot Unearthed

This news is almost 2 days old, and I didn't hear anything about this until tonight watching our local news channel, they sport a segment titled "Thing's you should know." So , I found it and here is the story behind the find.
They were doing excavation archaeological dig in Sofia Bulgaria and unintentionally ran across this beautiful find.
There are pictures and explanations by way of captions of the pictures.

SOFIA, Bulgaria (Nov. 21) - Archaeologists have unearthed an elaborately decorated 1,800-year-old chariot sheathed in bronze at an ancient Thracian tomb in southeastern Bulgaria, the head of the excavation said Friday.
"The lavishly ornamented four-wheel chariot dates back to the end of the second century A.D.," Veselin Ignatov told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from the site, near the southeastern village of Karanovo.

news.aol.com...

There is so much yet to find in our pasts, hopefully it will lead to the discovery to change all ways of thinking.

Nice find! I hadn't noticed that news item -- thanks for bringing it to our attention!

From the sounds of it, the horses were part of a sacrifice on the death of that person. Elaborate burials like that are often royal burials.

[edit on 23-11-2008 by Byrd]

Originally posted by Byrd

From the sounds of it, the horses were part of a sacrifice on the death of that person. [edit on 23-11-2008 by Byrd]

Probaly not, could just be from looters or mabey visitors to the ancient site when it wasnt so ancient. They found another cart, leather straps not too far from the site. Sadly, the site has been a hot spot for looters since it's creation.

Even it wasn't royalty, the find itself, still being in tact, is very rare ,especially when the funerary grounds they were digging at weren't suspected of such artifacts of this nature.
There was mention of a dog buried near by as well, which I think led them to believe it was someone with a bit of clout.

Thanks for your replies, and IvanZana, "Are you familiar with the archaeological digs of this region?"

Very cool. Thank you for sharing that. I just spent 20 minutes looking at all the fascinating archeological photo slide shows on that page.

That's old, but imagine how much longer we have had chariots for. Probably way before Christ and into the 2000BC period in a very crude way.

Well, if memory serves me right "Chariots were the invention of Egyptians, 5th or 6th dynasty?" Not sure, but somewhere around that time.
I don't know if Bulgaria was a Roman occupied area at the time of the chariots existence, but to have something intact and decipherable is a miraculous find in my books.

Thanks for posting blowfish!!

Originally posted by Allred5923
Well, if memory serves me right "Chariots were the invention of Egyptians, 5th or 6th dynasty?" Not sure, but somewhere around that time.
I don't know if Bulgaria was a Roman occupied area at the time of the chariots existence, but to have something intact and decipherable is a miraculous find in my books.

Thanks for posting blowfish!!

Actually, the Egyptians didn't invent the chariot -- the Mesopotamians did. en.wikipedia.org... That article has a very cool graphic showing who got it when. However, I think this find pushes back the date of chariots in Thrace by a century or two, so they may need to rework that map.

I found other news stories on this:
www.timesonline.co.uk...

The burial was that of a nobleman, they're saying. However, this article gives a contradictory date for the burial of the nobleman (first to third century CE): www.sofiaecho.com...

...and a third article that I found just now says that the nobleman is a "secondary burial". So, the chariot is from an older burial.
international.ibox.bg...

That's going to be a really NEAT multicultural excavation! There should be all sorts of interesting things in both graves.

Thanks Byrd,
I was really unaware of the advent of the chariot being a Mesopotamian invention. Was a very and enlightening read for knowledge of such thing, next time I will have to research before I "assume" something!!LOL

The other websites are very interesting as well. I wonder what will come from this "Multicultural and multi-timeline" burial?

Though I do think you are right Byrd about them having to find more tangible evidences for why this had taken place, and when for that matter.

should get interesting as they dig and clarify the results.

Originally posted by Allred5923
The other websites are very interesting as well. I wonder what will come from this "Multicultural and multi-timeline" burial?

I do, too. I think, however, that we may have a reused burial ground, for there's a story from August about something similar occurring in the same grounds. The news story you found mentioned that this was the second such find, so this news story must have been the first one:
goddesschess.blogspot.com...

The blog makes it clearer that the horse sacrifice at the first site is apparently connected with the Thracian burial which is dated to about 100 AD.

Thracian burials are weird and interesting... take a look at the summary of this one:
www.cronaca.com...

Seems as there are a lot of interesting finds, even all the way back to the dinosaur era. Though, this find was in Bolivia, it is still interesting to discuss it, I also know that we have , in the USA, petrified footsteps of dinosaurs as well, Wyoming I think.

news.yahoo.com...;_ylt=AtjZ1GluLPoF00mbPP2OeC0PLBIF

reply to post by Byrd

the body of the dead aristocrat was dismembered in three pieces

www.cronaca.com...

Now! That is very strange indeed. Doesn't go into detail of the reasons why he was dismembered, but one can speculate that it is possible that it could of happened as an act of war by other turbulent societies?

Here's a bit more of the peoples of the "Thracian Valley" area.

Bulgarian Archeologists "Found Thracian Sacred Valley"

He thinks that those sanctuaries were immune even in wartime and formed something as ancient Greece's Delphi.

www.novinite.com...

Very cool Byrd, I am going to keep researching this, it is quite interesting and informative for the inclined people of ATS.