حکاکی

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Chariot racing

The chariot races were perhaps the most exciting of all the events at Olympia. Chariot driving was very dangerous. Drivers were risking their lives as the chariot could crash at high speed. There were races for four-horse chariots and two-horse chariots. On the front of this coin you can see a man driving a four-horse racing chariot. The chief tactic was to get safely ahead early on.

Good horses were very expensive and only rich people could afford to own them. The charioteers were usually employed by the owners, just as racehorse owners today employ jockeys.​

 

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Horsemen from the Parthenon

The children looked at the horses and riders on the Parthenon freize, then touched them on the touch-wall.

Angelica: 'We touched the man's foot and the horse's tummy.'
Lene: 'It felt hard to touch.'
Debowrah: 'They are going along fast. The riders are talking to each other. They're got no reins.'
Yonas: 'They've got no clothes on - it's not very comfy. He's wearing a coat though.'​

 

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Stone panel from an Assyrian palace

Yonas: 'The man is combing the horse to keep him clean - he might roll on some mud.'
Kibria: 'Drinking' [two horses are drinking water]
Lene: 'He likes his horse as he is combing it'​

 

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Whalebone plaque

This whalebone plaque is decorated with a pair of openwork horses' heads at the top and incised, ring-and-dot and geometric designs. It was found in a burial beside a woman's body, with a pair of oval brooches and strings of glass beads on the chest.

It is thought that these plaques were used as boards for smoothing folds and seams in linen clothing with the aid of bun-shaped glass smoothers. They have been found mostly in northern Norway in rich women's graves. Occasional examples found in other Viking-settled areas, such as parts of Ireland and Scotland, are probably of Norwegian origin. Whales were hunted for their skins, meat and whalebone; they also sometimes stranded themselves or were washed ashore where their carcasses could be cut up.​

 

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Glass beaker with chariot-racing scene

Glass vessels with scenes from the circus or the arena may have been intended as souvenirs, showing not only a picture of the sporting event but the names of the participants, who would have been well known to the fans of the games, just as sporting heroes are today.

On this beaker the two lower bands of decoration depict the four competing quadrigae (four-horse chariots). The typical architectural features of the race-track, such as the lap-markers, are also shown. The inscribed upper band records that the charioteer Cresces beat his opponents Hierax, Olympaeus and Antilocus.

Like footballers today, a charioteer might move to a different faction, for a fee. The careers of certain outstanding charioteers are recorded in inscriptions: when Marcus Aurelius Polyneices died at the age of thirty, he had 739 victories to his name in all, 655 for the Reds, the others for the factions of the Greens, Blues and Whites. Fans, naturally, stayed loyal to one faction through thick and thin.​

 

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bronze helmets

These helmets, along with three mitrai (belly guards) also in the Museum's collection, are the finest pieces of a large cache of armor that came to light in southern central Crete, where it was undoubtedly made. The inscriptions suggest that the armor was captured as booty and offered as a dedication. In repoussé on both sides of one helmet is a pair of winged youths grasping a pair of intertwined snakes. Below them are two panthers with a common head. The helmet is inscribed "Neopolis." In repoussé on both sides of the other helmet is a horse; incised on each cheekpiece is a lion. The inscription states that Synenitos, son of Euklotas, took this object.​

 

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Pottery jar with a chariot-race

This colour-coated pottery jar is decorated with a lively, though schematized depiction of a chariot-race. The event is for quadrigae, four-horse chariots, and four competitors are shown in the middle of the race. Each is helmeted, dressed in a long sleeved jerkin and trousers, and holds whips and reins. The spirited rendering of the scene, made more vivid by the varied postures of the charioteers, suggests that the potter had actually been to a similar race.

The jar was either made in the area of Colchester, or in the Nene Valley region of Cambridgeshire. The remains of a Roman circus were discovered in Colchester in 2004, and excavated by the Colchester Archaeological Trust. This is the first Roman circus ever discovered on British soil, and shows that chariot racing was familiar to at least some of the people of Roman Britain.​

 

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Gold coin in the name of Tincomarus

In the late first century BC, the rulers of southern England began to put their names on their coins. These coins represent the earliest evidence of the use of writing in Britain. One of these kings, we now know, was called Tincomarus. His name is legible on the back of this coin. TINCO can be clearly seen above the horse, MA between the horse's legs and RVS running anti-clockwise in front of the horse's head. The name may mean something like 'big fish' in Ancient British (a variety of Celtic language) or Insular Celtic. He was the ruler of a kingdom centred on the modern counties of Hampshire and Sussex.​