Journal - Comune di Monteleone di Spoleto

i.2–i.4 The monteleone
chariot after recent reconstruction,
front, back, and
side views. The metro politan
museum of art, rogers Fund
1903 (03.23.1). all new photographs
of the reconstructed
chariot and its separate pieces
are by Peter Zeray of the
Photo graph Studio, mma.
10
The front panel (Figure i.1), which is taller than the side
panels, shows Thetis presenting achilles with a shield and a
helmet; both figures stand in profile facing each other. The
scene is completed by the forepart of a wild boar who
charges a deer while under attack himself by two birds of
prey. The boar is separate from the front panel and is placed
where the pole exits the chassis.
on the proper right panel (Figure i.7) achilles and
memnon fight over the corpse of antilochos, which lies on
the ground. a bird of prey seems to redirect the loser’s spear.
The proper left panel (Figure i.8) represents an unarmed
achilles soaring upward on a chariot drawn by two winged
horses (in the Iliad his horses are called Balios and Xanthos).
on the ground below them is a recumbent woman who
raises her left hand; she has been thought to represent
Polyxena, who was sacrificed at achilles’s tomb, but she
may serve to indicate the ground, or earth. each of the two
junctions between the main panel and the side panels is
covered by the figure of a naked youth, or kouros, standing
on the protome of a lion flanked by two recumbent animals,
a lion and a ram. above the head of each youth is a round
boss secured by a nail.
Below each side panel is a frieze that covers the part of the
chariot’s wooden structure that acted as a shock absorber.
The scene on the proper right shows Chiron, a seated centaur;
iris, a sprinting winged figure carrying a writing tablet;
and achilles, a young man grasping a panther around its
neck and belly. on the proper left side two symmetrical
lions face each other, one attacking a bull and the other
a stag.
C. The discovery of the chariot in 1902
The site of the excavation. The Chariot Tomb was discovered
near monteleone di Spoleto in Valnerina (see map, Figure i.9),
the northern part of the ancient region inhabited by the
Sabines, the italic population famous from the stories of
early rome. 3 This area, usually called inner or upper Sabina,
is a mountainous landscape traversed by wide valleys,
streams, and watercourses of varying sizes. 4 it lies in the
heart of the apennines, northeast of rome, on the left bank