Journal - Comune di Monteleone di Spoleto

i.24 The monteleone chariot
during recent conservation,
showing the wooden
substructure of the box
made in 1903 as it appeared
when the bronze panels
were removed. Photograph:
Frederick J. Sager
24
i.23 The monteleone chariot during recent conservation, showing
the Chinese paper used by Charles Balliard in 1903 to stabilize fractures
and cracks in the central panel. Photograph: Kendra roth
i.25 detail of achilles’s chariot depicted on the left panel of the
monteleone chariot, after recent conservation
contemporary archaeological evidence for the reconstruction,
Cesnola and Balliard had only the models depicted on
ancient pottery and other archaic figural works to go by. 55 in
1903, no other example of precisely this type of chariot had
been correctly reconstructed after its discovery. They probably
drew on the small biga depicted on the proper left panel
of the very vehicle they were reconstructing (Figure i.25).
Besides, the three main panels of the monteleone chariot
had remained intact, and their original position must have
been apparent even to those who were not versed in ancient
vehicles. one clue suggests that Cesnola did research on
the then-existing etruscan chariots: he erroneously had the
two lion heads (cats. 7 and 8) placed on the wheels because
he had seen the biga from rome/Via appia antica in the
museo Gregoriano etrusco in the Vatican. 56 There, two lion
heads indeed function as axle finials, but, unlike the lion
heads from monteleone, they were made of cast bronze
and had holes for the lynchpins. Finally, it is worth remembering
that Cesnola was a trained military officer and cavalryman
who had seen action in the Crimean War and the
american Civil War, on the union side. He would have had