Journal - Comune di Monteleone di Spoleto

62
that reached the metropolitan museum with the chariot,
and therefore their dating to about 550 – 540 B.C. can be
considered the terminus post quem of the burial of the
last owner of the chariot. 136 The cups, however, do not
date the vehicle, which carries many unmistakable signs
of a long life prior to burial. our typological examination
showed that its structure points to the end of a gestation
process of the sixth-century parade chariot, of which the
monteleone example is the standard (see ii.B). it follows
a less developed vehicle, such as the chariot from Capua
datable to about 580 B.C., and it predates the canonical type
represented by chariot i from Castel San mariano of 530 –
520 B.C. and the one from Castro of 520 B.C. moreover, the
shape of the side panels of achilles’s vehicle on the proper
left panel of the monteleone chariot greatly resembles that
of the Via appia antica chariot, which can be placed no
later than the second quarter of the sixth century B.C. The
east Greek iconographic parallels cannot date beyond the
mid-sixth century either and must predate the so-called
etruscan-ionian style of the second half of the century. all
considerations therefore point to a date of between 560 and
550 B.C. for the construction of the monteleone chariot. 137