Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c14.76

c14.76

But by the beginnings of Early Dynastic times in Sumer we are on firm ground. ‘Scarlet Ware’ vessels of E.D.I date show light two-wheeled chariots with high fronts carrying one or two people and drawn either by asses or by oxen; the wheels are represented (very schematically) as solid. And in the slightly later Early Dynastic reliefs from Ur and Kafajah, and on the famous inlaid ‘Standard’ from the Royal Tombs of Ur, similar ass-drawn chariots are shown in great detail, with solid wheels made of two half-discs dowelled together against the hub. (On the ‘Standard’ the chariots at first sight appear to be four-wheeled, but, as Sidney Smith has pointed out, this is the result of a curious Picasso-like technique of representing frontal and lateral views of the same object in one convention!) Though these chariots doubtless creaked and rumbled on their clumsy wheels, yet when the pair of asses was at full speed, as in the final scenes on the ‘Standard’, they must have been a notable added terror to the enemies of Sumer when first encountered.