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Gold model chariot from the Oxus treasure

Achaemenid Persian, 5th-4th century BC
From the region of Takht-i Kuwad, Tadjikistan

This remarkable model is one of the most outstanding pieces in the Oxus treasure, which dates mainly from the fifth and fourth centuries BC, and is the most important survivingcollection of gold and silver to have survived from the Achaemenid period.

The model chariot is pulled by four horses or ponies. In it are two figures wearing Median dress. The Medes were from Iran, the centre of the Achaemenid empire. The front of the chariot is decorated with the Egyptian dwarf-god Bes, a popular protective deity. The chariot can be compared with that shown being ridden by the Persian king Darius on a cylinder seal also in the British Museum.

A second fragmentary gold chariot now in the British Museum was acquired by the Earl of Lytton, the Viceroy of India, about the same time that the Oxus treasure was discovered and is thought to have come from the same source.

J. Curtis, Ancient Persia-1 (London, The British Museum Press, 2000)

M. Roaf, Cultural atlas of Mesopotamia (New York, 1990)