Ritual Cart with Horned Birds or Ox Heads (Incense Burner)
Bronze
Italic (Villanovan)
ca. 800 B.C.
Length: 8 ¼ inches (21 cm.)
This fanciful, toy-like conveyance with its four large wheels surmounted by two oxen-horned birds joined to form a single body, is identical to a famous piece in the Museo Nazionale, Tarquinia, Italy (inv. RC 678)—the only other complete cart of this type to survive. On each example the topmost bird functions as a lid that when removed reveals the hollow cavity of the body below. Such carts are considered by some scholars to have served as incense burners but their true function remains nevertheless illusive. This is an object of great interest and rarity. |
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