FAST FACTS
Name: Lchashen wagon
What is it: Oak carriage
Where: Lchashen village, Armenia
When it was done: Around 1500 BC
Covered wagons are often associated with the Old West. But the best-preserved example of an ancient covered wagon was actually found in a Bronze Age grave in Armenia, where it was buried 3,500 years ago.
At the exhibition in Museum of History of Armenia In Yerevan, the Lchashen cart consisted of at least 70 parts, interconnected by a tongue-and-groove system using slotted pieces of wood and bronze fittings. The frame of the canopy required at least 600 mortise holes, archaeologist Stuart Piggott wrote in his book. 1968 studywhich indicates the precise quality of workmanship that went into creating the station wagon.
The carriage is approximately 6.5 feet (2 meters) long. Each wooden wheel was made from two slabs of wood joined together and measured a whopping 63 inches (160 centimeters) in height, as historian Christoph Baumer wrote in “History of the Caucasus(Bloomsbury, 2021).
The Lchashen car was discovered in the 1950s, when Soviet construction workers drained part of Lake Sevan in Armenia to irrigate the nearby plain. They found a Late Bronze Age cemetery containing more than 500 burials and hundreds of grave goods. A distinctive feature of the Lchashen necropolis is the presence of two- and four-wheeled carts, as well as bronze models of war chariots, archaeologist L. A. Petrosyan wrote in his book. 2016 study.
Although some argue that the Lchashen carriage is “the oldest in the worldThe exact dates of invention are still debated, but people probably first invented the wheel and wheeled vehicles in Mesopotamia during the Copper Age, approximately between 4500 and 3300 BC.
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But the Lchashen cart is a very early and also the best preserved example of a covered cart with spoked wheels on its axles, demonstrating the innovation of early wheeled vehicles. Whether this technology was invented in Armenia or came from Mesopotamia in the south or the Russian steppe in the north is still being determined.
According to Museum of History of ArmeniaWheeled cart burials originated in the Middle Bronze Age (2400–1500 BC) in Armenia, but gained greatest popularity in the Late Bronze Age, when they were used as vehicles to physically and metaphorically transport the remains of a deceased leader to the afterlife.
Read our article for even more amazing archaeological discoveries. Amazing Artifacts archives.
