In ancient times, the sun was considered God himself. Actually not so strange. People paid tribute to the sun at special ceremonies and adored it, carrying sacrifices. Such a sacrifice is the Sun Chariot from about 1350 BC. It is ingeniously shaped in bronze with the finest ornaments chiselled into the metal. One side of the sun disc is coated with pure gold. The other is dark - that was how the sun was at night.
The debut of Danish art
The Trundholm Sun Chariot is the oldest known Danish artwork. It dates back to the Older Bronze Age - from a time when people imagined that the earth was flat, and that the sun was pulled across the sky by its helpers: the fish, the snake, the horse and the ships. In fact never on wheels, but by rope. The sun chariot has six wheels because they made it possible to pull it across the sacrificial area - as a particularly dramatic effect under the divine ceremony.
Popular sun
The symbolism and attraction of the sun is endlessly strong. In the history of art going back several millennia, countless works feature the sun as the main figure. Even in the most recent art. Just remember the Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson who attracted more than two million visitors to Tate Modern in London with his gigantic solar installation The Weather Report in 2004. It was more than 3000 years after the Sun Chariot rolled out for its last journey in the bog.
Trine Moeller Madsen is a writer on art and cultural affairs and an author. Among her works is "KUNST" ("Art") (Gyldendal, 2004), a textbook on image analysis for the oldest students in the Danish Folkeskole.
The Sun Chariot. Gold-plated bronze. Height 30 cm, length 60 cm. Photo: Kit Weiss