Europe’s Lost Bronze Age Civilization

The only known figurines of Bronze Age charioteers from Europe are two small clay statuettes found by a Serbian farmer in the early twentieth century. The farmer likely came upon them while digging in an ancient cemetery near the village of Dupljaja on the southern edge of the Carpathian Basin’s Pannonian Plain. Both figurines date to around 1400 b.c. The more complex of the two, sometimes called the Mallard Charioteer of Dupljaja, is composed of a five-inch-tall man with a birdlike face standing in a three-wheeled chariot pulled by three enormous ducks. The second consists of a person incised with swastikas—an ancient solar symbol—riding in a two-wheeled chariot. Which creatures once pulled this chariot is unknown. 

Eric A. Powell is deputy editor at ARCHAEOLOGY.