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Wednesday 23 May 2012

Tremble Ye Foes of Ashur!

The psychedelic elephants featured in previous posts were one of my favourite eBay finds. But when it comes to best ever buy I have to hand it to these beauties. Five custom-made (from sheet metal, wire solder and what may be railway engine wheels) vintage 1960s four-horse Assyrian chariots, shown here with one of the crazy-eyed, whip-wielding converted Minifig S-range charioteers that came with them.
I've been studying pictures of Charles Grant's Egyptian chariots and can't for the life of me work out what make they are (The rest of the Egyptian figures appear to be converted, maybe from Airfix Robin Hood figures). Grant was a dab hand with a soldering iron. I wonder if his "Royal chariot squadron" was made up of daintier versions of these metal beasts.
 

9 comments:

  1. Stunning! Top Gear for the Ancients!

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  2. Glancing at the thumbnail, these looked kind of like chariots crossed with WWI airplanes... which might be even cooler!

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  3. Amazing!! Where would the horses have been tied on ? Have you any links to pictures of Charles Grant's Egyptian chariots ? I´ve searched your blog (and the web) but can´t find them.
    Cheers
    paul

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    1. There are a couple of photos of them in Grant's book The Ancient Wargame. Other works by the great man have been reissued recently but sadly I don't think that one is amongst them.

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  4. I was just thinking that. At the risk of sounding like a great war general looking at a tank. Where are the horses ?

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    1. Safely stabled. I've never actually deployed these great machines, but looking at them again I think I ought to. They maybe better with some larger wheels...

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    2. It would be a terrible shame for them not to see the field of battle.

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