The importance of the Trundholm Sun Chariot lies in the fact that it is the finest example of a crucial aspect of Scandinavian Bronze Age religion: the cosmic passage of the Sun through heavenly light and the darkness of the underworld. One side of the Sun disk is gilded, to give the impression of the Sun during the day, while the other side was left dark as way of depicting the journey of the Sun during the night.
The following two paragraphs are excerpts from an article that appeared recently in Ancient Origins (by DHWTY):
“Apart from being a ritual object, it has also been suggested that the Trundholm Sun Chariot may have functioned as a calendar. This theory was proposed by Klaus Randsborg, a professor of archaeology at the University of Copenhagen, who explained that the golden day-side of the Trundholm Sun Chariot has dimensions associated with one third of a solar year.
“Ransborg argues that the night-side of the large central concentric circle has dimensions linked to six lunar months. He therefore concluded that ‘the reference is to the Sun-calendar on the day-side, and to the Moon-calendar on the night-side of the Sun Chariot, which seems the perfect calculation’.”
Travelling Suns not only appeared in Norse, Celtic, and Hindu mythology, but were also prominent features of Egyptian and Greek traditions. In ancient Egypt, the Sun was represented as being transported across the sky by Ra’s solar barge, or pushed by Khepri, a being depicted as a scarab. Due to the importance of the Sun as a life-giving force, it is not too difficult to understand why the ancients perceived the Sun as being divine.