The wheels of the chariot are still intact

The chariot was unearthed in an Iron Age burial site earlier this year by engineers working on the new A1 motorway, but the discovery was only made public last week.

Wakefield Museums Service said the find would be given to them and displayed first in Pontefract in 2005 and then in Castleford when the centre there opens.

The move is expected to take place in about five years' time.

It is believed the site at Darrington, near Pontefract, where the chariot was found was the scene of a large funeral ceremony about 500 BC.

The burial chamber also held the bones of a 40-year-old man and the remains of 250 cattle.

Archaeologists said the 2,500-year-old site was important because the chariot appeared to have been placed in the pit intact.