Yes, but the chariot originated as a military vehicle. Fast transportation was provided by horses, while bulk transportation was provided by boats, wagons, or, in China, a vehicle commonly called a "wheelbarrow", though it's very unlike the common modern device by the same name. The chariot, by virtue of holding two men, allowed an archer to travel at the speed of a galloping horse, while also protecting them to some extent from the arrows, axes, and swords of others.
It was an unbeatable battlefield combination for centuries, and the accounts of Bronze Age battles—in Hatti, Egypt, India, and China—are basically accounts of battles between chariot formations.
My question was that while this particular chariot seems like it might have been used for ceremonial purposes, was that true for all chariots? The military context is interesting, but its surely only part of the picture.
To put it a different way, after its military significance faded, was it actually relegated to purely ceremonial uses or was it a popular means of transportation?
Neither! Chariot racing was a popular sport from Homeric Greece (≈01200 BCE, during the heyday of the military chariot itself) through to Classical Greece, Imperial Rome, and Byzantium until at least 00600 CE, for instance, and that's neither "purely ceremonial" nor "transportation". I think the closest modern analogy is horseback riding, which is done almost entirely for recreational and ceremonial purposes nowadays, but is a popular hobby among the wealthy and the rural.
But, unlike horseback riding, chariots were never a practical means of long-distance travel. They have no suspension, they have no seats, they have no cargo space, and they don't stay level. At any time period, if you're traveling all day in a chariot, it's because the chariot is in one place and you want it to be somewhere else, perhaps for a battle or a race. If you and the driver just wanted to get there yourselves, you'd just ride the horses and leave the chariot back home in the stable.
Yes, it's just 600 CE! It's not the notation historians use; it's just a bit of thought-provoking fun. It also has the advantage of really pissing off the kind of mindless conformists who beat up gay people, hackers, and anybody else who seems "odd" or "queer"! See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26291173.
It was an unbeatable battlefield combination for centuries, and the accounts of Bronze Age battles—in Hatti, Egypt, India, and China—are basically accounts of battles between chariot formations.
And then... it wasn't.