Horses and Horsemanship in the Ancient World
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University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository Graduate Studies The Vault: Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2013-05-02 From Steppe to Stable: Horses and Horsemanship in the Ancient World Willekes, Carolyn Willekes, C. (2013). From Steppe to Stable: Horses and Horsemanship in the Ancient World (Unpublished doctoral thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. doi:10.11575/PRISM/26239 http://hdl.handle.net/11023/698 doctoral thesis University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission. Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca University of Calgary From the Steppe to the Stable: Horses and Horsemanship in the Ancient World by Carolyn Willekes A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF GREEK AND ROMAN STUDIES CALGARY, ALBERTA APRIL, 2013 © Carolyn Willekes 2013 2 UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES The undersigned certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate Studies for acceptance, a dissertation entitled ‘From the Steppe to the Stable: Horses and Horsemanship in the Ancient World’ submitted by Carolyn Willekes in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Supervisor, Dr. Waldemar Heckel, Greek and Roman Studies Supervisory Committee, Dr. Hanne Sigismund Nielsen, Greek and Roman Studies Supervisory Committee, Dr. John Humphrey, Greek and Roman Studies ‘Internal’ External, Dr. Mary McDonald, Archaeology External, Dr. Timothy Howe, St. Olaf College Date 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many thanks to my parents for their unwavering support of my academic career through twelve years, two universities and three degrees. None of this would have been possible without their encouragement. Thank you to my supervisor, Dr. Waldemar Heckel for his advice, open-mindedness and confidence in my work. I imagine he never wants to think about the equine form again! Thanks to the Department of Greek and Roman Studies at the University of Calgary and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada for their generous financial support. I am indebted to the many colleagues, friends and family members who have helped me through the research process over the past seven years. You know who you are. Over the course of this degree I have been blessed with the opportunity to meet extraordinary horsemen from all over the world – thank you for sharing your knowledge and love of all things Equus with me. Finally, I am ever so grateful to the many horses in my life. They served not only as the inspiration for my work, but also as my companions, mentors, therapists and confidants. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: Horses and Humans 6 Purpose of this Dissertation 11 Chapter One: Research Methods 18 Previous Work 18 The Military Horse 18 History of Horse Breeds 23 General History of the Horse 25 The Horse in Art 26 Methodology 28 Artistic Representations 31 Literary Evidence 40 Other Material Evidence 44 Experimental Archaeology 47 Chapter Two: the Early History of the Horse 51 The Evolution of the Horse 51 The Ancestral Horses 55 Domestication 66 Case Study One: The Exmoor Pony 70 Case Study Two: The Przewalski Horse 82 Case Study Three: The Akhal Teke 94 Case Study Four: The Iberian Horse 101 Case Study Five: The Caspian Horse 105 Chapter Three: Equine Conformation and the Horses of the Ancient World 110 Breed or Type? 110 The Ideal Horse in Ancient Literature 116 The Hoof 120 The Legs 126 The Shoulder and Chest 134 The Trunk and Back 136 The Hindquarters 139 The Neck 143 The Head 146 Conclusion 154 Chapter Four: The Central Asian Horse 156 Environment 157 Lifestyle and Husbandry 166 Appearance 172 Central Asian Warfare 184 Conclusion 194 Chapter Five: The Near Eastern Horse 196 Environment 202 Lifestyle and Husbandry 207 Appearance 217 Near Eastern Type 1: The Nesaean 217 Near Eastern Type 2: The Southern Steppe Horse 225 Near Eastern Warfare 234 Near Eastern Type 1 235 Near Eastern Type 2 250 Conclusion 254 Chapter Six: The Mediterranean Horse 256 Environment 257 Lifestyle and Husbandry 265 5 Appearance 271 Training 284 Mediterranean Warfare 299 Conclusion 322 Chapter Seven: Conclusion 324 Appendix A: The Ideal Horse 329 Appendix B: Descriptions of Ancient Horse Types 334 Bibliography 348 6 INTRODUCTION: HORSES AND HUMANS The horse evokes powerful symbolism. He represents wealth, power and conquest. His image graces the emblems of high-octane sports cars like Ferrari, Porsche and Mustang. Royal families own stables full of priceless, purebred horses often found competing on the polo field, racetrack and the Olympic disciplines of dressage, eventing and show jumping. Horses can be found with starring roles in celebrations and memorials. Indeed, it is almost impossible to imagine a world without the horse. Stephan Budiansky, however, in his book The Nature of Horses has a chapter entitled ‘The Improbability of the Horse’ in which he argues that the horse would have gone extinct had it not been domesticated.1 To most people this might seem a rather far-fetched idea. After all, there are hundreds of millions of horses all over the world today. In fact, there are more horses on the planet now than there ever have been before. Budiansky, however, is not off the mark with his assessment. One need only look to the non-domesticated relatives of the horse to see the truth in his statement. The quagga, tarpan and Syrian wild ass are extinct; Grevy’s zebra is a threatened species; the Mountain zebra, Persian onager and Asiatic wild asses are endangered. The Przewalski horse went extinct in the wild in the 1960s and survived only in zoos through intensive conservation practices. Although the Przewalski horse has been re-released onto reserves in Mongolia, it is still on the endangered species list. History makes it clear, then, that domestic equids have thrived while their wild counterparts have suffered. The domestication of the horse sometime in the 4th millennium BCE altered the future not only of equines, but of humans as well. The horse turned out to be a pretty 1 S. Budiansky, The Nature of Horses (New York, 1997) 9-38. 7 useful animal. Cultural, technological and military evolution would have been much slower without them as humans plodded along on donkey-back or in their ox-carts. It is safe to say, I think, that the horse very quickly entrenched himself as an essential part of the human world. To understand how firmly equines have rooted themselves in the human psyche we need only look at the history of the horse after the industrial revolution. With the increasing mechanization of transportation, warfare and labour, it was commonly thought that the horse would disappear as he no longer served any practical function and was, at the end of the day, expensive to maintain. The horse remained resilient and re-invented himself. No longer a ‘practical’ tool, he became an athlete, companion and pet.2 Horses competing at the top echelons of their sports can be worth millions of dollars and live lives of pampered luxury attended by a retinue of grooms, veterinarians, massage therapists, physiotherapists and chiropractors. Then there is the chubby, backyard pony – part lawnmower, babysitter, therapist and teacher. One might be tempted to assume that the horse-human relationship - this affectionate, personal bond between equine and human – is a relatively modern development. If we turn to the historical record, however, it becomes clear that this emotional attachment is nothing new. Human fixation or fascination with the horse appears in full force with the Paleolithic cave art from Southern France, Northern Spain and Northern Portugal carved and painted between 30,000 and 8,000 BCE. These dramatic, often larger than life murals are found deep inside labyrinthine passages at places like Altimerra, Lascaux and Chauvet. They depict a variety of animals including bison, deer, rhinoceroses, mammoths, lions and, of 2 Notwithstanding the fact that in many parts of the world equids still provide a more practical source of transportation than vehicles. 8 course, horses. This veritable zoo is made up of wild animals. The only representations of human-animal interactions are found in hunting contexts. Yet, even in this period the horse is the most prevalent species on display, appearing with a much greater frequency than any other animal. If we keep in mind that these are wild horses with no apparent connection to humans aside from serving as a food source, how do we account for their frequent and often lifelike appearance in art? Why were prehistoric humans so fascinated with the horse? This question becomes more convoluted when we introduce domestication. Given the human fascination with the horse from as early as 30,000 BCE, we might expect it to have been one of the earliest domesticated mammals. This is not the case. The horse was domesticated long after dogs, cats, cattle, goats, sheep and pigs. Recent evidence from the Botai culture of Kazakhstan suggests that domestication occurred around 3500BCE. Even after domestication the horse continued to serve as a food source; indeed this was the reason for his domestication in the first place. No one can say when exactly someone first realized he could climb onto the back of a horse and harness its power for his own advantage, but once it happened the horse-human relationship changed irrevocably. The horse enabled humans to move beyond the boundaries of their valleys and villages and into the wider world.