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I always wanted to be a knight in
shining armor - in fact my horse’s name is Knight. I guess I never grew
up! I loved reading about the Greeks and Egyptians or stories of
chivalry during the Middle Ages. I have always heard that the horse was
important to the development of western civilization. With a little
research, I started to realize that horses were far more interesting
than my pet led me to believe.
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Eastern Steppes |
| In the article “The
Origin of Horseback Riding” (Scientific American,
December 1991) David Anthony states that the head of a
six to eight year old stallion was found in the hamlet
of Dereivka dating back to 4000 BC. This horse’s head
was preserved in a Copper Age grave, as a ritual
offering by the people of the Sredni Stog culture of the
Ukrainian. Wear on the anterior premolars causing a
beveling of the leading edge of the tooth commonly seen
in the mouth of a horse ridden with a bit seems to prove
that this horse was used as a ridden mount. He couldn’t
be a cart horse because the wheel wouldn’t be around for
another 500 years. The antler cheek pieces of a bit were
also found in the Sredni Stog settlement in Aleksandriia
from the same time period. The most compelling evidence
is that their language and culture spread very suddenly
from this area too quickly for people on foot. Parts of
this language are found in common with Sanskrit, Homeric
Greek and Latin as well as the modern languages of
English, French, Russian, Persian and Hindi among many
others. Horseback riding may be the mechanism for the
dispersal of this language through war and trade. By
riding the horse people travel much farther distances
and attain power. When people attain power their
language is learned whether through force of conquest or
trade and that language spreads in all directions of
influence. Because the Indo-European languages have a
common historical background and trace back to the same
people whom were the first riders of domesticated horses
it seems probable that the horse was the tool that
helped to start the spread of our own culture. |
| Nowhere would learning to
ride be more useful than the steppe environmental regions of the East.
This desolate grass land stretches 3,000 miles from the mouth of the
Danube River at the Black Sea to Mongolia. The wagon and cart were also
developed in 3,300 BC in this area by the Yamna. The Yamna culture was a
descendant of the Sredni Stog people of Dereivka. With the wagon they
could pick up their belongings and follow their herd along the steppe. The
spoke wheel chariot was developed around 2,000 BC by the Sintashta culture
of southern Russia who was a descendant of the Yamna. The idea of horses
and chariot spread through the steppe and then down to
Egypt by 1,500 BC. The Egyptians lightened the chariot
to make it quicker and added an archer for further
offence. |
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The
Egyptian and Persian Empires |
| By 1,300 BC the Egyptians
replaced the primitive horn bits with the introduction of metal bits. This
innovation made the bits stronger so they wouldn’t wear out or break
during battle. The communication of cues through the bit to the horse
became more consistent as the design of the bit became more reliable. In
conjunction with this stronger bit, the draw rein and the martingale were
created to assist in collecting the horse’s head allowing the charioteer
to control the horse’s speed and direction with more accuracy. These
inventions greatly aided the Egyptian civilization as it continued to
dominate the world as the first major empire in history and in the process
made the horse a very important animal. |
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To defeat the
Egyptian empire it was necessary to have a
new concept of battle. The horseman of Cyrus
the Great of the Persian Empire in 530 BC
added spikes to the bit for even greater
control and again rode the horse as cavalry.
They were known as the greatest horsemen of
the ancient world - both mounted and as
charioteers. By mounting the horse they were
able to use the added control of the spiked
bits to maneuver more quickly during battle.
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This advantage led to their
success and a new empire was founded - again by using the horse as an
improved tool of war. |
| Greek and
Roman Empires |
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In 430 BC, an Athenian,
Xenophon, wrote the first surviving books on horsemanship “Hippike,” and
tactics, “Hipparchikos.” He was a member of the Equestrian class in which
horsemen provided their own horses and equipment. He
fought in the Peloponnesian wars and later joined a
Greek army to assist the Prince of Persia who was trying
to take the throne from his brother. When the Prince was
killed, Xenophon was elected to lead the Greek troops
out of Persia in “The Retreat of the Ten Thousand.”
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During this campaign
Xenophon observed a weakness in the Persian cavalry. The Persian cavalry
was controlled solely by the King. He carried this knowledge back to
Greece which later paved the way for the legendary
Alexander the Great to end the Persian
reign. Alexander used independent leaders
and attack squads of cavalry to penetrate
deep within the lines of the Persian army.
This threatened the King directly causing
him to retreat leaving the battle field.
Without leadership, the battlefield soon
became chaos for the Persians and led to
their defeat.
Alexander went on to conquer
the world by 323 BC using this same strategy which was to separate his
cavalry into independent groups of which each commander had a concept of
the overall battle plan. As the battle changed each commander could make
independent adjustments to achieve the overall goal. By changing the way
the horse and riders were used tactically Alexander created a better tool
and founded the Greek Empire. |
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By 200 BC two new ideas were
introduced into Roman Warfare; the horse shoe, created by the Greeks and
the saddle, developed by the Sarmatians. As the Roman Empire advanced into
these lands their ideas were absorbed into the
horsemanship of the Roman cavalry. The horse shoe
allowed the army to travel long distances without
causing lameness to the horse. The saddle allowed the
rider to remain astride for many hours without causing
the horse’s back to become sore. |
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With the use of these two
new inventions the Roman cavalry was able to travel by horse three times
the distance of their foes in the same amount of time. With this speed the
Romans went on to conquer the world – again using the horse as a better
tool. |
| The Hun
and Holy Roman Empires |
| By 375 AD, the Roman Empire
began to fade and Attila the Hun’s invasion threatened Europe. His people,
the Huns, developed a way to make the horse a better war tool by using the
stirrup. This
invention allowed a rider to keep his balance while turning at speed.
Instead of having to stop his horse before engaging in hand-to-hand battle
the rider could gallop into battle and throw his spear or engage in
conflict at speed. This agility allowed Attila to terrorize Europe and
defeat an empire. After the
Hun invasion Europe was left broken into
many smaller segments, the Roman army was
slowly called home. As they retreated out of
England to Flanders in 407 AD they brought
with them the shank bit. It would be the
late 700’s until Charlemagne’s troops used
it for better control of their mounts
subsequently enabling them to conquer “the
world” and create the Holy Roman Empire. |
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| Modern History in the West |
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In more
recent history the horse was used very effectively to
expand the borders of three empires. The Spanish used
the horse to conquer Mexico at the height of their
empire; the British used the horse to help conquer India
and America used the horse to conquer the west
establishing the boundaries of our “empire.” |
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These modern “empires” would
be the last to rise on the backs of horses. The Industrial Revolution
arrived. The invention of the machine gun and its later use during WWI
ended the use of the horse in war. The Industrial Revolution not only
developed the machine gun but also the automobile which led to the
tractor. By 1920 the horse was obsolete; replaced for transportation by
the car and replaced in the work force by the tractor. Without a purpose
the horse began to disappear from large segments of society. |
| No
horses fought in WWII but something very special
happened to the horse. While fighting in Austria,
American soldiers saw the old horse schools, one of
which was the Spanish Riding School. These stables were
full of Lipizzaner horses. General Patton, a recognized
horseman, realized this breed was one of the “jewels” of
Austria and also realized its future was threatened if
something wasn’t done. The story of General Patton and
his troops transporting the Lipizzaner horses out of
Austria and saving them is well known. |
| This story helped glorify
the horse and captured the hearts of horse lovers and non-horse lovers
throughout the world. Many of our soldiers returned home with a newfound
affection for the horse leading to the beginnings of the hobby horse
industry. Blessed with a good economy the industry has developed into what
we enjoy today. There are now more horses per capita in the world than
when we used them out of necessity for war, travel and labor. |
| How
important is the horse? Are we the civilization that we
are because of the horse? Where would we be if a man
hadn’t put a piece of bone in a horse’s mouth? What
would have happened 6,000 years ago if no one had
thought to bring a horse into their village? What would
we be like if a horse was looked upon like a deer or we
ate it like we eat beef?
I love my pet horse,
Knight, and I thank all his ancestors for the life I now
enjoy as a horseman. |
| Article by Scot MacGregor Edited by Martie
Jacobson, Carol Hill and Jack Orr |
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