Antiquities Exhibits

Yesterday when I was researching the post about horses in the ancient world, I was intrigued by the detail image of a Persian horseman on the so-called Pazyryk carpet that Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones included in his blog post. The Pazyryk carpet is considered the oldest surviving example of a pile carpet in the world and is thought to have been made around 400 BCE in Armenia or Persia. It was discovered in a Scythian kurgan burial in the Pazyryk Valley of the Ukok plateau in the Altai Mountains, Siberia, south of the modern city of Novosibirsk, Russia. The tomb mounds discovered there are now part of the  Golden Mountains of Altai UNESCO World Heritage Site.  The horseman of the Pazyryk culture apparently  accumulated great wealth through horse trading with merchants in Persia, India and China as evidenced by the variety of grave goods including Chinese silk, the pile carpet,  horses decked out in elaborate trappings, and wooden furniture and a full-sized burial chariot fo...

Tota Italia : At the Origins of a Nation is now open at The Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome. The presentation examines the process of Romanization beginning with exhibits from Pre-Roman Italy of the 4th century BCE then continues through the Julio-Claudian period to the ultimate unification of territories under the banner of Rome. More than thirty Italian museums have loaned objects to the exhibition to illustrate the diversity that made up the Empire and how the extraordinary differences were blended to form the cultural identity of the Italian people. Looking through images of some of the artifacts on exhibit, I was pleased to see once more the Parian marble table support depicting two griffins attacking a doe from the 4th century BCE that I had photographed years ago at the Getty Villa. Apparently, it is thought to have originated from a tomb in Foggia, originally part of the ancient Greek colony known as Argos Hippium in southern Italy. It is truly a magnificent piece! One of my ...

Horses, with or without riders, were favorite subjects for Boeotian artisans. The figurines were frequently left as burial offerings in graves. Horses were a sign of wealth for the Greeks of this period, and the terracotta horses were probably left to symbolize and to reinforce the high status of the deceased. Thousands of clay figurines like this one survive from the Archaic period (600 to 480 BCE). "Horses played a central role in the great civic festivals in the ancient world, such as the Panathenaic Games in Athens and the Olympic games at Olympos, where they took part in chariot races and single horse races. The horse’s long affiliation with gods and heroes in Greek mythology no doubt also fostered a special respect and admiration for this remarkable creature in the minds of “ordinary” Greeks. In Homer’s Iliad, horses drive the chariots of the heroes and are praised for their swiftness and beautiful coats. They are often depicted as having special relationships with their own...

Silver panel, perhaps from a parade chariot or piece of furniture, overlaid with electrum and decorated in repoussé relief with two riders, perhaps taking part in a horse-race, with a fallen comrade below, Etruscan, 540-520 BCE, found in the Castel San Mariano near the city of Perugia. Perguia, first called Perusia in the ancient sources, was one of the 12 confederate cities of Etruria.  The league was mostly an economic and religious league, or a loose confederation, similar to the Greek states.  The historical Etruscans had achieved a state system of society, with only remnants of the chiefdom and tribal forms used by surrounding Italics. The government was viewed as being a central authority, ruling over all tribal and clan organizations and wielding the power of life and death. The gorgon was revered as an ancient symbol of that power, and frequently appeared as a motif in Etruscan decoration. The individual referred to as a "fallen comrade" in this Archaic period relief ...

The Persians did not use cavalry to a great extent until Cyrus the Great  gave the Persian nobility both horses and the wealth to maintain them from the proceeds of his western conquests. He encouraged them to ride and it became a source of disgrace for a Persian noble to be seen walking.  Cyrus then recruited his cavalry from the nobles, creating a regiment of 15,000 men drawn from the Huvaka or “kinsmen.” These kinsmen adopted brightly-colored trousers and shorter tunics that were more suitable for riding from the Medes.  Cyrus adopted cavalry tactics from the Khorassan horsemen of northeastern Iran, parts of modern Afghanistan and the southern parts of Central Asia. He initially armed his cavalry with the standard weapons of the Persian infantrymen: bows, battle-axes, and oval shields. Later, they were re-equipped with short stabbing swords and throwing javelins instead. Long lances and spears made of wood or entirely of metal were used too. In the mid-5th century Pers...

Early spurs had a neck that ended in a point, called a prick, riveted to the heel band. The spur was used by the Celts during the La Tène period (which began in the fifth century BCE), and is also mentioned by Xenophon (circa 430 - 354 BCE.) in his treatise "On Horsemanship".   When the horse is about to leap over any obstacle, Xenophon recommends applying the spur on takeoff, so that the horse will use his whole body over the obstacle and make a safer jump. If this is not done, Xenophon points out, he may lag with his hind end. Xenophon goes on to admonish those wishing to make a horse "showy" to spare the spur. He emphasized that the rider should not pull on the bit nor spur or whip the horse, as this type of riding causes the opposite effect, simply distracting and frightening the animal and causing him to dislike being ridden. Instead, Xenophon urges, the horse must enjoy himself. He should be trained to be ridden on a loose rein, to hold his head high, arch his...

A cavesson, also known as a Psálion, was a Roman or Thracian cavalryman's emergency brake.  "Its lower curved bar was connected to a lead rope attached to the saddle or wrapped around the rider's arm. The cavesson presses on the horse's nose, a very sensitive area, and is used for reprimanding a spirited horse, or simply keeping some control of it, when the rider has to let the reins go for fighting. It was also used for leading a horse on foot. On this example, the long angled shanks have a leverage effect increasing the strength of the rider's action on the nose (like today's hackamores)." - Metropolitan Museum of Art Developed as early as the 5th century BCE, it is described in the equestrian treaty of Xenophon (ca. 430-355 BCE).  Examples have been found throughout western Europe and in Britain as far as Hadrian's wall. Scholars think this distribution was the result of eastern cavalrymen, particularly Thracians, serving in the Roman army. Romulus ...

Born into a wealthy and traditional senatorial family, Gallienus was the son of Valerian and Mariniana. Valerian became Emperor on 22 October 253 CE and had the Roman senate elevate Gallienus to the ranks of Caesar and Augustus. Valerian divided the empire between him and his son, with Valerian ruling the east and his son the west. Gallienus defeated the usurper Ingenuus in 258 CE and destroyed an Alemanni army at Mediolanum in 259 CE. The defeat and capture of Valerian at Edessa in 260 CE by the Sasanian Empire threw the Roman Empire into the chaos of civil war. Control of the whole empire passed to Gallienus. He defeated the eastern usurpers Macrianus Major and Mussius Aemilianus in 261–262 CE but failed to stop the formation of the breakaway Gallic Empire under general Postumus. Aureolus, another usurper, proclaimed himself emperor in Mediolanum in 268 CE but was defeated outside the city by Gallienus and besieged inside. While the siege was ongoing, Gallienus was stabbed to death b...

The Iron Age Tartessian culture of southeastern Spain, previously influenced by the Phoenicians, began to transform when exposed to Greek influence during the 6th - 4th centuries BCE.  Aristocratic power increased and numerous fortified oppidums began to appear.  Referred to as the Iberian culture, the people engaged in commerce that served to reinforce aristocratic power and control.  Iberian funerary customs became dominated by Greek-style mud-brick rectangular burial mounds and their script, once a modified version of the Phoenician alphabet, began to include a variant of the Greek alphabet.  Their mythology also began to include creatures such as winged griffins, often seen in Greek art. An early warrior figure of this period appears to fight mostly nude adorned only with what appear to be tatoos on his chest and an ornate belt.  A century later, an Iberian warrior depicted in a statue at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art dated from the 3rd to 2nd century...

There is evidence of the use of bits to control horses, located in two sites of the Botai culture in ancient Kazakhstan, dated about 3500–3000 BCE.  Nose rings appear on the equids portrayed on the Standard of Ur, circa 2600–2400 BCE. To date, the earliest known artistic evidence of use of some form of bitless bridle comes in illustrations of Synian (Syrian?) horseman, dated approximately 1400 BCE.  Metal bits came into use between 1300 and 1200 BCE, originally made of bronze.   The need for control of horses in warfare drove extensive innovation in bit design, producing a variety of prototypes and styles over the centuries. This bit is of a distinctive type attested in Northern Greece and used for horses that are ridden rather than driven. Its most noteworthy occurrence is on the mount of Alexander of Macedon in the famous Alexander mosaic from the Casa del Fauno in Pompeii and now in the Archaeological Museum, Naples. Bronze bit, Greek, 4th-3rd century BCE at...