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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 October 2013
Terracotta figurine (Figs. 47 and 48). Ht. 0·09 m. L. preserved 0·08 m. Broken in four pieces and much damaged. Fine orange clay, the surface smoothed or burnished. Decoration in red lustrous paint, much worn.
The figurine seems to represent an armed man riding astride upon an animal. The animal and its rider were moulded separately and were put together while the clay was still soft before firing. The rider's legs are not represent ed. He is wearing a conical helmet, and in his right hand he is clasping what appears to be the hilt of a sword or dagger slung in front of him: but the object might be intended for a bow or quiver. The left hand of the rider and the top of his sword are missing: so is the head of the animal and three of its legs, and there are chips from the remaining leg and from the tail. The animal, from its size in relation to the man and on grounds of general probabilities, may be assumed to be a horse.
The horse has a stripe down its back and vertical zebra-like stripes along the sides which continue down the legs and round the neck. The rider's helmet is painted solid, and his eyes are represented by dots. There is a single broad stripe down his back; but any decoration which there may have been in front, on his chest and on the sword, has left no trace.
Abbreviations in addition to those ordinarily used in the Annual:
AfO Archiv für Orientforsckung.
Chamber Tombs Wace, , Chamber Tombs at Mycenae (Archaeologia 82), 1932.Google Scholar
MP Furumark, The Mycenaean Pottery, 1941.
Prosymna Blegen, , Prosymna, 1937.Google Scholar
Waggons and Carts Childe, , ‘The First Waggons and Carts—from the Tigris to the Severn’, in Proc. Prehistoric Soc. No. 8 (1951), 177 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
I am most deeply grateful to Professor Wace for his kindness in allowing me to publish this figurine, and for bringing the above quotation from Lucretius to my notice. To Mr. R. D. Barnett I am extremely indebted for much valuable help, including the note on the Nuzi tablet (p. 87 note 18). I am much obliged to Professor Childe and Professor Wade-Gery for references; to Dr. B. Buchanan for his kind assistance in connection with Oriental seals; and to Mr. P. Corbett and Mr. R. Higgins for the trouble they have taken to advise me with regard to later Greek representations of horsemen.
1 The conical shape of helmet is characteristically Mycenaean. Cf. Lorimer, , Homer and the Monuments (1950), 225.Google Scholar
2 In the Near East at this time to judge from the scenes of battle on Egyptian monuments the bow is the principal weapon of chariotry and (so far as the evidence goes) of cavalry also (see p. 91). But a L.H. III sherd from Minet el Beida (Ras Shamra) has a picture of a mounted warrior wearing a sword (p. 88 and note 27). For the carrying of a dagger slung across the waist in front, cf. figurines from the Middle Minoan sanctuary on the hill of Petsopha above Palaikastro (PM I, fig. 111).
3 Annuario N. S. VIII–X (1946–8), 13 ff.
4 E.g. Prosymna 365, fig. 617, no. 415; fig. 618, no. 416, both from Tomb xxii. Chamber Tombs 216, pl. xxiv a. Mercklin, Von, Der Rennwagen in Griechenland (1909), 13 and pl. I 9Google Scholar, for examples from Mycenae, Nauplia, Vari, Ialysos, Enkomi, and elsewhere in Cyprus. Cf. Schaeffer, , Ugaritica II (1949), fig. 97, 13 and 14Google Scholar, for fragments of such Mycenaean chariotgroups from Ras Shamra.
5 Levi, , ‘La Dea Micenea a Cavallo’, in Studies Presented to D. M. Robinson I (1951), 108 ff., pl. 4.Google Scholar In connection with the first of these figurines Levi cites a sealing from H. Triada with a Minoan goddess riding side-saddle upon an animal, which on grounds of the long thin body he compares with the dragon of Mesopotamian representations on which gods sometimes stand or sit enthroned (cf. AJA XLIX (1945), 270 ff.). But the animal on this and some comparable Minoan sealings is perhaps more likely to be a horse. The long, thin body, for instance, is very reminiscent of the thin-bodied animals with long necks which are evidently intended for horses in some early Anatolian representations (e.g. Syria XII (1931), 48, pl. xx: rein-ring from (?) Boghaz Köy in the Louvre. Delaporte, , Cat. des Cyl. Or. Mus. du Louvre, A. 904, pl. 96, 1Google Scholar: Syro-Cappadocian seal with a rider). The Minoan goddess on a horse then becomes comparable with the Syrian Anat or Astarte riding upon a horse in contemporary Egyptian pictures (e.g. Bossert, , Altsyrien (1951), 272, no. 931.Google ScholarCf. Müller, , Asien und Europa (1893), 316).Google Scholar The extraordinary creature ridden by a female figure on a cylinder seal alleged to come from a L.M. III tomb at H. Pelagia in Crete in the published drawing looks neither like a horse nor like any other known animal real or imagined (PM IV 497, fig. 436). For later Greek terracottas with a goddess sitting side-saddle, cf. Jenkins, in Perachora I 228Google Scholar, no. 165, with references; Argive Heraeum II 40, no. 243; BSA XIV 57, fig. 2 a–c.
6 Prosymna, fig. 615, no. 760.
7 Goldman, , Eutresis (1931), 198, no. 13.Google Scholar
8 It has usually been assumed that the art of riding was more or less unknown in Greece before the Iron Age (e.g. PM IV 830); and even quite recently far-reaching theories have been based upon that belief, e.g. Schachermeyr, , Poseidon und die Enstehung des griechischen Götterglaubens (1950).Google Scholar
9 For chariots see Childe, , ‘The First Waggons and Carts’ in Proc. Prehistoric Society No. 8 (1951), 177 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Schachermeyr, , ‘Streitwagen und Streitwagenbild’ in Anthropos XLVI (1951), 705 ff.Google Scholar, with very full references, Salonen, , Die Landfahrzeuge des alten Mesopotamien (Helsinki, 1951)Google Scholar for early Mesopotamian chariots with many illustrations. The whole question of driving and riding is treated at length by Wiesner, , ‘Fahren und Reiten’ in Der Alte Orient XXXVIII (1939), 15 ff.Google Scholar
10 Wrezsinski, Atlas zur altägypt. Kulturgesch, II, no. 36.
11 Ibid., nos. 45–6.
12 Ibid., no. 57.
13 Ibid., nos. 107–9.
14 Rosellini, , Mon. dell'Egitto I, pl. cx.Google Scholar
15 Wrezsinski, Atlas zur altäagypt. Kulturgesch. II, no. 64 A. Described as an officer under no. 57 note 1.
16 Ibid., nos. 169–78.
17 Breasted, , Battle of Kadesh, 32.Google Scholar
18 Starr, , Nuzi I 540.Google Scholar Mr. R. D. Barnett has kindly examined the matter and observes: ‘The reference in the Nuzi tablets to cavalry I confirm to be, in my opinion, an exaggeration. The tablet in question simply mentions certain individuals who have horses, in contrast to those who have not. This is probably a class distinction and, though it may well imply that they were riding horses, it can hardly be said to prove it.’
19 References to Breasted, Ancient Records II, are listed by Thomsen, s.v. ‘Pferd’ in Ebert, , Reallexikon X 113.Google Scholar
20 See Hrozny, , in Archiv Orientalni III (1931), 431 ff.Google Scholar, and esp. 437–8.
21 For the appropriateness of this term for the chariot fighters of Late Bronze Age armies in the Near East, cf. Albright, , ‘Mitannian Maryannu, “Chariot Warrior”, and the Canaanite and Egyptian Equivalents’ in AfO VI (1931), 217 ff.Google Scholar
22 PM IV 787 and fig. 763 i = Scripta Minoa II, no. 222; cf. no. 227.
23 That riding was known and practised at the time when the poems were composed is clear from the similes, Il. XV 679 ff. and Od. V 371, leaving aside the doubtful episode of the Doloneia.
24 Rodenwaldt, , Fries des Megarons von Mykenai, 24 ff.Google Scholar
25 Lamb, in BSA XXV 164Google Scholar, B. 1. They are dated to L.H. II (Lamb, Rodenwaldt), but are probably L.H. III (Wace).
26 Rodenwaldt, op. cit. 24, fig. 14. FLMV, pl. xxxviii 395. Both sherds are attributed by Furumark to L.H. IIIC1 (MP, fig. 26, 2, 9 and 1, 31).
27 MP, fig. 26, no. 2, 5. Syria XIV (1933). 105, fig. 8.
28 Erman-Ranke, , Aegypten (1923), 583.Google Scholar Ass-borne litters are already represented in the Old Kingdom (ibid., fig. 249).
29 A scarab shows Thutmose I riding to battle in a horse-drawn chariot (Newberry, , Scarabs (1906), pl. xxvii 4)Google Scholar; and a chariot was painted on the walls of the Tomb of User, which was probably completed soon after the death of Thutmose I (Davies, , Five Theban Tombs (1913), 23, pl. xxii, and p. 27Google Scholar for the date of the Tomb). But there is literary evidence for the use of the chariot in Egypt by the time of Ahmose, the first King of Dyn. XVIII. See Breasted, , Ancient Records II 7Google Scholar: where Ahmose, son of Ebana, follows King Ahmose when he rides abroad in his chariot. The same Ahmose captured ‘a chariot, its horses, and him who was upon it as a living prisoner’ in a campaign in Naharin under Thutmose I (ibid. 81; cf. 85 for a similar exploit of Ahmose Pen Nekbet). For a criticism of the usual view that the horse and chariot were brought into Egypt by the Hyksos see Bissing, , AfO XI (1937), 329 and note 17.Google Scholar
30 Bull. Metr. Mus. XI (1916), 86 and fig. on p. 85. It is suggested that the white markings on the horse may represent chalking or painting as practised on donkeys and camels in Egypt today. For an opinion on the authenticity of the statuette, see Bissing, , AfO XI (1937), 329 note 25.Google Scholar
31 LAAA XVIII (1931), 3, pl. I. Cf. a fragment of a relief from the Memphis Tomb of Harmhab, first King of the XIXth Dynasty, with an Egyptian riding astride a horse (JEA VII (1921), pl. 6).
32 Dussaud, , L'Art Phénicien du IIe Millénaire (1949), 38, fig. 5.Google Scholar I am indebted to Mr. Barnett for this reference and for an opinion on the probable date of the sheath.
33 Petrie, , Ancient Gaza I 3 ff.Google Scholar: esp. Tomb 411 (pl. lvii) with five human bodies in ‘loculi’ and a single horse in the central pit. Cf. ibid. III 5, 14; and pl. xix, no. 294 for a bit from the ‘Expiatory Deposit’ from which also came remains of horse. Ibid. IV 15: the skeleton of a single horse appears to be associated with the skeleton of one man (Burial 1474) in Pit TCH (pl. lxii). Gf. ibid. pls. xxiii and xxxv for bits.
34 The horse-burials and metal bits are attributed by Petrie to the Hyksos. But see Bissing, , AfO XI (1937), 333 note 61.Google Scholar
35 Smith, , Early History of Assyria (1928), 213 ff.Google ScholarCf. Bissing, in AfO XI (1937), 333.Google Scholar Wheeled vehicles already existed in Mesopotamia in the Uruk period, before 3500 B.C. (Carts and Waggons 178).
36 Iraq VII (1940), 31 ff.
37 For Assyrian three-horsed chariots see Nuoffer, , Der Rennwagen im Altertum (1904), pl. 5, 23: 6, 25.Google ScholarCf. Homer, , Il. XVI 466–75Google Scholar; Od. IV 590.
38 Revue d'Assyriologie XXXV (1938), 115 ff.
39 Der Alte Orient XXVI (1928), 35. Cf. the terracotta plaque showing a rider from the same site (p. 90 note 46 below).
40 Iraq IX (1947), 215, esp. pl. liv 10, with full references to similar clay models of about this period or earlier.
41 Speiser, , Tepe Gawra I (1935), 68 ff.Google Scholar, pl. lxxvii 1 etc. For the date see Childe, , New Light on the Most Ancient East (1952)Google Scholar, esp. the table of correlations on ibid. 232–3.
42 Mackay, , A Sumerian Palace and the ‘A’ Cemetery at Kish II (1929), 213, pl. xlvii 11.Google Scholar But Smith, , Early History of Assyria (1928), 213Google Scholar, is doubtful if these really represent horses.
43 Schmidt, , Tell Halaf I (1943), 39, pl. lvi.Google Scholar Bones of a small equus related to Syrian equus hemippus were recovered from a Halaf house at Tall Aswad in the Balikh Valley (Iraq VIII (1946), 124).
44 Mém. Del. Perse XIII (1912), pl. ii 2.
45 Woolley, , Royal Cemetery: Ur Excavations II (1934), 299, pl. 139.Google Scholar The animal is there called a donkey.
46 Legrain, , ‘Horseback Riding in Mesopotamia in the 3rd Millennium B.C.’. in Bull. Univ. Mus. Pennsylvania XI (1946), 27 ff.Google Scholar, pl. ix, esp. no. 7 from the cemetery of Digdiggeh near Ur (see p. 89 above). Cf. Buren, Van, Clay Figurines of Babytonia and Assyria (1930), 161Google Scholar, no. 769; 163, no. 785, etc.
47 Ward, , Seal Cylinders of Western Asia (1910), 67, no. 166.Google Scholar
48 Legrain, op. cit., citing: (1) De Clerq, , Catalogue Raisonée (1888)Google Scholar, no. 181 bis, with a man riding down his enemy; (2) Legrain, , Culture of the Babylonians from their Seals (1925)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, no. 154. Smith, , Early History of Assyria (1928), 385 note 7Google Scholar, regards no. 2 as of the Gutian period, but is doubtful if the animal is really a horse.
49 L'Anthropologie XL (1930), 227, fig. 1, 8. Mém. Del. Perse XXV (1934), 199, fig. 38, no. 24. But the latter in particular is curiously reminiscent of representations on Early Iron Age reliefs of riding warriors with pointed helmets (see p. 92 note 64).
50 For the date see Childe, , New Light on the Most Ancient East (1952), 136 ff.Google Scholar, and chart of suggested correlations ibid. 232–3.
51 Childe, , Prehistoric Migrations in Europe (1950), 150Google Scholar, with references to Anau, Shah Tepe, and Sialk. Cf. Jackson, , in Proc. of First International Congress of Prehist. and Protohist. Sciences 1932 (1934), 156.Google Scholar
52 Von Oppenheim, , Tell Halaf (Eng. translation 1931), 150.Google Scholar
53 The evidence is listed by Clarke, , Horses and Battle Axes, in Antiquity XV (1941), 50 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
54 E.g. recently by Clarke, , Prehistoric Europe (1952), 302Google Scholar, modifying the opinion put forward in op. cit. above against the view that the Battle Axe folk were riders.
55 BSA XXVII 45: horse bones from all periods, i.e. E.B.A. onwards, at Vardaroftsa. Cf. Heurtley, , Prehistoric Macedonia (1939), 88.Google Scholar
56 Valmin, , The Swedish Messenia Expedition (1938), 58 and 138Google Scholar: horse bones from M. B. A. levels at Malthi.
57 AJA XLI (1937), 597. The recent excavations have not yielded any sign of horse bones from levels before Troy VI. For clay heads of (?) horses from rims of bowls or dishes, see Schmidt, , SS, nos. 3251–7.Google Scholar For a clay model horse's head from level II of the Karum at Kultepe, which must date from the beginning of the second millennium, see Özguc, , Ausgrab, in Kultepe 1948 (1950), 209, pl. lxvi, no. 431.Google Scholar The animals which draw the apparently spoke-wheeled waggons on some Gappadocian cylinder seals and seal impressions of the same period are thought to be horses (Porada, and Buchanan, , Corpus of Anc. Near Eastern Seals in North American Colls. I (1948), pl. cxxxiv, no. 893.Google ScholarWard, , Seal Cylinders of Western Asia (1910), 311 ff., nos. 976–9.Google ScholarDe Clerq, , Cat. Raisonée (1888), pl. xxvii, nos. 284 and 286).Google Scholar
58 For a statement of views on this subject see Childe, , Dawn of European Civilisation (1947), 73.Google Scholar Cf. Prehistoric Migrations (1960), 150.
59 Not in any case as drivers of chariots! Wheeled vehicles are not attested in Central and Northern Europe before c. 1000 B.c. (Waggons and Carts, 188 ff. Clarke, in Antiquity XV (1941), 50 ff.).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
60 The position of the chariot in early warfare is aptly compared by Childe with that of the tank in modern (New Light on the Most Ancient East (1952), 151).
61 The essential factor in the development of the light mobile chariot was the spoked wheel (Waggons and Carts 188).
62 For early metal bits see Potratz, , AfO XIV (1941), 1 ff.Google Scholar Saddles, spurs, and stirrups are all very much later developments.
63 For the use of caltrops by the Romans against scythed chariots see Vegetius III 24. The Assyrians also employed caltrops according to Des Noettes, , L'Attelage: Le Cheval de Selle (1931), 200, fig. 34.Google Scholar
64 Von Oppenheim, , Tell Halaf (Eng. translation 1931), 149 ff., pl. xviii B.Google Scholar Three orthostats have reliefs of armed horsemen with helmets and circular shields. Three other riders and a kneeling warrior holding a horse by the bridle are depicted on a statue base. See Der Alte Orient XXXVIII (1939), 70 for similar horseman-reliefs from the Syro-Hittite area: Maraş, Sencirli, Charchemish, and Tell Ahmar.
65 Thomsen, s.v. ‘Pferd’, in Ebert, , Reallexikon X 115.Google Scholar Des Noettes, op. cit. 197 ff. Maspero, , Hist. Anc. des Peuples de l'Orient (ed. 1905), 439 and 443Google Scholar, for Benhadad and Khazael.
66 Childe, , Prehistoric Migrations in Europe (1950), 288.Google Scholar
67 E.g. AM XVIII (1893), pl. viii 2 from the Kerameikos. Pfuhl, , Malerei und Zeichnung der Griechen (1923), III, pl. 4, 14–15.Google ScholarLorimer, , Homer and the Monuments 233, fig. 28.Google Scholar
68 Hanfmann, , Horsemen from Sardis in AJA XLIX (1945), 575 and note 15.Google ScholarCf. the frieze of horsemen from Prinias in Crete.
69 AE (1904), 21 ff., pl. 3.
70 Desborough, , Protogeometric Pottery (1952), 269.Google Scholar
71 Frödin, and Persson, , Asine 310Google Scholar, fig. 213, 4 (‘Transition to the Geometric’); 333, fig. 225, 6 and 7 (‘Geometric’). For similar figurines from Mainland Greece, e.g. Tiryns I (1912), 83, fig. 20. Perachora I 228. Argive Heraeum II 40, nos. 244–7. For the dating of such figurines see Ure, , Aryballoi and Figurines from Rhitsona (1934), 61 ff.Google Scholar, found in graves of the early sixth century and later. Cf. similar figurines of horsemen of Iron Age date from (1) Cyprus. Murray, , BM Excavs. in Cyprus (1900), 70Google Scholar, fig. 112. SCE II, pl. xiv 1 (no. 67), xvii 2 (no. 7) and 3 (no. 16) from Amathus: pl. clxxxii 8 (no. 983) from Idalion: pl. ccxxiv 1 (no. 922) from A. Irini. (2) Syria. LAAA VI (1914), 95 pl. xxvi b, 2–4 from cremation burials in the Charchemish area. (3) Babylonia. Koldewey, , Das wiedererstehende Babylon (1913), 228, fig. 149.Google Scholar
72 Strabo X 1, 10, p. 448. Ancient stele in the temple of the Amarynthian Artemis recording 3000 hoplites, 600 horsemen, and 60 chariots, to make the procession.
73 Arrian, , Tactica 19.Google Scholar
74 Launey, , Recherches sur les Armées Hellénistiques (1949–1950), I 568–9.Google ScholarCf. Bevan, , The House of Seleucus (1902), II 290 and note 3.Google Scholar
75 Polybius V 53, 10.
76 Livy XXXVII 41.
77 Vegetius III 24.
79 Launey, op. cit. 596, with references. Cf. ibid. 890, for the continuance of war-chariot races at Athens and elsewhere in Greece into Hellenistic times.
80 Diodorus XVII 49, 2.
81 Diodorus XX, 41 1.
81 Ridgeway, , The Origin and Influence of the Thoroughbred Horse (1905), 307Google Scholar, citing Vegetius III 24.
82 Livy X 28.
