The presence of horse in ancient Egypt and the problem of veracity of the horseshoe magic in the...

THE PRESENCE OF HORSE IN ANCIENT EGYPT AND THE PROBLEM OF VERACITY

OF THE HORSESHOE MAGIC IN THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN FOLKLORE AND MYTHOLOGY

Renata TATOMIR

Hyperion University Bucharest

ABSTRACT It is generally admitted that domestic horses were introduced into the Levant

and Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period (around 1700 BC or at least as early as the second millennium BC). Some of the earliest remains of horses tend to link their presence to that of various Asian influences, mainly the political domination of the Hyksos or Amorites in the Delta area at that time, and as such to the Indo-European Hittites of Anatolia. It is likely however that some archaeological evidence from Nahal Tillah (Israel) may suggest the presence of domesticated horses within the Egyptian sphere of activity even prior to the Old Kingdom. Moreover, horse remains were found at Arad dating back to the third millennium and small domestic horses even seem to have been present in the fourth millennium in the Chalcolithic period in the northern Negev. On the mythological and folklore level hieroglyphic representations in the form of a horseshoe have been interpreted by some as clues or hints about the magical properties of the horseshoe for the Ancient Egyptians and, by extension, about the magical function of iron itself. Regarding the particular case of horse and horseshoe, this paper addresses several issues, precisely to what extent historical and archaeological evidences, myth and magic may help to clarify them.

KEYWORDS: horse, Ancient Egypt, Hyksos, Second Intermediate

Period, horseshoe The presence of horse in Egypt during the Second Intermediate

Period It is generally admitted that horses were introduced into Egypt during

the Second Intermediate Period that is about 1700-1550 BC. Moreover, the claim that they were only introduced there by the Hyksos (during their invasion, in the Second Intermediate Period) appears to be widespread. In fact, evidence of horses in Egypt begins some 200 years earlier, in the form of a carving of a horse dated c. 2000 BC. For the period between 2000 and 1200 the archaeological research identified so far two types of horses

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common to Africa. On one hand, the so-called “Egyptian” one, that is the horse introduced to Africa by the Hyksos, and on the other hand, a native small size horse common too much of North and West. Egyptian horses, which were probably almost identical to those in the Near East, were rather small by comparison with modern horses, and attested in different colours (brown, reddish etc.).1

The date of 1700 BC for Egypt may be far too late for the introduction of the horse, given the archaeological evidence for horses at Maadi and the Saharan zone.2 The authors of The British Museum Dictionary of Ancient Egypt3 agree also that the domesticated horse was introduced into Egypt from western Asia in the Second Intermediate Period at roughly the same time as the chariot. In addition, although for some scholars it seems unlikely4, the skeletal remains of a horse have been discovered, dating from the Middle Kingdom. The horse skeleton excavated at Buhen may date from that period, at about 2055-1650 BC. Several horse burials have been excavated at Tell El-Dab’a, the site of the hyksos capital Avaris. Unlike donkeys, used for agricultural work from at least the beginning of the Pharaonic period (c. 3100 BC), horses were essentially status symbols, used for such activities as hunting, warfare, and ceremonial processions. They were almost always used to pull chariots rather than being ridden. However, battle scenes in the New Kingdom (1550-1069 BC) occasionally show individual soldiers mounted on them. On the basis of the surviving chariots yokes it has been calculated that the average height would have been around 1.35 m, although some surviving examples were evidently taller, ex., a 1.5 1 Joachim Boessneck, Die Tierwelt des Alten Ägypten, München, 1988; Rosalind and Jack

Janssen, Egyptian Household Animals, Aylesbury, 1984; Digital Egypt, University College London, 2003, http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/oodproduction/horse.html.

2 Africans used the donkey and later horses as beasts of burden. According to Fekri A. Hassan, a domesticated Equus was found at Hierakonpolis dating to around the 3600 BC at Maadi in the Sahara. See Fekri A Hassan, “The predynastic of Egypt”, Journal of World Prehistory, 2(2), 1988, p. 145; J. McArdle, “Preliminary report on the predynastic fauna of the Hierkonpolis”, Project Studies Association, Cairo. Publication No.1, 1982, pp. 116-120; See also Horses in Ancient Egypt, University College London, 2003,

http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/foodproduction/horse.html 3 Ian Shaw and Paul Nicholson, The British Museum Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, The

American University in Cairo Press, Cairo, 2002, pp. 132-133. 4 Ana Ruiz, The Spirit of Ancient Egypt, Algora Publishing, New York, 2001, p. 76.

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m high skeleton found in front of the tomb of Senenmut (TT71). During the New Kingdom, by the end of the 18th Dynasty (1550-1295 BC), horses were firmly established as prestige gifts between rulers in north Africa and the Near East, but they seem to have been particularly prized by the Kushite kings of the 25th Dynasty (747-656), who had several horses interred beside their pyramidal tombs at El-Kurru and Nuri5. Therefore, the earliest remains of horses are a few bones from Avaris and the skeleton of a horse found at Buhen. It is important to say that in the wars between the Theban 17th Dynasty and the Hyksos both sides used horses. In later times, the kingdom of Kush in the Sudan was famous for its horses, perhaps from good grazing grounds in areas of Upper Nubia. Therefore in the Victory Stela of king Piy, special mention is made of the royal attention to horses. At Buhen, one of the major fortresses of Nubia, which served as the headquarters of the Egyptian Viceroy of Kush a skeleton of a horse was found lying on the pavement of a Middle Kingdom rampart6. This was only 25 years after the Hyksos had conquered Egypt. The Kushites appear to have ridden the horses on horseback instead of a chariot. This suggests that the Kushites had been riding horses for an extended period of time for them to be able to attack Buhen on horseback. This supports the early habit of Africans riding horses as depicted in the rock art. The tradition continued throughout the history of Kush. The Kushites and Upper Egyptians were great horsemen; whereas the Lower Egyptians usually rode the chariot, the Kushite cavalry of the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty usually rode on horseback7.

During the New Kingdom horses were animals of the military elite and the ruling class. In general Egyptians did not ride on horses but used them for chariots. Two horses was the rule. Horseshoes were not used8.

5 A. R. Shulman, “Egyptian representations of horsemen and riding in the New Kingdom”,

Journal of Near Eastern Studies 10 (1957), pp. 267-270; M. A. Littauer and J. H. Crouwel, Wheeled vehicles and ridden animals in the Ancient Near East, Leiden and Cologne, 1979; L. Storck, “Pferd”, Lexikon der Ägyptologie IV, ed. W. Helck, E. Otto, and W. Westendorf, Wiesbaden 1982, pp. 1009-1013; E. and J. Janssen, Egyptian household animals, Aylesbury, 1989, pp. 38-43; C. Rommelaere, Les chevaux du Nouvel Empire Egyptien, Brussels, 1991.

6 W. B. Emery, “A master-work of Egyptian military architecture 3900 years ago”, Illustrated London News, 12 September, pp. 250-251.

7 W.A. Fairservis, The Ancient Kingdoms of the Nile, London, 1962, p.129. 8 Work cited 2003, http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/foodproduction/horse.html.

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Scarab with horse, the Second Intermediate Period, Digital Egypt,

www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/seals Did horses and chariots exist during the Old Egyptian Kingdom? Archaeological data from the site of Nahal Tillah seem to show

unequivocal presence of domesticated horses within the Egyptian sphere of activity even prior to the Old Kingdom. Nahal Tillah is situated in the northern Negev of Israel. It displays a strong Egyptian presence in its archaeological record, causing the archaeologists to suggest royal Egyptian trading and administration relations at this site. All the bone fragments were analysed according to type: sheep, pig, donkey, etc. Archaeologists working there suggested that

The most surprising feature of the assemblage is the large number of equid remains, some of which are from domestic horses (Equus caballus). ... There was a general supposition that domestic horses were not introduced into the Levant and Egypt until the second millennium. Davis (1976) however found horse remains at Arad from the third millennium and according to Grigson (1993) small domestic horses seem to have been present in the fourth millennium in the Chalcolithic period in the northern Negev9.

9 Thomas E. Levy, David Alon, Yorke Rowan, Edwin C. M. van den Brink, Caroline

Grigson, Augustin Holl, Patricia Smith, Paul Goldberg, Alan J. Witten, Eric Kansa, John Moreno, Yuval Yekutieli, Naomi Porat, Jonathan Golden, Leslie Dawson, and Morag Kersel, “Egyptian-Canaanite Interaction at Nahal Tillah, Israel (ca. 4500-



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The archaeological data which are presently available (some of which have been available since 1976) seem therefore to seriously undermine the claim that Egypt was without horses until the Hyksos dynasties. The work at Nahal Tillah seems to show that horses were available in the immediate vicinity that is in the northern Negev, very early on in the history of Egypt, while Egyptians were clearly present where these horses were present. This fact made some scholars to opinate that it might be possible that the horse and military chariot were re-introduced to Egypt by the Hyksos. The time between the end of the Old Kingdom and the Hyksos is many centuries, and many things can happen in such a long time. Another hypothesis is that horses in the Old Kingdom might be an exception10.

However, the scholars’ debate on the likeliness that based on zooarcheology evidence the presence of horse in Egypt may be even much earlier is a very long one, mainly because an Equus caballus is dated to the native Egyptian fauna of Palaeolithic times. According to Gaillard11, the faunal samples comprised a lower molar and an incomplete mandible with P2 in situ from a true horse, «Equus caballus». The scholar points out that the morphology of these specimens compares better with that in mandibular teeth of asses12. As such, they should be included in the wild ass material. Gaillard also figured an upper third molar of a Solutrean horse13, which is erroneously interpreted by Churcher14 as evidence for a true horse in the Kom Ombo area. As matters stand, the presence of wild horses in the Plain of Kom Ombo during Late Palaeolithic times can be considered unsubstantiated.15 However, another issue arises: is there evidence of chariots and wheels in Zoser's reign and the end of Old Kingdom Egypt? So far, Stuart Piggott seems to be an expert in regard to early wheeled vehicles. Downhere is a quote from his book The Earliest Wheeled Transport from

3000 B. C. E.): An Interim Report on the 1994-1995 Excavations”, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 307/August 1997, pp. 1-51.

10 “Correspondence: Horses and Chariots in Egypt”, Biblical chronologist, November 28, 2005, Aardsma Research & Publishing, http://www.biblicalchronologist.org/correspondence/horses_chariots.php.

11 C. Gaillard, “Contribution à l’étude de la faune préhistorique de l’Égypte.” Archives du Museum d'Histoire naturelle de Lyon, 1934, 14, pp. 23-24, 1-125.

12 See also C.S. Churcher, Late Pleistocene Vertebrates from Archaeological Sites in the Plain of Kom Ombo, Upper Egypt. Royal Ontario Museum, Life Sciences Contribution 82, 1972, p. 51.

13 Work cited, p. 2, fig. 7. 14 Work cited, p. 50. 15 Joris Peters, “Late Palaeolithic ungulate Fauna and Landscape in the Plain Kom Ombo”,

Sahara. Prehistory and history of the Sahara 3 (1990), 47, pp. 45-52.

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the Atlantic Coast to the Caspian Sea providing some helpful factual background information.

The central problem of the earliest wheeled vehicles in Europe from about 3000 BC is that of assessing the respective merits of two hypotheses, that assuming a restricted place and time for an invention subsequently rapidly and widely adopted, and that permitting independent invention of the basic principle of wheeled transport in more than one locality, with subsequent parallel regional development. In specific terms it raises the classic issue of 'diffusion' from an area with a higher degree of technological performance to others with less inventive expertise: the Near East and Neolithic Europe around 3000 BC. The problem is not rendered easier by the fact that we are dealing with wooden structures with a low survival value as archaeological artifacts, helped only by fired clay models among those societies which had a tradition of producing such miniature versions of everyday objects, itself a restricted cultural trait. In the instance of the earliest agricultural communities of south-east Europe from the seventh millennium BC, which did so model humans, animals, houses and even furniture, the absence of vehicle models is at least a suggestive piece of negative evidence for a failure to make this break-through in vehicle technology, despite an efficient agrarian economy and a precocious non-ferrous metallurgy before the beginning of the third millennium. When in that millennium the first European wheels, and depictions and models of wheeled vehicles, appear, radiocarbon dates show us how close in time these are to the comparable evidence for the first appearance in Sumer and Elam of the same invention, and the likelihood of independent discovery in east and west, virtually simultaneously, is sensibly diminished. The thesis of the rapid adoption of a novel piece of transport technology originating in the ancient Near East, as proposed by Childe thirty years ago, still remains the preferable alternative. One of the most recent finds in Western Europe, the wagon from Zilrich with disc wheels of the tripartite construction, and a calibrated radiocarbon date of 3030 BC, greatly strengthens this supposition, for the relatively complex technology is precisely that of the early third millennium wheels of Kish, Ur and Susa.16

16 Stuart Piggott, The Earliest Wheeled Transport From the Atlantic Coast to the Caspian

Sea, 1983, pp. 239-240.



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The foregoing makes it clear that according to that scholar: 1) there is an intrinsic difficulty with survival of evidence of early wheeled vehicles; 2) wagons with tripartite disk wheels were in existence by 3030 BC; and 3) this technology spread far and fast. Given these three facts, the problem of proving that the highly advanced civilization of Old Kingdom Egypt did not have wheeled military vehicles a full 580 years after the invention and spread of the tripartite wheel seems to be a very much greater one than that of proving that she did.

The Horse in Hieroglyphs and on wall paintings

In Pharaonic writing, the hieroglyphic word for “horse” has at least

three forms: ssmt (sesemet), zzmt (zezemet),

or Htr. A wall painting fragment from the tomb of an official in the reign of

Amenophis III depicts a horse. The Egyptian official’s name was Nebamun and his plan to endure reincarnate through his tomb paintings is working. The British Museum preserves his tomb's wall painting and recently conserved all their companion fragments17. The scene is also found charm in the popular book, The Art of Ancient Egypt18 or in Budge's rare print Wall Decorations of Egyptian Tombs19.

Nebamun's wall painting in the British Museum, Nile Muse, www.nilemuse.com 17 David Sandison, The Art of Ancient Egypt, Laurel Glen Publishing, San Diego, CA 1997. 18 Ibidem. It has a full colour photo of Nebamun's equine scenes and a two-page detail of

Tutankhamun's hunting chest lid portraying the animal hunt and the horse hieroglyph.

19 E. A.W. Budge, Wall Decorations of Egyptian Tombs Illustrated from Examples in the British Museum, London 1914. A facsimile of Nebamun's equine scenes.

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As authors suggest, of the many portraits of pharaohs in chariots with leaping chargers, most of them glorify warrior or hunter scenes. The charioteer in Nebamun's tomb scene is holding the horses of the scribe who is busy recording a grain harvest—he might be a tax assessor—while his driver restrains the poised-for-action pair of stallions. They stand on tip toes, legs tensed, while the more placid pair of hinnies in the scene below them relaxes with heads and necks down. When one looks at a wall carving or painting of horses and chariot in ancient Egyptian art, one notices that the pictures are frequently huge hieroglyphs accompanied by the smaller versions that we all recognize as the written language20.

The Egyptian language was written in a symbolic system which, in its hieroglyphic form, hardly distinguished between painting, sculpture, carvings and writings. Even furniture and religious equipment could take hieroglyphic form. So, the hieroglyph for the horse looks like a horse and the hieroglyph for a chariot looks like a chariot. These glyphs are sometimes written alone, but more often they serve as determinatives for the more completely written word.

Horse and chariot determinatives

The word for the horses pulling the chariot, Htr (heter), is usually

spelled out according to its consonantal sounds, while the image of a horse serves as its determinative to distinguish it from a homonym, for instance, the word “taxes”, which is spelled likewise. Gardiner lists Htr as a pair of horses or a team, like Nebamun's horses. In the case of the leaping horses in Tutankhamun's chariot painted on the lid of his wooden chest now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, there is a little horse hieroglyph at the top in the third column from the right in the group which says that the king mounted the chariot (literally: the horse team) to hunt antelope and

20 This observation is amply illustrated by Richard H. Wilkinson in Reading Egyptian Art:

A Hieroglyphic Guide to Ancient Egyptian Painting and Sculpture, Thames & Hudson, 1994.



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wild animals: This group reads from right to left. The three strokes below indicate plural. The hieroglyphs spell out Htr (heter). Tutankhamun's horse glyphs omit the spelled out r. Since the horse glyph already indicates Htr, the r could be omitted to maintain the neat aesthetics of the square grouping. Alternatively, the Egyptians commonly duplicated a consonantal sound. Sometimes the glyphs could also be grouped out of order of the spoken sounds, to suit the aesthetic composition. One can also see chariotry and horse riding in ancient Egypt through drawings of Abu Simbel wall carvings published by Amelia Edwards, not to mention glimpsing a three thousand year old appreciation for the prototype for the Arabian as we know

it.21 Great tableaux of battles on the walls of ancient Egyptian temples

provide only glimpses of mounted horseback riding. Judging by battle scenes, Egyptians did not ride their horses. The singular riders are typically the Asiatic enemy in various states of flight or injury.22 The majority of horse images on ancient Egyptian artifacts and texts celebrate Ramesses II's warriorship. Ramesses II reigned sixty-five years during the Nineteenth Dynasty in the New Kingdom. This era provides the bulk of the record of horsemanship in ancient Egypt. Fortunately for history, Ramesses told and retold his Battle of Kadesh story all the way from Abu Simbel south in Nubia, extensively in Thebes (nowadays Luxor), and as far north as Abydos. Ramesses' father Seti I also commemorated his victories. One tableau of battle reproduced in an Adolf Eman drawing depicts two mounted horses which are ridden by the enemy. Each of those horsemen is looking back at his enemy, the Pharaoh. The mounted horses and riders are here coloured yellow for distinction. In in a damaged section of the relief in front of and below the charging pharaoh in his chariot a mounted Hittite soldier is barely visible. The rider, struck by an arrow, looks back to his gargantuan victor.23

21 “The Horse in Egyptian Hieroglyphs”, Nile Muse, 1997, www. nilemuse.com. 22

“Enemy Riders on Horseback in Ancient Egypt”, Nile Muse, 1997-2014, http://www.nilemuse.com/muse/enemy.html http://www.nilemuse.com/muse/enemy2.html

23 Lost Civilizations Ramses II: Magnificence on the Nile Time-Life Books, Alexandria, VA, 1993; Adolf Erman, Life in Ancient Egypt, Translated by H. M. Tirard.

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Seti I battling the Hittites, scene adapted from Erman. Nile Muse.

www.nilemuse.com/muse/seti.html Another great scene is depicted on the Ramesseum walls at Karnak.

Egyptologist J. H. Breasted illustrated the left half of the Battle of Kadesh as shown there. The dark mass flowing down the right side of the scene represents the Orontes River into which the Hittites plunge to escape the onslaught of Ramesses II. Breasted details this close-up scene of the mounted horse fleeing in the Orontes River in another drawing.24

The battle of Kadesh, scene adapted from Breasted, Nile Museum.

Originally published in London: Macmillan Company, 1894-1971 reprint by Dover. Erman took the image of Sety I in battle from Lepsius.

24Ibidem.



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The importance of horse for the ancient Egyptian daily life or for religious purpose

Animals have always been around in Egypt, however whilst some will

be familiar to modern Egyptian people, other species have become extinct or moved further south, deeper into Africa. Both domesticated, such as cattle, cats and dogs, and wild animals, such as lions and hyenas, abounded in ancient Egyptian times. Animals were worshipped, feared and loved, as living manifestations of the natural forces of the universe. Because death was regarded as a continuation of life, this relationship between man and animal even carried on in the underworld after death, as certain animals were mummified, including family pets as well as certain species sacred to the gods. Mummified remains, animal-related hieroglyphs, and detailed paintings, reliefs and sculptures of the animals of ancient Egypt clearly show the animals that were not only well known, but also very important, to the peoples of Egypt ever since predynastic times. Since the domestication of animals in the Neolithic Period, the ancient Egyptians' relationship to animals has taken several forms.25 We provide three examples taken from archaeological discoveries as follows.

One example comes from the ancient capital of Ramses II. During an archaeological campaign, scholars have dug up a horse stable. In 1999, a German-Egyptian archaeological team while locating the capital city of Ramses II, featured a stunning horse stable, using high-tech equipment, known as cutting-edge imaging. “This is the biggest and oldest horse stable ever found in the world,” said Gaballa Ali Gaballa, at that time secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA). It was found on the site of the 3,300-year-old city of Piramesse (Per Ramses or House of Ramses), 115 kms northeast of Cairo at Qantir, a farming village in the Nile Delta province of Sharqiya. The stable covers nearly two acres of land and is sub-divided into six rectangular areas, each with its own gate, connected to a vast courtyard. Each area has 12 compartments for horses, 12 metres long. The stable was built by Ramses II to raise up to 460 horses.26

Another example is that of the New Kingdom Semitic god of horses, Resheph. He was a God of War and Tunder, originally from Syrian. He was 25 Salima Ikram and Mamdouh Eldamaty, Beloved Beasts: Animal Mummies from Ancient

Egypt, 2006, p. 5. 26 Nevine El-Aref, “A Different Kind of Stable”, Weekly Ahram, 1999,

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/1999/461/fr2.htm

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worshipped in Egypt from 18th dynasty of the New Kingdom. His name Resheph also spelled as Rahshaf, Resep, Rasap, Rashap, Reshef or Reshpu whose name means ‘lighting’ or ‘flames’ in Classical Hebrew. His appearance portrayed as man wearing White Crown of Upper Egypt with a gazelle head in front and long ribbons steamed from back of the crown. He holds spear, axe, sickle, sceptre or the ankh in hand. Sometimes, he depicted as a man with a Syrian style beard. He also often showed together with Qetesh and Min. Resheph is the husband of Qadesh, the Semitic goddess of nature (from Syria) and father of Min, the god of fertility. He was also often considered as the husband of Itum in relation of his ability or power to control diseases. Resheph become very popular under Amenhotep II during 18th dynasty, where he served as god of horses and the protector of royalty. However, his force for destruction of royal enemies in battle, extended beyond the royal circles by his power to cure the ordinary people disease. He was thought to be able to repel the ‘akha’ demon which causes abdominal pains. He also became the approachable deity who can grant success to those praying to him.27 Resheph was closely associated with the native Egyptian war god, Monthu and with many other deities. He was also known as “Lord of Sky”, “Lord of Eternity”, “Lord of Heaven” or “Governor of all the Gods” and an area of the Nile valley was renamed the “Valley of Reshep”.

A third example also comes from archaeological evidence. Recently, that is in April 2013, rare leather fragments have been uncovered in the depths of the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square, fragments that will help Egyptologists to solve the mystery of the Pharaohs’ leather chariots.28 As Nevine El-Aref told last year in the Egyptian Ahram Online, during routine archaeological research as part of the Ancient Egypt Leatherwork Project (AELP) carried out by Salima Ikram, Professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo (AUC) and Andre Veldmeijer, head of the Egyptology section at the Netherlands Flemish Institute in Cairo, a collection of 300 leather fragments of an Old Kingdom chariot were uncovered at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Ikram describes the discovery

27 Egyptian Gods, Egyptian-Gods.org, http://egyptian-gods.org/egyptian-gods-resheph/. 28 Nevine El-Aref, “Old Kingdom leather fragments reveal how ancient Egyptians built

their chariots”, English Ahram, Monday 22 Apr 2013, http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/9/40/69897/Heritage/Ancient-Egypt/Old Kingdom-leather-fragments-reveal-how-ancient-E.aspx.



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as very important and the collection as “extremely rare.” Only a handful of complete chariots are known from ancient Egypt, and of these, only one heavily restored in Florence and one in the Egyptian Museum have any significant amount of leather.

Salima Ikram, American University in Cairo (AUC) and Andre Veldmeijer,

The Netherlands Flemish Institute in Cairo analysing the leathered fragments, English Ahram.org

“Even then, they are largely unembellished and not as well-preserved

as the fragments we found,” asserted Ikram. Although horse-drawn chariots are often illustrated in ancient Egyptian artwork, she said, archaeological evidence that goes beyond wooden frames is rare due to their organic nature, as leather fragments seldom survive. “The fragments are in a much better shape than we originally anticipated, and we were able to achieve a sense of how the leather unfolds,” Ikram pointed out, adding that the fine condition that the leather was in suggests that it may have been preserved in a tomb. The archaeological team is now studying the technology and resources used to make the leather chariots in order to reconstruct a complete exact replica of an ancient Egyptian royal leather chariot in 2014. “The team is also going to test hypotheses about the uses of the different pieces of leather, which may prove to be a challenging endeavour,” said Ikram. She explains that studies on the newly discovered leather fragments reveal that some pieces are folded over in a crumpled state, and the reconstruction of certain portions while trying to maintain accuracy in reproducing the technologies used might be more difficult than anticipated.

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The AELP started in 2008 working on all leather artefacts on display at the Egyptian Museum. During the work, Ikram and Veldmeijer came across a 1950s publication by Robert Jacobus Forbes titled Studies in Ancient Technology with a black and white photograph of ancient reigns and horse harnesses, evidently intact and said to exist at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Thrilled by Forbes's findings, both Egyptologists sought the help of museum curators to locate a cache of leather items related to an ancient chariot, including parts of the bow-case. Ikram and Veldmeijer documented, examined and conducted analytical studies of the technology and resources utilised. They categorised the leather into two main groups based on colour and sturdiness. The leather fragments have been numbered and described, and include nave hoops, neck straps, gauntlets and parts of the bow-case. The remnants evidently comprised all parts of the chariot. “Everything we saw about the chariot leather was new,” affirmed Ikram, adding that it provided a revelation on how the chariot was put together in terms of the technologies and materials used. “Our examinations also disclosed how drawstrings served as the means of securing leather components over the skeleton of the chariot.” According to a press release sent from the AUC press, the findings fit in with a larger multidisciplinary and holistic research venture on leatherwork in ancient Egypt, which also includes the study of other fragmentary chariot pieces, such as those originating from the tombs of Thutmose IV (Carter and Newberry, 1904), Amenhotep II (Daressy, 1902) and Amenhotep III (Littauer and Crouwel, 1985, 1968 and 1987), as well as the leather finds from the Amarna period (Veldmeijer, 2010). This larger project is directed by Veldmeijer and Ikram. “Chariots introduced the notion of roadways for faster wheel conveyance, revolutionising the way Egyptians moved through the landscape and pioneering means of transportation and warfare,” said Ikram.29

29 Ibidem.



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Horseshoe in Egyptian magic – a false problem Although it is evidenced that the horses of the ancient Egyptians were

not horseshoed, nonetheless because of the Hyksos invasion and the introduction of horse and chariot in Egypt, two-thousand years later based on some syncretic ideas the European magic of horseshoe erroneously penetrated the also the Egyptian folklore and magic. The historical explanation is relatively simple. The spread of horse and iron are the two great inventions attributed to the Indo-Europeans (= IE). Early Indo-Europeans lived in the Steppe area from East Europe to Central Asia, where is Ukraine and Kazakhstan nowadays. They began a great spread to the east, the south and the west in the 2nd millennium BC. Between 1700BC-500BC, there was a big folks migration centred at Ukrainian steppe and radiated to coasts on almost whole Eurasia Continent. Different branches of IE people - India, Iranians, Slaves, Germans, Celtics, Greeks, Albanians, Tocharians and Hittites - all developed to be great powers gradually and forced other nations to migrate or perish. Indo-Europeans success should be greatly attributed to the two most important inventions: iron and the domestication of horse. IE people were the earliest people in the world that knew how to horse as early as during 3rd millennium BC.

The single biggest factor accounting for these migrations is probably the horse. A good deal of archaeological work indicates that in the same period as the hypothesized spread of the Indo-Europeans, there were more and more groups able to ride horses in the same areas. Moreover, work in the Dnieper river valley of Ukraine indicates that the first groups to domesticate the horse lived there.30

The advantages of horse were not unconditional. Before the invention of stirrup and horseshoe, cavalry couldn't fight continually for a long time, and was hard to exert force on the horse. So it's hard to say they could win when facing the heavy infantries phalanx (of Greeks) or: armoured troops” (mixed chariot and infantry alignment). As to the importance of horse in the expansion of Indo-Europeans, it may be crucial in the Stage I and Stage II (2000 – 1000 BC) of the expansion, and became less important when other nations also learned how to use horse in war. Also, along with the taming of camel, Semites in the Middle East had launched a counterattack from

30 J.P. Mallory, In Search of the Indo-Europeans, London, Thames and Hudson, 1989.

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Arabian Peninsula. Since iron was invented by Hittite between the Stage I and Stage II migration (at about 1500-1200 BC), the iron may be even more important in the late stage of Indo-Europeans expansion.31 Once the IE people discovered the utilitarian value of the horse, they simultaneously realized the necessity to protect the horse's feet-that is, if they hoped to maximize his use. Horsemen throughout Asia equipped their horses with booties made from hides and woven from plants. Often used for therapeutic purposes, these primitive shoes provided protection for sore hooves and helped guard against future injury.32 From archaeological finds in Great Britain, the Romans appeared to have attempted to protect their horses' feet with a strap-on, solid-bottomed “hipposandal” that has a slight resemblance to the modern hoof boot.33 Historians have expressed differing opinions on the origin of the horseshoe. Because iron was a valuable commodity, and any worn out items were generally melted down and reused, it is difficult to locate clear archaeological evidence.34 Although some credit the Druids, there is no hard evidence to support this claim.35 In 1897 four bronze horseshoes with what are apparently nail holes were found in an Etruscan tomb dated around 400 B.C.36 The assertion by some historians that the Romans invented the “mule shoes” sometime after 100 BC is supported by a reference by Catullus who died in 54 BC.37 However, these references to use of horseshoes and muleshoes in Rome, may have been to the “hipposandal”—leather boots, reinforced by an iron plate, rather than to nailed horseshoes.38

31 Jie Bao, Horse, Indo-Europeans Spread and The Rising of Zhou Dynasty, Dec. 12,

2002, http://www.cs.iastate.edu/~baojie/history/chinese/2002-12-02_horse.en.htm. 32

Rachel Cohen, “The History of Horseshoes”, EquiSearch. Web. 11 Nov. 2009. Equisearch.com.

33 Robert E. Krebs, Groundbreaking Scientific Experiments, Inventions, and Discoveries of the Ancient World, Greenword/ABC-CLIO, pp. 27-28.

34 Henry Heymering, “Who Invented Horseshoeing?”, Archive.org, http://web.archive.org/web/19981202145556/http://www.horseshoes.com/advice/invtshoe/winvhrs.htm.

35 Robert E. Krebs, Ibidem. 36 W. N. Bates, “Etruscan Horseshoe from Corneto”, American Journal of Archaeology,

Vol. 6, No. 4, Oct.-Dec. 1902, pp. 398-403. 37 Robert E. Krebs, Ibidem. 38 Rodney Carlisle, Scientific American Inventions and Discoveries, Aug 2, 2004, John

Wiley, p. 117.



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As for the connection between the horse, the horseshoe and a so-called talisman function in Egyptian magic, the idea entered the Egyptian folklore obviously because of the Hyksos invasion. Although the Hyksos were not entirely Indo-Europeans, rather having mixed origins (Hurrian, Hittite, mixed with Hebrew), and coming from Western Asia, they nonetheless used horses and chariots, and knew the iron forging technology developed by the IE Hittites. Therefore, the horse accessories (equipment) penetrated into the ancient Egyptian mentality as a consequence of a more than a thousand years syncretic development process under the influence of people from Western Asia, Near East and Mediterranean region.

Yet once again an Egyptian hieroglyphic sign was erroneously interpreted by the non-Egyptians who were not familiar with the hieroglyphic writing as a “magic” talisman because of its resemblance with a horseshoe. We must precise here that it is the hieroglyphic sign of number 10, , transliterated as mDw (Masc.), mDt (Fem.)39 which is written as an upside-down “U”, being in fact the depiction of the heel bone arch. In the universal magic and folklore however unfortunately it entered interpreted erroneously as a horseshoe talisman and therefore was given some far from reality meanings, even as the mystical door of life.40 It is important to say however that the hieroglyphic sign has nothing to do with the horseshoe.

To conclude, one can say that although there are scholars who tend to

defence the presence of horse in ancient Egypt from the beginning of the dynastic period, possibly belonging to the native fauna, so far most archaeological evidence found attested that his origins are connected to the Hyksos invasion precisely. The animal was a valuable commodity during the New Kingdom and had a prominently ceremonial use. The horse was not horseshoed, and modern esoteric thinkers erroneously related the power of the horseshoe talisman to the hieroglyphic sign of number 10, , which is actually the depiction of the heel bone arch. Additional archaeological analysis will definitely provide valuable insight into the horse history.

39 James P. Allen, Middle Egyptian. An Introduction to the Language and Culture of

Hieroglyphs, Cambridge University Press, Second Edition 2010, p. 102. 40 Robert Means Lawrence MD, The Magic of the Horseshoe with other Folklore Notes,

Boston and New York, Cambridge, 1898, p. 66.

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