3000 year old horse remains uncovered

Wow.

When I was a young kid and didn't have a ned (we were poor and lived in town), my parents bought me Riding Annual one Christmas in the 1970s. In it was an article about the discovery of the Pazyrck Warrior Tombs in the Altai Mountains (Mongolia/Kazakhstan), how the horses were slaughtered and buried (article said the dead horses were all old knackered ones, the people weren't silly enough to kill the prized healthy ones!) with their owners' body, the magnificent jewelled embroidered saddle clothes, snaffle bits, no stirrups, wooden framed saddles, oats for feeding, and then how the modern Mongolian/Kazakh nomad of that region uses the same tack, and lives in the round white tents called gers.

No photos, just line drawings. Somehow it conjured up wonderful images in my brain which stayed there ever since and I resolved to get to the Altai mountains for myself one day, meet the modern nomads, see the descendents of these warrior horses, etc. Finally made it in 2009 aged 40-something and it was absolutely the trip of a lifetime for many many reasons.
 
How fascinating - thanks for posting.

However, being the Daily Mail, I would expect at least one reference to England's resident Royal equestrienne... 'The 3000 year old horse is similar to present day horses that are competed on by Zara Phillips (except she's Tyndall now)...' etc...

:D
 
Suechoccy said:
Wow.

When I was a young kid and didn't have a ned (we were poor and lived in town), my parents bought me Riding Annual one Christmas in the 1970s. In it was an article about the discovery of the Pazyrck Warrior Tombs in the Altai Mountains (Mongolia/Kazakhstan), how the horses were slaughtered and buried (article said the dead horses were all old knackered ones, the people weren't silly enough to kill the prized healthy ones!) with their owners' body, the magnificent jewelled embroidered saddle clothes, snaffle bits, no stirrups, wooden framed saddles, oats for feeding, and then how the modern Mongolian/Kazakh nomad of that region uses the same tack, and lives in the round white tents called gers.

No photos, just line drawings. Somehow it conjured up wonderful images in my brain which stayed there ever since and I resolved to get to the Altai mountains for myself one day, meet the modern nomads, see the descendents of these warrior horses, etc. Finally made it in 2009 aged 40-something and it was absolutely the trip of a lifetime for many many reasons.
Click to expand...

I'm obsessed with these people :) I spent forever researching them to write a chapter of my book. Have seen many of the photos and the horse masks in particular are stunning.
 
3000 years ago should have been around the time that the Chinese were bringing in Persian horses. They called these horses the "Heavenly Horses". I wonder if these skeletons are the remains of these "Heavenly Horses"? I wonder if the bones are all carbonized or if there is still DNA intact in them? If so, we could find out how these horses genetically relate to modern day horses. That would be very exciting!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top