International Congress for Young Egyptologists 2019

Thursday August 22nd, 2019 I will be presenting a paper at the ICYE at Leiden University; 

Title:

Straight Egyptian Arabians: Finding the Pharaoh’s horse


Abstract:

“The pharaohs were able to extend the Egyptian empire by harnessing the Arabian horse to their chariots and relying on his power and courage.” claims Judith Forbis in her book The Classic Arabian Horse. This Orientalist view is based on the fact that some of the ancient depictions share visual characteristics with the current phenotype of many an Arabian horse, and is strengthened by the fact that Arabian horse breeders tend to favour such a desirable ancestry. Tracing the history of the Arabian horse all the way back to ancient Egyptian horse imagery by comparison of visual characteristics is an example of ‘backprojection’, as we project a current idea onto something from the past. It is also not unlikely that this early modern obsession with finding an Ancient Egyptian horse ran parallel to the emerge of Egyptomania. In this presentation, I aim to introduce the misinterpretation of the scenes and the involvement of the depictions in the debate surrounding the mysterious history of the Arabian horse. Subsequently I will shed light on how the idea of an Ancient Egyptian Arabian horse was gradually fabricated and then successfully exploited by many breeders, resulting in a sub type of Arabian horse called the “Straight Egyptian”, which is still marketed as “the Pharaoh’s horse”.

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