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”.

Presenting horses at the Current Research in Egyptology in Alcalá, Madrid

Written by Lonneke Delpeut, MA Egyptology

From June 17-21, 2019,  the Current Research in Egyptology (CRE) took place at the University of Alcalá, a small city right outside Madrid. The CRE is an annual conference offering a chance to Egyptologists to present whatever they are working on at the moment. For the current authors, this was the perfect opportunity to present our research, which consisted of my MA-thesis, and Hylke’s interest in the relationship between depictions of horses and the modern Arabian horse. It was pretty much a summary of the blog we’ve written before.

Lonneke pointing out circulating ideas about the origin of the Arabian horse in connection to the ancient Egyptian horse imagery

It started by explaining the fascination with the so-called ‘proto-arabian’, and why it is so important for modern Arabian horse breeders to show pedigree. The tradition of relating the Arabian horse breed with depictions of ancient Egyptian horses has been alive for quite some time, even though there is no scientific evidence that this is actually the case. The presentation showed how Orientalism is partly responsible for this interpretation, as Western people are very fond of choosing particular parts of history and presenting it in a way that is favourable to them, true or not.

It continued by explaining the difficulties of interpreting ancient Egyptian depictions. The images we know are representations of the concept of a horse, not depictions of an actual horse. We can analyse the images in two ways: what is depicted, and how they are depicted. What is depicted focuses on it’s physical attributes, it’s harness and the context in which the horses appear. How it is depicted focusses on the shape, form and colour of the horses. Both what and how carry a degree of naturalism, but they are in no way a 1:1 representation of reality, and therefore not a reliable source of what ancient Egyptian horses looked like at all times.

The lecture was well-received by the audience, as the focus on the image as a concept is rather new. Many colleagues recognised the interpretation as acceptable, and I’ve even been invited to give a workshop on it! To be continued…