Conference – Remembering a Desert Horse

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”.

Horse sessions at the International Medieval Congress 2019

This year I participated for the first time in the horse sessions at the International Medieval Congress at Leeds University (1-4 july 2019). My paper on the horse book by Ibn al Kalbi (d.819/821) was part of the first panel, Horses to the East, of a whole day of equine and equestrian themed papers. During my paper presentation I introduced the audience to Ibn al Kalbi, one of the first Islamic scholars to write on the topic of horses in Arabic in the 9th century CE. Considered an authority in the field of Islamic genealogy (‘ilm al nasab) he also produced his horse book (kitāb al khayl) which contains a list of 175 names of horses that were ridden and/or owned by select early Muslims. I showed how the book often contains more information on the rider than the horse itself, and posed questions as to whether or not this work is fairly considered evidence of practical reality to the purported early Islamic equestrian culture. After all, important Islamic symbols as well as mounts of legendary literary characters are featured in this particular kitāb al khayl. The paper will be published in the forthcoming proceedings Materiality of the Medieval Horse.

Surprisingly I wasn’t the only one discussing Eastern or even Arabic work on horses, as there were various papers presented in the horse sessions that touched upon the topic. Jürg Gassmann presented to us an examination of Byzantine cavalry units and the question whether or not we may consider those “Arab”. Miriam Bibby suggested that the evidence surrounding the presumed “first ever imported Arabian” under Alexander the first, could be interpreted as an exotic import such as an oryx, which were often identified as unicorns, thus leading to the establishment of the unicorn as Scotland’s national animal. Jennifer Jobst gave us insight into the lance work exercises that are discussed in a 14th century Mamluk manuscript that has been translated by Kjersti Jensen and Mattia Caprioli showed us archeological finds related to horse equipment from the Byzantine empire. Even though the majority of the papers were in the field of European medieval studies, the overlap of topics and subjects within equestrian knowledge was fascinating! It was exceptionally educational to spend a day in the company of horse-scholars from various disciplines, who study horses from various historical times.

Jennifer Jobst explaining what lance exercises can be found in the 14th c Mamluk manuscript and her husband Sean demonstrating how to hold the lance

Where the Middle East studies were quite well represented in the horse sessions, I sadly found little other sessions on topics such as Islam, Early Islamic science and other subjects relating to the medieval middle east. But the influence of the east was tangible in Leeds however! Most notably in the Royal Armoury that contains an extensive collection of armour and weapons from the Middle but also Far East.

The harness of the Indian war elephant, nicknamed “stompy” by museum staff, being the highlight of the museum. On the topic of horses, there were fascinating jousting plates for horses to be seen as well as lots of chanfrons. Not only European horse armour was displayed, as the Ottoman and Japanese horses were very prominent in the collection.I personally loved the Japanese chanfron best, as it probably would seem that the horse wearing it had four ears, very frightening!

Interesting fun fact was that the armour of the Indian horse, was made out of bits and pieces of elephant armour, after the elephants were no longer being used in warfare.

The reused elephant armour now on a horse

I also enjoyed going on an excursion to the Museum of the horse in Tuxford, with (of course!) many of the other horse-scholars that also presented in the horse sessions. A lovely museum in the English countryside that has an extensive collection of bits, stirrups, saddles, curious medical items such as drenching bits and docking sheers, but also a fantastic and rare Mail Coach. Sally Mitchell, who runs the museum is a very knowledgeable horsewoman and it was wonderful how she was around for all of our questions. The museum has a room full of “oriental” horsegear and features not only Ottoman and North African Barb saddles but also Indonesian saddles and bits. I recommend anyone with an interest in history and horses to visit this gem of a museum!

Coming into Leeds by bus, the first thing one sees is a gigantic statue of Edward the Black Prince on his horse, and the tone for a fantastic horsey presence at the IMC 2019 was set immediately. Thank you to everyone I had the chance to hang out with, talk horses with, and brainstorm over new horsey topics !

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…