Horses and chariots.

Vidhyanath Rao rao.3 at osu.edu
Sun Jan 30 12:47:00 UTC 2000


Steve Long (quoting Tom Clancy?) wrote:
> The Egyptians used the chariot differently from the rest of the
> Near East in that while they too carried a javelin, they
> abandoned the spear and adopted the bow.

If chariots came to Egypt from Mittani Aryans, this doesn't make sense.
In India, all chariot mounted warriors used the long bow. I think that
the same is implied by Avestic evidence. Anthony and Vinogradov suggest
this as the reason for the switch from riding to chariotry among
Indo-Iranians (to answer the question of why anybody would do so).

JoatSimeon wrote:
> development of ... stirrups (post-300 CE).

There is an old article of Littauer in Antiquity (mid to late 60's)
about the history of stirrups. The oldest known representation of
stirrups is on a Scythian (something) where one mounted warrior is
clearly shown with a foot in a loop hanging from the horse. This
artifact was dated to 3rd c. BCE, if memory serves right. Sanchi
sculptures show a rope with loops at the ends used like stirrups (this
would date to about 100 BCE).



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