“… His arrows are pointed, and all his bows are drawn; his horses' hooves are like flint, and his wheels are like a whirlwind"
(Jeremiah 4:13)
The most ancient culture, whose people were able to tame wild horses, today is considered to be the Botay culture of the Copper Stone Age, which existed between 3700 and 3000 BC. BC NS. in the north of the modern republic of Kazakhstan. But there is another opinion that the horse was tamed in the Southern Cis-Urals by people of the Pribelsk culture, whose settlements - Mullino II and Davlekanovo II, were discovered in the territory of Bashkortostan. To think so give grounds for the bones of horses found there during excavations and dating back to the 7th-6th millennia BC. NS. That is, it turns out that the horse was domesticated in the steppe zone of the Urals and Kazakhstan for many thousands of years before it ended up on the territory of the most ancient civilizations of the Middle East. Moreover, it was among the Botay culture that the use of bit was noted, that is, the Botay people knew horse riding! How was this found out? And it is very simple: by the deformation of the teeth and jaws of ancient horses found in burials next to people. And analysis of other bones of these horses showed their identity to much later animals of the Bronze Age.
Greek amphora with a rider. Louvre.
Not far from them, traces of the Sintashta culture of the Bronze Age were found (found in the Krivoye Ozero burial, circa 2026 BC), which, as it turned out, owned the world's oldest chariots (in any case, this is proved by archaeological excavations) … In addition, their traces were found in burials belonging to the catacomb culture ("Tyagunova Mogila" in the village of Maryevka in Zaporozhye, III-II millennium BC).
Map of the Eastern Migration of the Corded Ware tribes.
The culture itself was named after the place of the discovered settlement on the Sintashta River (the left tributary of the Tobol River). To date, 22 fortified settlements of this culture have already been found in the Chelyabinsk and Orenburg regions. A characteristic feature of these settlements is the presence of a well-thought-out system of fortifications in the form of a closed circle, oval or polygon with a square or a transverse street in the center. The walls were made of adobe blocks up to 5, 5 meters thick and up to 3, 5 meters high. In and near the homes of representatives of this culture, hearths and fireplaces, cellars, wells and metallurgical furnaces were found.
Corinthian Crater, 575–550 BC BC. Louvre.
Burials of this culture are found in burial mounds, often located on the banks of the river opposite the settlement. The deceased are in deep, up to 3.5 meters deep pit-crypts and lie in them on their left side, holding their palms to their faces. It is interesting that in addition to weapons and tools, many burials also include the sacrifice of a horse, a head whose legs are in a running position; as well as the remains of war chariots. In total, in 9 burials of the Sintashta and related Petrine culture, archaeologists have found at least 16 burials with chariots, of which the earliest date back to about 2000 BC. NS. Moreover, it should be emphasized that these are the very first real chariots in the history of mankind - light two-wheeled carts with spiked wheels, in which the horses were controlled with the help of circular bits.
Horse head from the Assyrian relief from the British Museum. The bit and their design are clearly visible.
According to the latest studies carried out by paleogenetics, people belonging to the Sintashta culture have a great genetic relationship with representatives of the European Corded Ware culture, or, as it is also called, the battle ax culture. Therefore, we can conclude that the formation of this Sintashta culture was led by the migration of representatives of this culture from Europe to the Ural steppes. It is also interesting that during the study of fossil DNA in ancient Sintashta inhabitants, the dominant Y-chromosomal haplogroup R1a (subclades R1a1a1b2a2-Z2124 and R1a1a1b2a2a-Z2123) and mitochondrial haplogroups J1, J2, N1 and U was found.
Relief depicting a horse from Trajan's Column. As you can see, the height at the withers is very small, so that the rider's legs when riding hung almost to the ground and such cavalry could hardly be full-fledged.
And now let us imagine for a moment what impression the warriors of this culture must have made when they rode out of the fortified settlements in their chariots and rode them across the steppes? The presence of arrowheads in the burials suggests their presence in the arsenal of these warriors and the fact that they, standing on the chariot and having a large supply of arrows with them, fired from it directly in motion. In this case, even a few dozen of these chariots became extremely powerful weapons, especially if they were accompanied by riders who also performed the function of scouts. And if necessary, having loaded their belongings on four-wheeled carts, they could easily leave the area they did not like and in a matter of hours leave it for a long distance, beyond the reach of any pedestrian.
The device of an Egyptian chariot from a bas-relief from the tomb of Horemheb, 18th dynasty.
It should be noted here that the dating of the appearance of chariots differs somewhat among different historians. In particular, in earlier foreign studies there are dates of 1900 and 1700. BC. Thus, the date "1900" is given in his book "The Archeology of Weapons" by E. Oakeshott (p. 9), while David Dawson attributes their appearance to the time "after 1700 BC". True, in this case, it turns out that the Aryans could not begin their conquests earlier than this date, for they would have been simply impossible without the presence of chariots. Another English researcher of this topic, Nick Philus, in his book "War Chariots of the Bronze Age" (Fild, N. Brouze Age War Chariots. Oxford: (New Vangard series # 119, 2006), writes that the first war chariots appeared around the 4th millennium BC on the territory from the Rhine to India (R.3), that is, it does not particularly seek to clarify.
Thracian cavalryman. Collection of the Historical Museum in Staraya Zagora, Bulgaria.
The presence in the ancient armies of both chariots and horsemen is evidenced by such a historical source as "Mahabharata" - an epic ancient Indian work, formed over a whole millennium, from the 4th century. BC. to V - IV centuries. n. NS. It is clear, of course, that this is a work of literature, but from it, as well as from the same Iliad, you can learn a lot about what weapons the ancient Indo-Europeans used and what kind of armor they had.
The Mahabharata reports that the main military unit of the akshauhini consisted of 21870 chariots, 21870 elephants, 65610 mounted and 109,350 foot soldiers, and it is clear that this simply could not be. But there is no doubt that chariots, elephants, horsemen, and infantrymen were involved in the battles. But the chariots are named first, and almost all the heroes of the poem are described in it fighting as warriors on chariots, standing on which they lead their troops into battle.
Indian horsemen and elephants 1645 National Museum in Krakow.
The monuments that have come down to us show that war chariots in ancient times were used not only in Ancient Egypt and Assyria, but also in China. Already in the era of the Shang-Yin dynasty (circa 1520 - 1030 BC), its soldiers not only had various types of bronze weapons, but also a clear military organization. So, the warriors on chariots were called "ma" (and they were considered the elite), followed by archers "she" and warriors who had weapons for close combat - called "shu". That is, the Chinese troops of the Shanintsy included infantry and war chariots, as was practiced by the Egyptians, Hittites, Assyrians and Achaeans of Homer, who fought the fortified Troy.
The Persian king Shapur I celebrates the victory over Valerian. The Roman emperor kneels in the cloak of the commander in front of the Sassanian sovereign sitting on a horse
Thanks again to the finds of archaeologists, we know that the chariots of the Chinese were made of wood and had high spoked wheels in number from 2 to 4, into which they harnessed from 2 to 4 horses.
By the way, the high wheels of Chinese chariots not only increased their cross-country ability, but also allowed the soldiers to fight the enemy infantry with great success. As for the horses, the Chinese received them as tribute from the peoples who lived in the steppes north of China. These were large-headed and undersized horses, similar to Przewalski's horse. They were harnessed to chariots, but the Chinese cavalry also fought on them and therefore did not differ in high efficiency. The situation changed only in 102 BC, when the Chinese commander Ban Chao managed to defeat the Kushans, after which Emperor Wu-di ("Sovereign Warrior") finally received several thousand horses (in China they were called "heavenly horses") for his heavily armed cavalry, badly needed for the war with the Huns.
Tombstone with the image of a horseman from the archaeological museum of Anapa.
Well, but horse breeding in Ancient Greece was poorly developed due to the mountainous terrain in most of the country, and in the same way it was insufficiently developed in Ancient Rome. The consequence of this was the weakness, first of the Greek, and then of the Roman cavalry. Athens, for example, in 457 BC. exhibited only 300 horsemen, and in 433 BC. - 1200, while Sparta even in 424 BC. - only 400!
Equipment of the rider of the early Middle Ages from the vicinity of Anapa.
Horses were expensive, and since the state paid for the cost of horses that fell in the war, it is simply unprofitable for Athens and Sparta to have many riders.
This stone bas-relief depicts the horseman Tryphon, son of Andromenes. Bas-relief from Tanais. Since the rider then did not have stirrups, he had to hold the spear with both hands …
On the other hand, on the fertile plains of Thessaly, dense forbs allowed to grow fast-footed and strong horses, and, as a result, it was the Thessalian horsemen, even if they did not have saddles and stirrups, who became real cavalry, and not detachments of horse-riding infantrymen.
P. S. Much more detail and, moreover, with excellent illustrations about the ancient charioteers of Eurasia is described in the monograph by A. I. Solovyov “Arms and Armor. Siberian weapons from the Stone Age to the Middle Ages”. Novosibirsk, "INFOLIO-press", 2003. - 224p.: ill.
