Culture

Whatever one’s discipline or its tutelary giants, rereading Xenophon of Athens, the celebrated horseman from classical antiquity, always repays the effort.

Researchers describe the Mongolia saddle as completely preserved.

“The horse would have originally appeared gold-like and the recesses probably once contained bright red, blue or yellow enamel. It would have been a spectacular sight on someone’s robe.”

Ancient mountain pass was a veritable horse highway.

“The surgical operation is the most complex I have ever seen in my 40 years of working with anthropological materials.”

“Archaeology is showing us more about how our ancestors survived in this desperately cold and hostile environment at the climax of the last ice age.”

Chinese nobility felt donkey polo was safer than playing the sport on larger horses.

From the trade routes of the Silk Road or the great Mongol Empire to the equestrian nations of the American Great Plains, horses were the engines of the ancient world.