| # | Polity | Coded Value | Tags | Year(s) | Edit | Desc |
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"Combat in this period was conducted by men on foot, in loosely organized forces of limited strength, almost entirely with bows and arrows and crushing weapons such as axes, clubs, dagger-axes, and a few spears (but not swords) primarily fabricated from stone rather than metal."
[1]
Chariots were introduced later than this period, c1300 BCE.
[2]
. Chariots were introduced around 1300 BCE
[2]
[1]: (Sawyer 2011, 129) [2]: (Peers 2013, 8) |
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"combat in this period was conducted by men on foot, in loosely organized forces of limited strength, almost entirely with bows and arrows and crushing weapons such as axes, clubs, dagger-axes, and a few spears (but not swords) primarily fabricated from stone rather than metal."
[1]
Chariots were introduced later than this period, c1300 BCE.
[2]
. Chariots were introduced around 1300 bce
[2]
[1]: (Sawyer 2011, 129) [2]: (Peers 2013, 8) |
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"Combat in this period was conducted by men on foot, in loosely organized forces of limited strength, almost entirely with bows and arrows and crushing weapons such as axes, clubs, dagger-axes, and a few spears (but not swords) primarily fabricated from stone rather than metal."
[1]
Chariots were introduced later than this period, c1300 BCE.
[2]
. Chariots were introduced around 1300 BCE
[2]
[1]: (Sawyer 2011, 129) [2]: (Peers 2013, 8) |
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"combat in this period was conducted by men on foot, in loosely organized forces of limited strength, almost entirely with bows and arrows and crushing weapons such as axes, clubs, dagger-axes, and a few spears (but not swords) primarily fabricated from stone rather than metal."
[1]
Chariots were introduced later than this period, c1300 BCE.
[2]
. Chariots were introduced around 1300 bce
[2]
[1]: (Sawyer 2011, 129) [2]: (Peers 2013, 8) |
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"Within the diverse landscape of Inner Asia the forms of social systems and economic adaptations that were the foundation of early polities emerged after the domestication of the horse, especially after horses were used for riding (Jacobson- Tepfer 2008; Kradin 1992). By 3500 B.C. (Outram et al. 2009), the Botai culture of Kazakhstan consumed horse milk and meat and also used harnesses that probably facilitated riding. The domestication of the horse and subsequent riding, however, were not immediately followed by its widespread adoption or the transformation of local economies (Kohl 2007, p. 140). Across the Central Asian steppe—from north of the Black Sea to eastern Kazakhstan—there is substantial evidence for diverse mobile pastoralist economies, but primarily after 2500 B.C. (Benecke and von den Driesch 2003; Frachetti 2009).[...] Importantly, the horse also was the foundation for techniques of warfare that later fueled mobile pastoralist successes in their conflicts with more sedentary societies."
[1]
"Nevertheless, the transition to actual pastoral nomadism as practiced by horseback riders was probably not completed until the beginning of the first millennium b.c., and the first Scythian mounted archers appear on the scene only in the tenth or ninth century b.c."
[2]
Seshat puts the year for the region at around 700 B.C, so will use this number despite Scythians doing so beforehand.
[3]
[1]: (Rogers 2012, 209) [2]: Di Cosmo 2002, 27 [3]: http://seshatdatabank.info/mounted_warfare/ |
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"Within the diverse landscape of Inner Asia the forms of social systems and economic adaptations that were the foundation of early polities emerged after the domestication of the horse, especially after horses were used for riding (Jacobson- Tepfer 2008; Kradin 1992). By 3500 B.C. (Outram et al. 2009), the Botai culture of Kazakhstan consumed horse milk and meat and also used harnesses that probably facilitated riding. The domestication of the horse and subsequent riding, however, were not immediately followed by its widespread adoption or the transformation of local economies (Kohl 2007, p. 140). Across the Central Asian steppe—from north of the Black Sea to eastern Kazakhstan—there is substantial evidence for diverse mobile pastoralist economies, but primarily after 2500 B.C. (Benecke and von den Driesch 2003; Frachetti 2009).[...] Importantly, the horse also was the foundation for techniques of warfare that later fueled mobile pastoralist successes in their conflicts with more sedentary societies."
[1]
"Nevertheless, the transition to actual pastoral nomadism as practiced by horseback riders was probably not completed until the beginning of the first millennium b.c., and the first Scythian mounted archers appear on the scene only in the tenth or ninth century b.c."
[2]
Seshat puts the year for the region at around 700 B.C, so will use this number despite Scythians doing so beforehand.
[3]
[1]: (Rogers 2012, 209) [2]: Di Cosmo 2002, 27 [3]: http://seshatdatabank.info/mounted_warfare/ |
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According to the Chinese Nan chou i wu chih (A Record of Strange Things in the Southern Regions) written about 222-228 CE a volcanic country called ’Ge-ying’ (thought to be western Java) traded with the Malay Peninsula and imported horses from India. They were used by warriors but there must not have been very many of them as they were considered very prestigious possessions.
[1]
Dewawarman I may have founded Salakanagara in west West Java 130 CE. He followed Aji Saka who may have introduced ’Buddhism, letters, calendar, etc.’) into Central and East Java 78 CE.
[2]
[1]: (Miksic and Goh 2017, 215) John Norman Miksic. Geok Yian Goh. Routledge. 2017. Ancient Southeast Asia. London. p. 215 [2]: (Iguchi 2015) Masatoshi Iguchi. 2015. Java Essay: The History and Culture of a Southern Country. Troubador Publishing Ltd. |
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According to the Chinese Nan chou i wu chih (A Record of Strange Things in the Southern Regions) written about 222-228 CE a volcanic country called ’Ge-ying’ (thought to be western Java) traded with the Malay Peninsula and imported horses from India. They were used by warriors but there must not have been very many of them as they were considered very prestigious possessions.
[1]
Dewawarman I may have founded Salakanagara in west West Java 130 CE. He followed Aji Saka who may have introduced ’Buddhism, letters, calendar, etc.’) into Central and East Java 78 CE.
[2]
[1]: (Miksic and Goh 2017, 215) John Norman Miksic. Geok Yian Goh. Routledge. 2017. Ancient Southeast Asia. London. p. 215 [2]: (Iguchi 2015) Masatoshi Iguchi. 2015. Java Essay: The History and Culture of a Southern Country. Troubador Publishing Ltd. |
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"Although the horse was adopted by the eastern tribes as a beast of burden, there seems to be little reference to its use in warfare except in the later 18th and early 19th centuries and particularly by the western tribes Sauk, Fox, Winnebago, etc. However, the Iroquois and Cherokee has large numbers of horses from the mid-18th century on."
[1]
[1]: (Johnson and Hook 24) Johnson, Michael G., and Richard Hook. 1990. American Woodland Indians. Men-at-Arms. Osprey. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/collectionKey/943RGM7A/itemKey/X87SHFX7 |
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"Although the horse was adopted by the eastern tribes as a beast of burden, there seems to be little reference to its use in warfare except in the later 18th and early 19th centuries and particularly by the western tribes Sauk, Fox, Winnebago, etc. However, the Iroquois and Cherokee has large numbers of horses from the mid-18th century on."
[1]
[1]: (Johnson and Hook 24) Johnson, Michael G., and Richard Hook. 1990. American Woodland Indians. Men-at-Arms. Osprey. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/collectionKey/943RGM7A/itemKey/X87SHFX7 |
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Not native to region.
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we need expert input in order to code this variable
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we need expert input in order to code this variable
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Cavalry
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Not native to region.
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Not native to region.
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descriptions of raids make no mention of animals accompanying warriors
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Armored cavalry
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Not native to region.
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Not native to region.
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No horses in Hawaii at this time.
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No horses in Hawaii at this time.
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No horses in Hawaii at this time.
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At a "megalithic habitation site" in Tamil Nadu, rock-art has been found depicting "two horse riders fighting each other with poles"
[1]
As cavalry absent, but don’t know whether horses were used as a pack animal. Probably absent if warfare not large scale.
[1]: U. Singh, A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India (2008), p. 253 |
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Sources do not mention elephant remains in descriptions of relevant archaeological contexts.
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Sources do not mention elephant remains in descriptions of relevant archaeological contexts.
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"The fighting force was divided into infantry, cavalry and the elephant corps."
[1]
[1]: (Majumdar and Altekar 1986, 277) Anant Sadashiv Altekar. The Administrative Organisation. Ramesh Chandra Majumdar. Anant Sadashiv Altekar. 1986. Vakataka - Gupta Age Circa 200-550 A.D. Motilal Banarsidass. Delhi. |
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Present in previous and subsequent polities.
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"In Iraq and Syria domesticated donkey appeared during the Late Uruk period (ca. 3600-3100 BCE) at Uruk (Boessneck et al., p. 166), Tell Rubeidheh (Payne, pp. 99-100), and Habuba Kabira (Strommenger and Bollweg, pp. 354-55)".
[1]
[1]: (Potts 2012) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/DWHJQHHJ. |
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Technology not yet available
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Technology not yet available
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Technology not yet available
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Technology not yet available
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Technology not yet available
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No archaeological evidence for this. Moreover, the scholarly consensus is that the Jomon were relatively peaceful.
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No archaeological evidence for this. Moreover, the scholarly consensus is that the Jomon were relatively peaceful.
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No archaeological evidence for this. Moreover, the scholarly consensus is that the Jomon were relatively peaceful.
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Nomadic Kara-Khanids were horse archers.
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Steppe riders
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’Armies did not consist of permanent standing armies but were raised ad hoc for particular campaigns by the great men of their provinces, who were responsible for supplying troops for royal service. Often enough, huge armies could be raised this way; Chau Ju-kua claims that the Khmers in his time had 200,000 elephants and many horses (albeit small ones). It is difficult to trust such figures. No doubt there could be enormous hordes of cheaply maintained foot soldiers - Chou Ta-kuan says that there had been universal conscription for a recent exhausting war against the Siamese - though the levies might be ill-trained and poorly equipped. Chou tells us that the Khmer soldiers were unclothed and barefoot; they lacked discipline and were poorly led’.
[1]
’The ordinary Khmer soldiers as well as officers might carry a lance; or a bow, with the arrows being held in a quiver; or sabres of different length; or various sizes of knives and daggers; or a kind of halberd known as a phka’h. The latter was basically an iron axe mounted on a long handle curved at one end. At Angkor Wat, the phka’k is held in the hands of high-ranking warriors mounted on elephants or horses; it is still in use in the twentieth century for hunting or work in the forest. Crossbows were known, but are extremely rare in the reliefs.’
[2]
’Calvary horses were ridden without saddle or stirrups, and during combat the mounted knights often stood on their steeds’ backs. [...] War chariots were very similar to nags-decorated carts, but were roofless, and drawn by a pair of horses.’
[3]
’Seen in profile, as is most often the case, the chariot appears like a kind of cart drawn by two horses, the second animal often merging with the first and being very unclear.’
[4]
’We will close this section on the calvary with a few words about the arms carried by the horsemen. At Angkor Watt [sic], these arms are above all offensive; the lance is common, as are also the sabre and the Khmer axe (Fig 44.1). The only weapon they never carry is the bow.’
[5]
’The acquisition of a calvary raised many more problems: horses had to be imported, perhaps from India-like those of the embassy of the Funan, Fan Zhan, received as a gift from the court of the Murundas around AD 230-240, most likely from China via Vietnam. This difficulty must always have acted as a restraint on the development of this corps.
[6]
’There is some correlation between centers of horse breeding and core regions of classical empires, suggesting that easy access to horses contributed to the military might of Pagan, Angkor, Champa, and Majapahit. This is most strikingly illustrated by well-preserved bas- reliefs of prancing Khmer horses. An elite cul- ture of horsemanship diffused from India in the course of the first millennium C.E., reflected in Sanskrit words embedded in many Southeast Asian languages, with China as another influen- tial model. Numerous Indian and Chinese texts relating to horses were available, but the mili- tary technology and court rituals of Southeast Asia remained distinct.To a greater extent than in India, horses were subordinate to elephants, for both war and prestige. Mounted infantry was more common than cavalry proper, and the technique of the mounted archer was scarcely employed.’
[7]
’Horses by contrast [to elephants], do not appear to have been so significant, and were probably used by officers in charge of infantry rather than in massed engagements.’
[8]
[1]: (Mabbett and Chandler 1995, p.156) [2]: (Coe 2003, p. 185) [3]: (Coe 2003, p. 186) [4]: (Jacq-Hergoualc’h and Smithies 2007, p. 41) [5]: (Jacq-Hergoualc’h and Smithies 2007, pp. 59-60) [6]: (Jacq-Hergoualc’h and Smithies 2007, p. 173) [7]: (Clarence-Smith 2004, p. 610) [8]: (Higham 2014b, p. 397) |
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Previous polity had horses so this polity presumably does too.
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"The earliest irrefutable evidence of horses in sub-Saharan Africa comes from the Arabic texts, beginning with the writings of Al-Muhallabi from about AD 985. By then, however, the horse was a highly valued prestige animal, and camels were the vehicle of trans-Saharan trade."
[1]
[1]: (Reader 1998, 266) |
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Horses were the means of travel for mobile nomadic warriors since the establishment of cavalry forces by the mid-first millennium BCE
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"The Xiongnu conducted many battles and border raids against the Chinese. The greater mobility of the Xiongnu cavalry proved to be very effective against Chinese infantry and chariots, and for a long period of time a treaty (198 B.C.) was in effect, bringing vast quantities of Chinese tribute into the Xiongnu court (Barfield 1981; Yu ̈ 1967)."
[1]
[1]: (Rogers 2012, 222) |
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Hassig lists horses among the new military "technologies" the Spanish introduced to the region in the sixteenth century
[1]
[1]: (Hassig 1992, 143) Hassig, Robert. 1992. War and Society in Ancient Mesoamerica. London; Berkeley: University of California Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/collectionKey/F76EVNU3/itemKey/E9VHCKDG |
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Not native to region.
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Not native to region.
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Not native to region.
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Not native to region.
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Not native to region.
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Not native to region.
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Not native to region.
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Not native to region.
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Not native to region.
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[Most armies consisted of mounted infantry. Furthermore, horses were used for transport purposes. Although the hard evidence is from the 13th century, it is very probable horses were used from 930 CE onward.]
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Not native to region.
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Not native to region.
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Not native to region.
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Not native to this region.
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Not native to region.
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No references in the literature.
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first used for warfare for chariots much later
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unclear if domesticated horses became widespread in this period
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unclear if domesticated horses became widespread in this period
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[1]
The Durrani state was an empire sustained and governed through the maintenance of a large number of armed horseman primarily recruited from the Pashtun peoples, a diverse group of ethnic groups linked through the use of the Pashto language.
[2]
Quick conquest in the period of 1747 CE-1752 CE added Turkmen, Uzbek, Tajik, and Hazara tribes to the growing number of horsemen in the King’s army.
[2]
[1]: Indian Warfare and Afghan Innovation During the Eighteenth Century Studies in History August 1995 11: 261-280 [2]: Runion, Meredith L. The history of Afghanistan. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007.pp. 69-73 |
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"The damage inflicted by the mounted archers of the Ghurid light cavalry was considerable, whereas Indian armies had few men accomplished enough to wield a bow while riding, according to the recent work of Andre Wink."
[1]
[1]: (Asher and Talbot 2006, 28) Catherine B Asher. Cynthia Talbot. 2006. India Before Europe. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. |
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The steppe horse was a stocky and high endurance animal superbly adapted to the harsh steppe. As a steppe people, the Hepthalites would have had several horses per mounted warrior, allowing for great mobility in raiding and warfare.
[1]
[1]: Hildinger, Erik. Warriors Of The Steppe: Military History Of Central Asia, 500 BC To 1700 AD. Da Capo Press, 1997.pp 17-19 |
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The 32nd Discourse delivered by Dio Cocceianus Chrysostomus (sometime after 112 CE) indicated that the Bactrians (who in this context should be identified with the Kushans) were highly skilled in the art of horsemanship and that horse riders were often among the vanguards of the Kushana army. Chinese translations of Buddhist texts also refer to campaigns led by Kanishka I riding a horse.
[1]
The armies of the Kushans were largely light horse archers, supported by the heavier armoured Cataphract Calvary.
[2]
"Lively contacts and easy communications promoted the rise and spread of a fairly uniform nomadic culture in the steppe zone. The same types of horse-harness (bridle, bit, cheek-piece, saddle, trappings), arms (bow, bow-case, arrow and quiver, sword, battle-axe, mail) and garments (trousers, caftan, waist-girdle, boots, pointed cap) were used in the steppe zone from Central Europe to Korea."
[3]
[1]: B. N. Mukherjee, ’The Rise and Fall of the Kushana Empire’ (Calcutta, 1988), pp. 330-31 [2]: The armies of Bactria 70 BC-450 AD, Montvert, 1997, pp. 57-57 [3]: (Harmatta 1994, 476-477) Harmatta, J. Conclusion. in Harmatta, Janos. Puri, B. N. Etemadi, G. F. eds. 1994. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume II. The development of sedentary and nomadic civilizatins 700 B.C. to A.D. 250. UNESCO Publishing. |
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"From the 8th century BC onwards, the graves of the Halstatt aristocracy are characterized by four-wheeled vehicles together with bits and other items of horse harness"
[1]
A cart wheel found at the archaeological site at Must Farm in the United Kingdom, and a horse’s spine found nearby, might suggest Britons of this time used domesticated horses to pull wheeled vehicles. This British village over water would have been unlikely to possess a chariot but it shows that the functional use of horses was widespread in northwest Europe at this time.
[1]: (Allen 2007, 22) |
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Technology not found in archaeological evidence until much later
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Technology not found in archaeological evidence until much later
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At the site of Çatalhöyük in Building 1, on its Southern wall, a wallpainting depicting two horse-like animals was found [Czeszewska 2010: 171], but whether this depiction is connected with warfare is rather unknown.
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Cavalry.
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Based on previous polities, it is clear horses were a large part of warfare in the region, particularly chariots
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Introduced to Americas by Europeans.
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Cavalry. After the Sassanids "In the seventh century the Arab Caliphate overran the Sāssānian Empire and, as far as we can tell, no great changes took place in the Persian equipment then or for a long time afterwards."
[1]
[1]: (Robinson 1967) Robinson, H. Russell. 1967. Oriental Armour. Walker and Co. New York. |
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Horses not local, their remains not mentioned in descriptions of relevant archaeological contexts.
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Horses not local, their remains not mentioned in descriptions of relevant archaeological contexts.
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"During the seventh and sixth centuries B.C. several nomadic states of northern Iranian tribes came into being in Central Asia. In the west some Saka tribal confederations are mentioned in ancient Greek literature and Old Persian inscriptions, while in the east the Hsien-yün, and later the Yüeh-chih and the Hsiung-nu, tribal confederations are attested by the Chinese sources. ... Lively contacts and easy communications promoted the rise and spread of a fairly uniform nomadic culture in the steppe zone. The same types of horse-harness (bridle, bit, cheek-piece, saddle, trappings), arms (bow, bow-case, arrow and quiver, sword, battle-axe, mail) and garments (trousers, caftan, waist-girdle, boots, pointed cap) were used in the steppe zone from Central Europe to Korea."
[1]
[1]: (Harmatta 1994, 476-477) Harmatta, J. Conclusion. in Harmatta, Janos. Puri, B. N. Etemadi, G. F. eds. 1994. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume II. The development of sedentary and nomadic civilizatins 700 B.C. to A.D. 250. UNESCO Publishing. |
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War horses were exported from Italy.
[1]
By c1100 CE the mounted warrior was typically required to own at least three horses (and very high status individuals might need more) - a specialist fighting horse, a riding horse and a pack horse.
[2]
[1]: (Spufford 2006, 156, 167) [2]: (Rogers 2007, 33) Clifford J Rogers. 2007. Soldiers’ Lives Through History: The Middle Ages. Greenwood Press. Westport. |
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Sung bought 10,000-40,000 horses a year for the military.
[1]
"According to Sung calculations, maintaining one cavalryman was as expensive as maintaining five infantrymen. ... Often during the Northern Sung, 30 to 40 percent of cavalrymen were without mounts"
[1]
[1]: (Tseng-yü and Wright 2009, 235) |
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"Dogs and pigs were the domesticated animals."
[1]
[1]: (Liu and Chen 2012: 144, 107) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/DE5TU7HY. |
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Horse domesticated c1250 BCE. Use of horse chariot recorded on oracle bones. Chariot had "western" design.
[1]
Used horse-drawn chariots, most likely "introduced from western Asia".
[2]
[1]: (Roberts 2003, 10) [2]: (The Shang Dynasty, 1600 to 1050 BCE. Spice Digest, Fall 2007. http://iis-db.stanford.edu/docs/117/ShangDynasty.pdf) |
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descriptions of raids make no mention of animals accompanying warriors
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Present in previous and subsequent periods.
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Hyksos introduced horse-drawn chariot into region at the end of this period.
[1]
Horses non-native to Egypt. Introduced c1700 BCE.
[2]
Horses and wagons known from trade and war booty.
[3]
"some scholars have long recognized indications that horse riding was being adapted, possibly as early as the late Middle Kingdom, as part of military scouting and rapid movements (Schulman 1957). Horse riding may have been used in military tactics, and by elite levels of the military prior to the advent of chariot technology in Egypt. Horses may well have a history in gift exchanges among elites during the Middle Bronze Age indepedent of chariot technology (Bibby 2003).£
[4]
[1]: (http://www.cemml.colostate.edu/cultural/09476/egypt02-04enl.html) [2]: (Partridge 2010, 384) [3]: (Gnirs 2001) [4]: (Wegner 2015, 76) Wegner, Josef. 2015. A royal necropolis at South Abydos: New light on Egypt’s Second Intermediate Period. Near Eastern archaeology. Volume 78. Issue 2. 68-78. |
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Chariots pulled by two horses.
[1]
Horse-drawn chariot first effectively exploited as a weapon by the 18th Dynasty.
[2]
Horses non-native to Egypt. Introduced c1700 BCE.
[3]
Mounted scouts important from the beginning of the New Kingdom.
[2]
According to Egyptian administrative records, a chariot would carry "one or two bows, two to four quivers attached at both sides of the chariot (providing eighty arrows altogether), a spear and/or a javelin, as well as axe and shield for close combat." The crew was the chariot driver and the bowmen with the addition of a shield man from late second millennium BCE.
[2]
[1]: ([http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/megiddobattle.htm [2]: (Gnirs 2001) [3]: (Partridge 2010, 384) |
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Horse-drawn chariot first effectively exploited as a weapon by the 18th Dynasty.
[1]
Horses non-native to Egypt. Introduced c1700 BCE.
[2]
Mounted scouts important from the beginning of the New Kingdom.
[1]
According to Egyptian administrative records, a chariot would carry "one or two bows, two to four quivers attached at both sides of the chariot (providing eighty arrows altogether), a spear and/or a javelin, as well as axe and shield for close combat." The crew was the chariot driver and the bowmen with the addition of a shield man from late second millennium BCE.
[1]
[1]: (Gnirs 2001) [2]: (Partridge 2010, 384) |
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Mounted units.
[1]
"The Carian equipment may resemble that of the hoplites representated on the Amathus bowl found in a tomb in Cyprus and dated to the time of Psamtek (see Figure 2.1)." Artwork in figure 2.1 shows: shields, throwing spears, cavalry, archers, crested helmets.
[2]
Development of cavalry, characteristic of early Saite army, and likely included Asian cavalrymen.
[3]
[1]: (Agut-Labordere 2013, 986) [2]: (Fischer-Bovet 2014, 20-21) [3]: (Agut-Labordere 2013, 988-989) Agut-Labordere, Damien. "The Saite Period: The Emergence of A Mediterranean Power." in Garcia, Juan Carlos Moreno ed. 2013. Ancient Egyptian Administration. BRILL. |
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Horse and chariot.
[1]
Hyksos imported horses and chariots.
[2]
Injuries to the body of king Senab-Kay, early ruler Abydos region, parallel to 16th Dynasty kings, suggest he was attacked on horseback.
[3]
[1]: (Hall 1928, 311) [2]: (Bourriau 2003, 182) [3]: (Wegner 2015, 74) Wegner, Josef. 2015. A royal necropolis at South Abydos: New light on Egypt’s Second Intermediate Period. Near Eastern archaeology. Volume 78. Issue 2. 68-78. |
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Used for cavalry. Horses and Camels were used extensively. Donkeys were used in a logistical capacity. The use of elephants is reported, but it seems to be in a purely ceremonial capacity.
[1]
[1]: (Kennedy, Hugh. The Armies of the Caliphs: Military and Society in the Early Islamic State. London; New York: Routledge, 2001. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/SGPPFNAZ/q/kennedy) |
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Horses were widespread in Normandy in the Bronze Age, as seen in faunal evidence and the presence of horse bits. Horses were probably used for warfare and facilitated the emergence of a warrior class. "À l’âge du Bronze, son usage est généralisé et il est présent dans tous les assemblages fauniques* conséquents. [...] Par ailleurs, la découverte des éléments de mors (cat. 94) ou d’éléments de harnachement suggère un usage monté, avec un rôle qui peut se décliner entre moyen de déplacement, communication et échange, et arme de guerre. [...] Sa probable généralisation durant l’âge du Bronze a pu bouleverser de manière importante l’art de la guerre (chars de combat, cavalerie) et assurer la suprématie d’une petite élite guerrière, en même temps que permettre un accès rapide à des secteurs géographiques jusqu’alors isolés du réseau maritime et fluvial. "
[1]
[1]: (Macigny et al 2005, 74) |
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"Horses, originally domesticated in the east and introduced into Southeast Europe by steppe people, were now being domesticated from local wild herds by the people in southern central Europe. From there they spread widely within the rest of Europe, being found, for instance, in Scandinavia in the late TRB or early Corded Ware period and in western Europe and the Mediterranean in Beaker contexts."
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2006, 55-58) |
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"cavalry as a proportion of armies declined steadily in the century from 1660 to 1760, from around one-third to around one-quarter of the total combatants."
[1]
[1]: (Parrott 2012, 62) David Parrott. Armed Forces. William Doyle. ed. 2012. The Oxford Handbook of the Ancien Régime. Oxford University Press. Oxford. |
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Aristocrats "usually dismounted and fought on foot throughout the Merovingian, Carolingian, and post-Carolingian periods."
[1]
12th century saddle innovations made the horseback charge with a lance possible.
[2]
[1]: (Boulton 1995 67-68) Jonathan D Boulton. Armor And Weapons. William W Kibler. Grover A Zinn. Lawrence Earp. John Bell Henneman Jr. 1995. Routledge Revivals: Medieval France (1995): An Encyclopedia. Routledge. Abingdon. [2]: (Fanning 1995, 346) |
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War horses brought from Italy.
[1]
Lance armed cavalry (late 12th century)
[2]
Aristocrats "usually dismounted and fought on foot throughout the Merovingian, Carolingian, and post-Carolingian periods."
[3]
12th century saddle innovations made the horseback charge with a lance possible.
[4]
[1]: (Spufford 2006, 156, 167) [2]: (Nicolle 1991, 4-5) [3]: (Boulton 1995 67-68) Jonathan D Boulton. Armor And Weapons. William W Kibler. Grover A Zinn. Lawrence Earp. John Bell Henneman Jr. 1995. Routledge Revivals: Medieval France (1995): An Encyclopedia. Routledge. Abingdon. [4]: (Fanning 1995, 346) |
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Present in previous and subsequent periods
|
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Two-wheeled war chariot.
[1]
Cavalry.
[2]
Cavalry replaced war-chariots from 250 BCE.
[3]
War chariots abandoned in Gaul 200-100 BCE.
[4]
Pulled a two-wheeled chariot which replaced the Hallstatt era four-wheeled wagon.
[5]
[1]: (Kruta 2004, 38, 52) [2]: (Kruta 2004, 60) [3]: (Kruta 2004, 110) [4]: (Kruta 2004, 198) [5]: (Allen 2007, 32) |
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|
War horses brought from Italy.
[1]
Lance armed cavalry (late 12th century)
[2]
Aristocrats "usually dismounted and fought on foot throughout the Merovingian, Carolingian, and post-Carolingian periods."
[3]
12th century saddle innovations made the horseback charge with a lance possible.
[4]
[1]: (Spufford 2006, 156, 167) [2]: (Nicolle and McBridge 1991, 4-5) [3]: (Boulton 1995 67-68) Jonathan D Boulton. Armor And Weapons. William W Kibler. Grover A Zinn. Lawrence Earp. John Bell Henneman Jr. 1995. Routledge Revivals: Medieval France (1995): An Encyclopedia. Routledge. Abingdon. [4]: (Fanning 1995, 346) |
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In the preceding period the Hoysala had cavalrymen.
[1]
"In the classical age, Indian armies were still organized, as they had been a thousand years earlier, into four divisions: infantry, cavalry, chariots and elephants."
[2]
[1]: (Roy 2015, 98) Kaushik Roy. 2015. Warfare in Pre-British India - 1500 BCE to 1740 CE. Routledge. London. [2]: (Eraly 2011, 163) Abraham Eraly. 2011. The First Spring: The Golden Age of India. Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd. New Delhi. |
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According to McLeod, horses were not used in the core area of the polity: ’Cavalry was of no real use in the forest where horses were killed by insect-carried diseases, but a few horses were kept at Kumase for prestige and in the northern savannah country they were of greater military use.’
[1]
[1]: McLeod, M. D. (Malcolm D.) 1981. “Asante”, 127 |
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"By 1650 B.P., one king in southeastern Sumatra imported horses from India (Hall 1992: 194), which might suggest that the bronze statuette of a mounted archer from Tiris and the bronze horse miniatures from Malang (Van Heekeren 1958: 39, 43) both reflect the beginnings of equestrian skills in Java by 1500 B.P. However, there is little reason to suspect the existence of specialist cavalries as opposed to spectacular mounts used in bearing the wealthiest aristocrats aloft."
[1]
According to the Chinese Nan chou i wu chih (A Record of Strange Things in the Southern Regions) written about 222-228 CE a volcanic country called ’Ge-ying’ (thought to be western Java) traded with the Malay Peninsula and imported horses from India. They were used by warriors.
[2]
Dewawarman I may have founded Salakanagara in west West Java 130 CE. He followed Aji Saka who may have introduced ’Buddhism, letters, calendar, etc.’) into Central and East Java 78 CE.
[3]
[1]: (Bulbeck in Peregrine and Ember 2000, 105) [2]: (Miksic and Goh 2017, 215) John Norman Miksic. Geok Yian Goh. Routledge. 2017. Ancient Southeast Asia. London. p. 215 [3]: (Iguchi 2015) Masatoshi Iguchi. 2015. Java Essay: The History and Culture of a Southern Country. Troubador Publishing Ltd. |
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Mataram controlled the horse-breeding districts of Java. In 1678 the Dutch encountered a force of 240 Javanese horsemen, and Trunajaya used hundred of cavalry at the siege of Kediri in 1678. The importance of cavalry grew due to the difficulties of using elephants in battle against improved firearms.
[1]
[1]: (Charney 2004, 170) |
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|
"We speak about equids, since often the bones do not offer precise identification of species."
[1]
Used to pull battle chariots; they were not ridden.
[2]
Under the assumption that pitched battles were rarer than sieges
[3]
(during which a chariot would be of little use), chariots were assumed to have a limited role in combat until the Late Bronze age, being used instead during the Middle Bronze for patrolling borders or enforcing blockades, and the transportation of mobile archers.
[4]
[1]: Kletter/Levi (2016:9). [2]: Burke (2004:54). [3]: Cf. Burke (2004:89). [4]: Burke (2004:56-57). |
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[Most armies consisted of mounted infantry. Furthermore, horses were used for transport purposes. Although the hard evidence is from the 13th century, it is very probable horses were used from 930 CE onward.]
|
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|
"The strength of the Israelite horse industry is attested already in the mid-ninth century, in Shalmaneser III’s account of the chariot forces of the anti-Assyrian coalition in the Battle of Qarqar; Ahab is mentioned by the Assyrian king as arriving with the largest number of chariots."
[1]
[1]: Finkelstein (2013:133) |
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|
"On a pillar of the Amravati Tope, 300 years later than that at Sanchi, is portrayed the scene thus described. ... part of the army is seen defending the walls of the citadel, and armed with straight and scythed-shaped swords, long spears, and long bows. In front the infantry is advancing, and the rear is brought up by horsemen and elephants. There are no chariots at Sanchi, but this is probably owing to some local peculiarity."
[1]
300 years later than the Bhilsa Tope monuments so possibly referring to 200 CE.
[1]: (Egerton 2002, 13) Wilbraham Egerton. 2002 (1880). Indian and Oriental Arms and Armour. Dover Publications, Inc. Mineola. |
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|
[1]
"The Chalukyan army no doubt consisted of infantry, cavalry, chariots and elephants, besides the naval unit."
[2]
By the medieval period cavalry had mostly relegated the chariot to ceremonial function.
[3]
"In the classical age, Indian armies were still organized, as they had been a thousand years earlier, into four divisions: infantry, cavalry, chariots and elephants."
[4]
[1]: H.V. Sreenivasa Murthy and R. Ramakrishnan, A History of Karnataka (1978), p. 75 [2]: (Dikshit 1980, 263) Durga Prasad Dikshit. 1980. Political History of the Chalukyas of Badami. Abhinav Publications. New Delhi. [3]: (Dikshit 1980, 265) Durga Prasad Dikshit. 1980. Political History of the Chalukyas of Badami. Abhinav Publications. New Delhi. [4]: (Eraly 2011, 163) Abraham Eraly. 2011. The First Spring: The Golden Age of India. Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd. New Delhi. |
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|
There was an officer in charge of cavalry and elephants, the kari-turaga (patta-)sahini.
[1]
"In the classical age, Indian armies were still organized, as they had been a thousand years earlier, into four divisions: infantry, cavalry, chariots and elephants."
[2]
[1]: K.A. Nilakanta Sastri, The Chalukyas of Kalyani, in G. Yazdan (ed), The Early History of the Deccan (1960), p. 391 [2]: (Eraly 2011, 163) Abraham Eraly. 2011. The First Spring: The Golden Age of India. Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd. New Delhi. |
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|
At a "megalithic habitation site" in Tamil Nadu, rock-art has been found depicting "two horse riders fighting each other with poles"
[1]
. The Gupta Empire, after 350 CE, was built around a powerful cavalry force.
[2]
"In the Deccan and South India, chariots do not seem to have been used much at any time, because of the rugged terrain of the region - the ox-drawn chariots mentioned in early Tamil literature were probably only glorified bullock-carts."
[3]
According to a military historian "By the sixth century BCE, Indian armies had large cavalry contingents"
[4]
- do ancient Indian specialists agree?
[1]: U. Singh, A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India (2008), p. 253 [2]: (Roy 2013) Kaushik Roy. 2013 Military Manpower, Armies and Warfare in South Asia. Number 8. Routledge. Abingdon. [3]: (Eraly 2011, 164) Abraham Eraly. 2011. The First Spring: The Golden Age of India. Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd. New Delhi. [4]: (Gabriel 2012, 127) Richard A Gabriel. 2012. Man and Wound in the Ancient World. A History of Military Medicine from Sumer to the Fall of Constantinople. Potomac Books. Washington, D.C. |
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|
At a "megalithic habitation site" in Tamil Nadu, rock-art has been found depicting "two horse riders fighting each other with poles"
[1]
. The Gupta Empire, after 350 CE, was built around a powerful cavalry force.
[2]
"In the classical age, Indian armies were still organized, as they had been a thousand years earlier, into four divisions: infantry, cavalry, chariots and elephants."
[3]
1000 years earlier than the classical age would have included this period. "In the Deccan and South India, chariots do not seem to have been used much at any time, because of the rugged terrain of the region - the ox-drawn chariots mentioned in early Tamil literature were probably only glorified bullock-carts."
[4]
[1]: U. Singh, A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India (2008), p. 253 [2]: (Roy 2013) Kaushik Roy. 2013 Military Manpower, Armies and Warfare in South Asia. Number 8. Routledge. Abingdon. [3]: (Eraly 2011, 163) Abraham Eraly. 2011. The First Spring: The Golden Age of India. Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd. New Delhi. [4]: (Eraly 2011, 164) Abraham Eraly. 2011. The First Spring: The Golden Age of India. Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd. New Delhi. |
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|
The sultans armies were "highly skilled in deploying horses in warfare."
[1]
[2]
"The cavalry was in fact the strength of the Sultanate armies, and a lot was spent on keeping it in good shape by procuring premium war horses that were extremely expensive."
[3]
Horses wore house shoes, horses of their Hindu adversaries did not.
[4]
[1]: Kulke, H., Rothermund, D. (1990). A History of India (Revised, Updated Edition), pp. 160 [2]: Catherine B. Asher, India before Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p.28. [3]: (Ahmed 2011, 99) Ahmed, Farooqui Salma. 2011. A Comprehensive History of Medieval India: Twelfth to the Mid-Eighteenth Century. Pearson Education India. [4]: (? 2013, 163) ?. Sirhindi, Abdullah. Daniel Coetzee. Lee W Eysturlid. eds. 2013. Philosophers of War: The Evolution of History’s Greatest Military Thinkers. The Ancient to Pre-Modern World, 3000 BCE - 1815 CE. Praeger. Santa Barbara. |
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|
[1]
"Hoysala cavalrymen were lancers."
[2]
"In the classical age, Indian armies were still organized, as they had been a thousand years earlier, into four divisions: infantry, cavalry, chariots and elephants."
[3]
[1]: H.V. Sreenivasa Murthy and R. Ramakrishnan, A History of Karnataka (1978), p. 117 [2]: (Roy 2015, 98) Kaushik Roy. 2015. Warfare in Pre-British India - 1500 BCE to 1740 CE. Routledge. London. [3]: (Eraly 2011, 163) Abraham Eraly. 2011. The First Spring: The Golden Age of India. Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd. New Delhi. |
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|
The Kadamba army included cavalry.
[1]
"In the classical age, Indian armies were still organized, as they had been a thousand years earlier, into four divisions: infantry, cavalry, chariots and elephants."
[2]
[1]: Suryanatha Kamath, A Concise History of Karnataka (1980), p. 39 [2]: (Eraly 2011, 163) Abraham Eraly. 2011. The First Spring: The Golden Age of India. Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd. New Delhi. |
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"Sulaiman (AD 851) states of the Gurjara king that no other Indian prince has so fine a cavalry . . ’his camels and horses are numerous.’ Ghoshal comments that the Indian autfrorities of both this period and the later eleventh-twelfth centuries agree in assigning ’the first rank in their classified list of horses to the foreign breeds, and the lowest to the indigenous breeds.’"
[1]
[1]: (Deyell 2001, 398) Deyell, J. 2001. The Gurjara-Pratiharas. In R. Chakravarti (ed) Trade in Early India. OUP. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/MF59EW5P/library |
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Chariotry "seems to have practically fallen into desuetude in the Gupta and later periods."
[1]
"Cavalry had become an important division of ancient Indian army in the early centuries of the Christian era, and the later periods witnessed a gradual increase in its importance. The knowledge of horses was systematised into a science called asvasatra or asvavidya and it was included in the princely curriculum."
[1]
"But this swift and agile animal was never given the first rank in ancient Indian army."
[2]
[1]: (Mishra 1977, 147) Shyam Manohar Mishra. 1977. Yaśovarman of Kanauj: A Study of Political History, Social, and Cultural Life of Northern India During the Reign of Yaśovarman. Abhinav Publications. [2]: (Mishra 1977, 148) Shyam Manohar Mishra. 1977. Yaśovarman of Kanauj: A Study of Political History, Social, and Cultural Life of Northern India During the Reign of Yaśovarman. Abhinav Publications. |
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The later Vedic texts write about the occupations of people and mention that, "Chariots (rathas) were used for war and sport, and people rode on horses and elephants."
[1]
[1]: Upinder Singh, A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century (New Delhi: Pearson Education, 2008), p.199. |
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|
According to a military historian (this needs confirmation from a Mauryan specialist): horses were used by cavalry.
[1]
"By now the chariot, though still a royal status symbol, was obsolete."
[2]
Kautilya’s Arthashastra mentions cavalry and also a battle array of chariots, and suggested 15 men and 5 horses were needed to counter one (Book X, Relating to War). According to a military historian (this needs confirmation from a Mauryan specialist): "By the sixth century BCE, Indian armies had large cavalry contingents."
[3]
[1]: Gabriel, Richard A. The great armies of antiquity. p. 218-220 [2]: (Bradford and Bradford 2001, 125) Bradford, Alfred S. Bradford, Pamela, M. 2001. With Arrow, Sword, and Spear: A History of Warfare in the Ancient World. Greenwood Publishing Group. [3]: (Gabriel 2012, 127) Richard A Gabriel. 2012. Man and Wound in the Ancient World. A History of Military Medicine from Sumer to the Fall of Constantinople. Potomac Books. Washington, D.C. |
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|
"Next to the infantry, cavalry and elephants occupy the place of pride in the military organization".
[1]
"In the classical age, Indian armies were still organized, as they had been a thousand years earlier, into four divisions: infantry, cavalry, chariots and elephants."
[2]
However, cavalry was a less significant force for the Rashtrakuta army which "consisted mainly of infantry, for, as Al Masudi noted, ’the seat of this government was among the mountains,’ and it was impossible to deploy cavalry, elephants or chariots there.’
[2]
[1]: N.S. Ramachandra Murthy, Military Administration of the Rashtrakutas in the Telugu Country, in B.R. Gopal, The Rashtrakutas of Malkhed (1994), p. 116 [2]: (Eraly 2011, 163) Abraham Eraly. 2011. The First Spring: The Golden Age of India. Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd. New Delhi. |
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|
According to Pliny the Elder, the Satavahana army included 2,000 cavalrymen.
[1]
Cavalry "had an important place in the Satavahana military organisation."
[2]
[1]: U. Singh, A History of Ancient and Medieval India (2008), p. 382 [2]: (Sharma 1996, 289) Ram Sharan Sharma. 1996. Aspects of Political Ideas and Institutions in Ancient India. Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Limited. Delhi. |
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|
According to one military historian (this data needs to be confirmed by a polity specialist): "Indian armies of this period had within them a basic unit called the patti, a mixed platoon comprised of one elephant carrying three archers, or spearman and a mahout, three horse cavalymen armed with javelins, round buckler, and spear, and five infantry soldiers armed with shield and broad sword or bow."
[1]
Inferred from continuity with Mauryan polity .
[2]
[1]: (Gabriel 2002, 218) Richard A Gabriel. 2002. The Great Armies Of Antiquity. Praeger. Westport. [2]: (Roy 2016, 19) Kaushik Roy. 2016. Military Manpower, Armies and Warfare in South Asia. Routledge. Abingdon. |
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|
Used for cavalry. Horses and Camels were used extensively. Donkeys were used in a logistical capacity. The use of elephants is reported, but it seems to be in a purely ceremonial capacity.
[1]
[1]: (Kennedy, Hugh. The Armies of the Caliphs: Military and Society in the Early Islamic State. London; New York: Routledge, 2001. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/SGPPFNAZ/q/kennedy) |
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The Buyids employed the Turks to be their cavalry
[1]
and the late Abbasids also hired mercenary Turks, which presumably were cavalry.
[1]: Busse, H. 1975. Iran under the Būyids. In Frye, R. N. (ed.) The Cambridge History of Iran. Volume 4. The period from the Arab Invasion to the Saljuq’s. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p.251 |
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Horses were the means of travel for mobile nomadic warriors since the establishment of cavalry forces by the mid-first millennium BCE
|
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As far as the scribal sector of Mesopotamia was concerned, the only influence the Kassite rulers had on Mesopotamian culture was to introduce horses and cavalry, for which they had to invent new ways to describe in writing.
[1]
[1]: Liverani, M. 2014. The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy. London: Routledge. p.370 |
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In the second millennium BCE, the "introduction of horses set in train a revolution on the battlefield. Faster and more powerful than donkeys, horses were better suited for drawing war chariots, particularly later in the millennium when the bit replaced the earlier nose-ring, improving their control and traction power. "
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2005: 190) McIntosh, J. 2005. Ancient Mesopotamia: New Perspective. Santa Barbara: ABC Clio. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/KK2E3KMD. |
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|
War horses were exported from Italy.
[1]
By c1100 CE the mounted warrior was typically required to own at least three horses - a specialist fighting horse, a riding horse and a pack horse.
[2]
[1]: (Spufford 2006, 156, 167) [2]: (Rogers 2007, 33) Clifford J Rogers. 2007. Soldiers’ Lives Through History: The Middle Ages. Greenwood Press. Westport. |
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|
In the second millennium BCE, the "introduction of horses set in train a revolution on the battlefield. Faster and more powerful than donkeys, horses were better suited for drawing war chariots, particularly later in the millennium when the bit replaced the earlier nose-ring, improving their control and traction power. "
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2005: 190) McIntosh, J. 2005. Ancient Mesopotamia: New Perspective. Santa Barbara: ABC Clio. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/KK2E3KMD. |
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|
In the second millennium BCE, the "introduction of horses set in train a revolution on the battlefield. Faster and more powerful than donkeys, horses were better suited for drawing war chariots, particularly later in the millennium when the bit replaced the earlier nose-ring, improving their control and traction power. "
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2005: 190) McIntosh, J. 2005. Ancient Mesopotamia: New Perspective. Santa Barbara: ABC Clio. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/KK2E3KMD. |
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|
The following quote seems to suggest that horses were used in warfare just after the period under consideration. "The introduction of horses set in train a revolution on the battlefield. Faster and more powerful than donkeys, horses were better suited for drawing war chariots, particularly later in the millennium when the bit replaced the earlier nose-ring, improving their control and traction power. The seventeenth century B.C.E. also saw structural improvements to chariots."
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2005: 190) McIntosh, J. 2005. Ancient Mesopotamia: New Perspective. Santa Barbara: ABC Clio. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/KK2E3KMD. |
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|
Cavalry.
[1]
Smallest element within army but best trained and equipped. Noblemen or Scythian mercenaries.
[2]
Two horses pulled a two-wheeled chariot.
[3]
Three horses pulled a heavy chariot used as firing platform for composite bow archers and personnel carrier for mobile infantry.
[4]
The Assyrians also had horse riders who fired the composite bow.
[5]
[1]: (Davidson 2012, 27) [2]: (Dupuy and Dupuy 2007, 10) [3]: (Chadwick 2005, 77) [4]: (Gabriel 2002, 11-12) Richard A Gabriel. 2002. The Great Armies of Antiquity. Praeger. Westport. [5]: (Gabriel 2002, 28) Richard A Gabriel. 2002. The Great Armies of Antiquity. Praeger. Westport. |
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|
"In Iraq and Syria domesticated donkey appeared during the Late Uruk period (ca. 3600-3100 BCE) at Uruk (Boessneck et al., p. 166), Tell Rubeidheh (Payne, pp. 99-100), and Habuba Kabira (Strommenger and Bollweg, pp. 354-55)".
[1]
[1]: (Potts 2012) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/DWHJQHHJ. |
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|
Donkey was domesticated first. "In Iraq and Syria domesticated donkey appeared during the Late Uruk period (ca. 3600-3100 BCE) at Uruk (Boessneck et al., p. 166), Tell Rubeidheh (Payne, pp. 99-100), and Habuba Kabira (Strommenger and Bollweg, pp. 354-55)".
[1]
[1]: (Potts 2012) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/DWHJQHHJ. |
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|
Chariots.
[1]
According to one military historian (data needs to be checked by an expert for this polity) small chariot corps.
[2]
According to one military historian (data needs to be checked by an expert for this polity) light cavalry armed with a simple bow and heavy cavalry. Initially the heavy carried were armed with bow, battleaxe and oval shield, later carried two short javelin (for stabbing and throwing), long wooden or metal lance or spear and oval shield.
[3]
[1]: (Sekunda 1992) Sekunda, N. 1992. The Persian Army 560-330 BC. Osprey Publishing. [2]: (Gabriel 2002, 163) Richard A Gabriel. 2002. The Great Armies of Antiquity. Praeger. Westport. [3]: (Gabriel 2002, 161-162) Richard A Gabriel. 2002. The Great Armies of Antiquity. Praeger. Westport. |
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|
Cavalry was the most important force in the Ak Koyunlu army.
[1]
Islamic armies of the period used a lot of horse archers, as well as cavalry with lance and sword.
[2]
"Many of these ’Turcomans’ were probably Islamised and Turkified Mongols. These tribesmen appear almost completely to have continued the military tradition sof the Mongols, that is, the army was composed primarily of masses of disciplined light cavalry. ... The Turcoman armies, however, were smaller than their Mongol predecessers."
[3]
[1]: (Quiring-Zoche 2011) Quiring-Zoche, R. 2011. Aq Qoyunlu. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/aq-qoyunlu-confederation [2]: (Jones ed. 2012, 92-93) Gareth Jones. ed. The Military History Book: The Ultimate Visual Guide to the Weapons that Shaped the World. Dorling Kindersley Limited. London. [3]: (? 2010, ?) Author?. 2010. Title?. David O. Morgan. Anthony Reid. ed. The New Cambridge History of Islam: Volume 3, The Eastern Islamic World, Eleventh to Eighteenth Centuries. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. nb: I think it’s Reuven Amitai. Armies and their economic basis in Iran and the surrounding lands, c. 1000-1500. |
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|
Four-wheeled chariot in burial at Susa.
[1]
but nothing to suggest this is pulled by horses and is more likely a cart pulled by donkey or Oxen
[2]
[1]: (Potts 2016, 89) Potts, D T. 2016. The Archaeology of Elam Formation and Transformation of an Ancient Iranian State. 2nd Edition. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. [2]: Elena Efimovna Kuzʹmina (2007). The Origin of the Indo-Iranians. p. 134. |
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|
As used by Mongol cavalry, the main fighting force.
[1]
As the Ilkhanid forces had emerged from the Mongols they fought in classic style of Steppe warfare. The core of the army was mounted cavalry, whose main weapon was the bow. Javelins and a variety of hand weapons were also used. Siege weapons used included large crossbows, mangonels and incendiary devices. Although some soldiers had metal armour, such as chain mail, other were more lightly equipped with leather and heavy padding.
[1]: Bira, Sh. “THE MONGOLS AND THEIR STATE IN THE TWELFTH TO THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.” In History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Vol. IV: The Age of Achievement A.D. 750 to the End of the Fifteenth Century. Part I The Historical, Social and Economic Setting, edited by C. E. Bosworth, Muhammad S. Asimov, and Yar Muhammad Khan, 248-64. Paris: Unesco, 1998. p.259. |
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Cavalry: ‘the iconographic emergence of a distinctive equestrian art characterized by a rider on a leaping horse in the act of firing an arrow or throwing a spear at a rearing animal or human.’
[1]
Found in the immediately neighboring and close Luristan region ‘Horse gear includes horse-harness trappings and horse-bits with decorative cheek-pieces. Arms and equipment include spiked axheads and adzes, halberds, daggers or swords, and whetstone handles.’
[2]
[1]: Javier Alvarez-Mon, ‘Elam in the Iron Age’, In Daniel T. Potts (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Iran, 2013, p. 465 [2]: Bruno Overlaet, ‘Luristan During the Iron Age’, In Daniel T. Potts (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Iran, 2013, pp. 385 |
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|
Cavalry: ‘the iconographic emergence of a distinctive equestrian art characterized by a rider on a leaping horse in the act of firing an arrow or throwing a spear at a rearing animal or human.’
[1]
‘Horse gear includes horse-harness trappings and horse-bits with decorative cheek-pieces. Arms and equipment include spiked axheads and adzes, halberds, daggers or swords, and whetstone handles.’
[2]
[1]: Javier Alvarez-Mon, ‘Elam in the Iron Age’, In Daniel T. Potts (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Iran, 2013, p. 465 [2]: Bruno Overlaet, ‘Luristan During the Iron Age’, In Daniel T. Potts (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Iran, 2013, pp. 385 |
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|
Cavalry: ‘the iconographic emergence of a distinctive equestrian art characterized by a rider on a leaping horse in the act of firing an arrow or throwing a spear at a rearing animal or human.’
[1]
[1]: Javier Alvarez-Mon, ‘Elam in the Iron Age’, In Daniel T. Potts (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Iran, 2013, p. 465 |
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|
Used by cavalry and archers on horse back.
[1]
Our information on Parthian armies comes mainly from their enemies, especially Roman sources. Like many central Asian armies, horses were central to their war fighting, foot solders less so. Parthian cavalry was divided into heavy and light forces. The ’Parthian shot’ became infamous to the Romans: Plutarch describes their tactic at the battle of Carrhae in 53 BC. Parthian cavalry pretended to flee, then turned in the saddle and fired their bow and arrows.
[2]
[1]: Josef Wiesehöfer, ‘Parthia, Parthian Empire’, in Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth (eds), The Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization (Oxford: OUP, 1998). [2]: Ted Kaizer, ‘The Parthian and Early Sasanian Empires c.247 BC - AD 300’, in Thomas Harrison (ed.), The Great Empires of the Ancient World (London: Thames & Hudson, 2009), P.187 |
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|
Cavalrymen.
[1]
"The tribal levies were expert horsemen and superior marksmen, capable of firing their muskets over their shoulders while galloping away from a foe. Many still used the lance and bow, and all carried sabers of high-quality steel..."
[2]
[1]: (Phyrr 2015, 118) Stuart W Phyrr. 2015. American Collectors and the Formation of the Metropolitan Museum’s Collection of Islamic Arms and Armor. David G Alexander. ed. Islamic Arms and Armor in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Yale University Press. New Haven. [2]: (Ward 2014, 65) Steven R Ward. 2014. Immortal: A Military History of Iran and Its Armed Forces. Georgetown University Press. Washington DC. |
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|
As with the Parthians that preceded them, the bulk of the Sasanian military was made up of cavalry. This enabled rapid response to multiple borders. The heavy armoured knight, the Savaran Knights, made up the Sasanian elite cavalry.
[1]
[1]: (Farrokh 2005, 3-27) Farrokh, Kevah. 2005. Sassanian Elite Cavalry AD 224-642. Osprey Publishing. |
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|
As with the Parthians that preceded them, the bulk of the Sasanian military was made up of cavalry. This enabled rapid response to multiple borders. The heavy armoured knight, the Savaran Knights, made up the Sasanian elite cavalry.
[1]
[1]: (Farrokh 2005, 3-27) Farrokh, Kevah. 2005. Sassanian Elite Cavalry AD 224-642. Osprey Publishing. |
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|
Cavalry was important part of the Seljuk armies.
[1]
Like many armies in the Middle East mounted archers were central to the Seljuk forces. The tribal forces would have been lightly armoured and not highly organised. The introduction of ghulams or mamluks introduced better organised and better equipped soldiers (cavalry and infantry). They were heavily armoured, including horse-armour, and had lances, javelins, swords, bows, maces, lasso, hauberk [mail shirt] and helmets.
[2]
Citadels and walls around cities are known to have been built by the Seljuks.
[3]
[1]: ‘Turks, Seljuk and Ottoman’, Holmes, Richard, ed., The Oxford companion to military history (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). [2]: Nicolle, David. Arms and Armour of the Crusading Era, 1050-1350: Islam, Eastern Europe and Asia. Rev. and updated ed. London: Mechanicsburg, Pa: Greenhill Books ; Stackpole Books, 1999. p.221. [3]: Lambton, A.K.S., ‘The Internal Structure of the Saljuq Empire’, in The Cambridge History of Iran. Vol 5, The Saljuq and Mongol Period, ed. by J.A. Boyle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), p.274. |
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|
Technology not yet available
|
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|
Inferred from the war chariots found at six different graves at Castel di Decima
[1]
. Iron horse bits and bronze cheek pieces found at the Quattro Fontanili cemetery in Veii near Rome.
[2]
[1]: G. Forsythe, A Critical History of Early Rome (2006), pp. 53-58 [2]: Osgood, Monks, Toms, Bronze Age Warfare (2000), p.105 |
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|
2000-2500 stradioti: "A group peculiar to the Venetian defense system were the so-called stradioti, who were light cavalrymen, mostly of Greek or Albanian descent but sometimes also Dalmatians (Crovati)."
[1]
[1]: (Arbel 2014, 204) Benjamin Arbel. Venice’s Maritime Empire in the Early Modern Period. Eric Dursteler. ed. 2014. A Companion to Venetian History, 1400-1797. BRILL. Leiden. |
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|
2000-2500 stradioti: "A group peculiar to the Venetian defense system were the so-called stradioti, who were light cavalrymen, mostly of Greek or Albanian descent but sometimes also Dalmatians (Crovati)."
[1]
[1]: (Arbel 2014, 204) Benjamin Arbel. Venice’s Maritime Empire in the Early Modern Period. Eric Dursteler. ed. 2014. A Companion to Venetian History, 1400-1797. BRILL. Leiden. |
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|
Horses from the 8th century cavalry played an often vital part in Japanese . The importance place about cavalry shifted throughout time falling in and out of popularity but always remaining present.
[1]
"Although the samurai would be defined by the "way of the sword" in the Tokugawa period (1600-1867) prior to that the class of professional warriors continued to practice the "way of the horse and bow."
[2]
[1]: Hall, John Whitney (ed.). 1991.The Cambridge History of Japan. Vol. 4. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. P.55 [2]: (Lorge 2011, 48) |
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|
Horses from the 8th century cavalry played an often vital part in Japanese . The importance place about cavalry shifted throughout time falling in and out of popularity but always remaining present.
[1]
[1]: Hall, John Whitney (ed.). 1991.The Cambridge History of Japan. Vol. 4. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. P.55 |
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|
Horses from the 8th [CE] century cavalry played an often vital part in Japanese . The importance place about cavalry shifted throughout time falling in and out of popularity but always remaining present.
[1]
‘Horsemanship was central to bushi identity, distinguishing the professional warrior from those who served him - and fought beside him, on foot. As we have seen, the horse was one of the two tools that defined the “way of bow and horse,” which defined the samurai.
[2]
’Mounted warriors are known in Japan from before the seventh century, but they first became professional and a locus of autonomous political power during the tenth century, when their arms were employed not on behalf of the government for its purposes but in pursuit of private interests.’
[3]
[1]: Hall, John Whitney (ed.). 1991.The Cambridge History of Japan. Vol. 4. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. P.55 [2]: Friday, Karl F. 2004. Samurai, Warfare and the State in Early Medieval Japan. Psychology Press.p.96. [3]: Shively, Donald H. and McCullough, William H. 2008. The Cambridge History of Japan Volume 2: Heian Japan. Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press.p.645 |
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|
No archaeological evidence for this. Moreover, the scholarly consensus is that the Jomon were relatively peaceful.
|
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|
No archaeological evidence for this. Moreover, the scholarly consensus is that the Jomon were relatively peaceful.
|
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|
No archaeological evidence for this. Moreover, the scholarly consensus is that the Jomon were relatively peaceful.
|
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|
Horses from the 8th [CE] century cavalry played an often vital part in Japanese . The importance place about cavalry shifted throughout time falling in and out of popularity but always remaining present.
[1]
‘Horsemanshipwas central to bushi identity, dihave seen, the horse was one of the two tools that defined the “way of bow and horse,” which defined the samuraistinguishing the professional warrior from those who served him - and fought beside him, on foot. As we .
[2]
[1]: Hall, John Whitney (ed.). 1991.The Cambridge History of Japan. Vol. 4. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. P.55 [2]: Friday, Karl F. 2004. Samurai, Warfare and the State in Early Medieval Japan. Psychology Press.p.96. |
||||||
|
Horses from the 8th [CE] century cavalry played an often vital part in Japanese . The importance place about cavalry shifted throughout time falling in and out of popularity but always remaining present.
[1]
‘Horsemanshipwas central to bushi identity, distinguishing the professional warrior from those who served him - and fought beside him, on foot. As we have seen, the horse was one of the two tools that defined the “way of bow and horse,” which defined the samurai.
[2]
[1]: Hall, John Whitney (ed.). 1991.The Cambridge History of Japan. Vol. 4. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. P.55 [2]: Friday, Karl F. 2004. Samurai, Warfare and the State in Early Medieval Japan. Psychology Press.p.96. |
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|
this period saw the development of the mounted samurai spearmen. Archaeology: "horse’s skeleton at Tsutsuji ga saki, the Takeda capital. Its height to the shoulder was 120cm, and its weight was estimated as 250kg, which compares to 160cm and 500kg for a modern thoroughbred, so the shock of a charge hitting the enemy ranks would have been much less."
[1]
[1]: (Turnbull 2002) |
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|
Horses from the 8th century cavalry played an often vital part in Japanese . The importance place about cavalry shifted throughout time falling in and out of popularity but always remaining present.
[1]
‘Equestrian samurai purportedly serving as guards were a familiar sight in daimyo entourages of the Edo period, and maintained a ceremonial presence that honored the mounted samurai tradition.’
[2]
[1]: Hall, John Whitney (ed.). 1991.The Cambridge History of Japan. Vol. 4. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. P.55 [2]: Deal, William E. 2005. Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan. Oxford University Press.p.155. |
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|
’Armies did not consist of permanent standing armies but were raised ad hoc for particular campaigns by the great men of their provinces, who were responsible for supplying troops for royal service. Often enough, huge armies could be raised this way; Chau Ju-kua claims that the Khmers in his time had 200,000 elephants and many horses (albeit small ones). It is difficult to trust such figures. No doubt there could be enormous hordes of cheaply maintained foot soldiers - Chou Ta-kuan says that there had been universal conscription for a recent exhausting war against the Siamese - though the levies might be ill-trained and poorly equipped. Chou tells us that the Khmer soldiers were unclothed and barefoot; they lacked discipline and were poorly led’.
[1]
’The ordinary Khmer soldiers as well as officers might carry a lance; or a bow, with the arrows being held in a quiver; or sabres of different length; or various sizes of knives and daggers; or a kind of halberd known as a phka’h. The latter was basically an iron axe mounted on a long handle curved at one end. At Angkor Wat, the phka’k is held in the hands of high-ranking warriors mounted on elephants or horses; it is still in use in the twentieth century for hunting or work in the forest. Crossbows were known, but are extremely rare in the reliefs.’
[2]
’Calvary horses were ridden without saddle or stirrups, and during combat the mounted knights often stood on their steeds’ backs. [...] War chariots were very similar to nags-decorated carts, but were roofless, and drawn by a pair of horses.’
[3]
’Seen in profile, as is most often the case, the chariot appears like a kind of cart drawn by two horses, the second animal often merging with the first and being very unclear.’
[4]
’We will close this section on the calvary with a few words about the arms carried by the horsemen. At Angkor Watt [sic], these arms are above all offensive; the lance is common, as are also the sabre and the Khmer axe (Fig 44.1). The only weapon they never carry is the bow.’
[5]
’The acquisition of a calvary raised many more problems: horses had to be imported, perhaps from India-like those of the embassy of the Funan, Fan Zhan, received as a gift from the court of the Murundas around AD 230-240, most likely from China via Vietnam. This difficulty must always have acted as a restraint on the development of this corps.
[6]
’There is some correlation between centers of horse breeding and core regions of classical empires, suggesting that easy access to horses contributed to the military might of Pagan, Angkor, Champa, and Majapahit. This is most strikingly illustrated by well-preserved bas- reliefs of prancing Khmer horses. An elite cul- ture of horsemanship diffused from India in the course of the first millennium C.E., reflected in Sanskrit words embedded in many Southeast Asian languages, with China as another influen- tial model. Numerous Indian and Chinese texts relating to horses were available, but the mili- tary technology and court rituals of Southeast Asia remained distinct.To a greater extent than in India, horses were subordinate to elephants, for both war and prestige. Mounted infantry was more common than cavalry proper, and the technique of the mounted archer was scarcely employed.’
[7]
[1]: (Mabbett and Chandler 1995, p.156) [2]: (Coe 2003, p. 185) [3]: (Coe 2003, p. 186) [4]: (Jacq-Hergoualc’h and Smithies 2007, p. 41) [5]: (Jacq-Hergoualc’h and Smithies 2007, pp. 59-60) [6]: (Jacq-Hergoualc’h and Smithies 2007, p. 173) [7]: (Clarence-Smith 2004, p. 610) |
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|
’A turbulent three decades followed Ang Chan’s death in 1566, during which one of his successors flirted dangerously with European powers, i.e. allowing Catholic missionaries to preach, and asking the Spaniards in Manila to help him fight his Thai enemies (luckily, this did not happen). Interestingly, this ruler claimed that for the joint operation, he could field 80,000 troops, 10,000 horses, and 12,000 elephants. These figures may have been exaggerated, but even so, it appears that Cambodia was still a power in Southeast Asia.’ [Footnote from page 229]: One late sixteenth century source, Christoval de Jacque states that King Reamea Chung Prei had only 400 war elephants (Groslier 1958:154), a more likely figure.’
[1]
[1]: (Coe 2003, p. 210) |
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|
’One more text which is relevant, and probably belongs in [H] though possibly south of it in [K]-the exact provenance is unknown-is k.155, by a technical official, dhanyakarapati, "chief of the grain stocks", and one of only eight or nine such specialized functions mentioned in the pre-Angkor corpus, [Footnote 143: There are seven inscriptions by, or referring to, such technical or administrative specialists. The others are K.133 [I], a "chief ship pilot", mahanauvaha, in K.140 [K] a "master of all elephants," or "vassal king", samantagajapati; in K.765 [T] a mahanukrtavi-khyata, "celebrated for his great following"; in K725 three such titles or names of functions, samantanauvaha, "chief of the naval forces", mahasvaptai, "great chief of horse", sahasravargadhiptai, "chief of a group of a thousand"; in K726 yuddhapramukha, military officer; and the latest in date a certain mahavikrantakesari, a name meaning "great bold lion", probably indicating a military person, who is mentioned 4 times in K1029 [R].]’
[1]
[1]: (Vickery 1998, 125) |
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|
’The acquisition of a calvary raised many more problems: horses had to be imported, perhaps from India-like those of the embassy of the Funan, Fan Zhan, received as a gift from the court of the Murundas around AD 230-240, most likely from China via Vietnam. This difficulty must always have acted as a restraint on the development of this corps.
[1]
[1]: (Jacq-Hergoualc’h and Smithies 2007, p. 173) |
||||||
|
’The acquisition of a cavalry raised many more problems: horses had to be imported, perhaps from India-like those of the embassy of the Funan, Fan Zhan, received as a gift from the court of the Murundas around AD 230-240, most likely from China via Vietnam. This difficulty must always have acted as a restraint on the development of this corps.
[1]
[1]: (Jacq-Hergoualc’h and Smithies 2007, p. 173) |
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|
Used in chariot warfare (16th-12th centuries BCE) and, later in the period, for riding.
[1]
"In the 12th century BC chariot warfare tactics lost their importance in Andronovo society; mounted horsemen armed with bows and arrows replaced chariot drivers."
[2]
The bridle was developed across the period. Class III, Type II cheek pieces appeared at the end of the 2nd millennium BCE which "shows the time when horse riding spread across the steppes."
[1]
[1]: (Kuz’mina 2007, 131) Elena Efimovna Kuzʹmina. 2007. The Origin of the Indo-Iranians. J P Mallory ed. BRILL. Leiden. [2]: (Kuz’mina 2007, 138) Elena Efimovna Kuzʹmina. 2007. The Origin of the Indo-Iranians. J P Mallory ed. BRILL. Leiden. |
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|
Scythed chariots. "Dunque, dalle scarne fonti, relative soprattutto agli annali dei re assiri, sappiamo comunque che erano in uso, oltre ai contingenti di fanteria, anche i carri falcati, muniti di lame, che avevano l’incarico di scompaginare le schiere avversarie."
[1]
TRANSLATION: "However scant, our sources (which mostly derive from the annals of the Assyrian kings) tell us that, besides infantry corps, Phoenician armies also included scythed chariots, which would wreak havoc on enemy formations."
[1]: Bartoloni, P. 1988. L’esercito, la marina e la guerra. In Moscati, S. (ed) I Fenici pp. 132-138. Milano: Bompiani. |
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|
Horses.
[1]
"After the Moroccans defeated Songhay, others, for example, the Bambara, began to adopt Moroccan fighting methods (Abitbol 1992, 312)." This included making greater use of cavalry.
[2]
"In warfare bows and other missiles were mainly infantry weapons, as in Europe and the Middle East, but some cavalry - for example, that of the Oyo and of the nineteenth-century Adamawa - seem to have used bows, presumably shorter and more compact than those used by the infantry. Barth mentions seeing (to his surprise) a Borno archer on horseback, and both Benin and Yoruba sculpture show mounted archers."
[3]
[1]: (Smith 1989, 89) Robert Sydney Smith. 1989. Warfare & Diplomacy in Pre-colonial West Africa. Second Edition. The University of Wisconsin Press. Madison. [2]: (Koenig, Diarra and Sow 1998, 42) Dolores Koenig. Tieman Diarra. Moussa Sow. et al. 1998. Innovation and Individuality in African Development: Changing Production Strategies in Rural Mali. University of Michigan Press. Ann Arbor. [3]: (Smith 1989, 70) Robert Sydney Smith. 1989. Warfare & Diplomacy in Pre-colonial West Africa. Second Edition. The University of Wisconsin Press. Madison. |
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|
"The earliest irrefutable evidence of horses in sub-Saharan Africa comes from the Arabic texts, beginning with the writings of Al-Muhallabi from about AD 985. By then, however, the horse was a highly valued prestige animal, and camels were the vehicle of trans-Saharan trade."
[1]
[1]: (Reader 1998, 266) |
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|
"The earliest irrefutable evidence of horses in sub-Saharan Africa comes from the Arabic texts, beginning with the writings of Al-Muhallabi from about AD 985. By then, however, the horse was a highly valued prestige animal, and camels were the vehicle of trans-Saharan trade."
[1]
[1]: (Reader 1998, 266) |
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|
"The earliest irrefutable evidence of horses in sub-Saharan Africa comes from the Arabic texts, beginning with the writings of Al-Muhallabi from about AD 985. By then, however, the horse was a highly valued prestige animal, and camels were the vehicle of trans-Saharan trade."
[1]
Soninke "acquired small horses brought from North Africa." The Soninke’s possessed "superior iron weapons and horses"
[2]
[1]: (Reader 1998, 266) [2]: (Conrad 2010, 23) |
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|
Horses.
[1]
"After the Moroccans defeated Songhay, others, for example, the Bambara, began to adopt Moroccan fighting methods (Abitbol 1992, 312)." This included making greater use of cavalry.
[2]
"In warfare bows and other missiles were mainly infantry weapons, as in Europe and the Middle East, but some cavalry - for example, that of the Oyo and of the nineteenth-century Adamawa - seem to have used bows, presumably shorter and more compact than those used by the infantry. Barth mentions seeing (to his surprise) a Borno archer on horseback, and both Benin and Yoruba sculpture show mounted archers."
[3]
[1]: (Smith 1989, 89) Robert Sydney Smith. 1989. Warfare & Diplomacy in Pre-colonial West Africa. Second Edition. The University of Wisconsin Press. Madison. [2]: (Koenig, Diarra and Sow 1998, 42) Dolores Koenig. Tieman Diarra. Moussa Sow. et al. 1998. Innovation and Individuality in African Development: Changing Production Strategies in Rural Mali. University of Michigan Press. Ann Arbor. [3]: (Smith 1989, 70) Robert Sydney Smith. 1989. Warfare & Diplomacy in Pre-colonial West Africa. Second Edition. The University of Wisconsin Press. Madison. |
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|
"mounted lancers of the Songhay aristocracy"
[1]
Professional cavalry commanded by the tara-farma.
[2]
Chief of cavalry was called the tara-farma.
[3]
[1]: (Roland and Atmore 2001, 67) [2]: (Davidson 1998, 168) Davidson, Basil. 1998. West Africa Before the Colonial Era. Routledge. London. [3]: (Diop 1987, 112) Diop, Cheikh Anta. Salemson, Harold trans. 1987. Precolonial Black Africa. Lawrence Hill Books. Chicago. |
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|
As used by Mongol cavalry, the main fighting force.
[1]
As with other armies of the Steppe the main force of the Mongol army was mounted cavalry. Not all Mongol horsemen were heavily armoured, but a variety of armour and weapons can be seen in the sources. The Mongols also absorbed local influences in military technology as their empire spread. So they employed Chinese siege engineers, used gunpowder and made use of naval forces when they needed to. They were not great builders however, often destroying fortresses in areas they moved into.
[2]
[3]
[4]
[1]: Bira, Sh. “THE MONGOLS AND THEIR STATE IN THE TWELFTH TO THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.” In History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Vol. IV: The Age of Achievement A.D. 750 to the End of the Fifteenth Century. Part I The Historical, Social and Economic Setting, edited by C. E. Bosworth, Muhammad S. Asimov, and Yar Muhammad Khan, 248-64. Paris: Unesco, 1998. p.259. [2]: Stackpole Books, 1999) [3]: Thomas T. Allsen, ‘The Circulation of Military Technology in the Mongolian Empire’ in Nicola Di Cosmo (ed.), Warfare in Inner Asian History: 500-1800 (Leiden [4]: Boston: Brill, 2002). pp.265-93. |
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|
Horses were the means of travel for mobile nomadic warriors since the establishment of cavalry forces by the mid-first millennium BCE
|
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|
Horses were the means of travel for mobile nomadic warriors since the establishment of cavalry forces by the mid-first millennium BCE
|
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|
"Second, at the time of Tanshihuai, the strength of the Xianbei army reached one hundred thousand horsemen (Taskin 1984: 78). If one considers that all men were potentially warriors, and that the adult male population should amount to about 1/5 of the total population, one can assume that the total population was about half a million."
[1]
[1]: (Kradin 2011, 201) |
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|
"The Xiongnu conducted many battles and border raids against the Chinese. The greater mobility of the Xiongnu cavalry proved to be very effective against Chinese infantry and chariots, and for a long period of time a treaty (198 B.C.) was in effect, bringing vast quantities of Chinese tribute into the Xiongnu court (Barfield 1981; Yu ̈ 1967)."
[1]
[1]: (Rogers 2012, 222) |
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|
"The earliest irrefutable evidence of horses in sub-Saharan Africa comes from the Arabic texts, beginning with the writings of Al-Muhallabi from about AD 985. By then, however, the horse was a highly valued prestige animal, and camels were the vehicle of trans-Saharan trade."
[1]
Soninke "acquired small horses brought from North Africa." The Soninke’s possessed "superior iron weapons and horses"
[2]
[1]: (Reader 1998, 266) [2]: (Conrad 2010, 23) |
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|
Hassig lists horses among the new military "technologies" the Spanish introduced to the region in the sixteenth century
[1]
[1]: (Hassig 1992, 143) Hassig, Robert. 1992. War and Society in Ancient Mesoamerica. London; Berkeley: University of California Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/collectionKey/F76EVNU3/itemKey/E9VHCKDG |
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|
Hassig lists horses among the new military "technologies" the Spanish introduced to the region in the sixteenth century
[1]
[1]: (Hassig 1992, 143) Hassig, Robert. 1992. War and Society in Ancient Mesoamerica. London; Berkeley: University of California Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/collectionKey/F76EVNU3/itemKey/E9VHCKDG |
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|
Hassig lists horses among the new military "technologies" the Spanish introduced to the region in the sixteenth century
[1]
[1]: (Hassig 1992, 143) Hassig, Robert. 1992. War and Society in Ancient Mesoamerica. London; Berkeley: University of California Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/collectionKey/F76EVNU3/itemKey/E9VHCKDG |
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|
Hassig lists horses among the new military "technologies" the Spanish introduced to the region in the sixteenth century
[1]
[1]: (Hassig 1992, 143) Hassig, Robert. 1992. War and Society in Ancient Mesoamerica. London; Berkeley: University of California Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/collectionKey/F76EVNU3/itemKey/E9VHCKDG |
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Not native to region.
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Hassig lists horses among the new military "technologies" the Spanish introduced to the region in the sixteenth century
[1]
[1]: (Hassig 1992, 143) Hassig, Robert. 1992. War and Society in Ancient Mesoamerica. London; Berkeley: University of California Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/collectionKey/F76EVNU3/itemKey/E9VHCKDG |
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Hassig lists horses among the new military "technologies" the Spanish introduced to the region in the sixteenth century
[1]
[1]: (Hassig 1992, 143) Hassig, Robert. 1992. War and Society in Ancient Mesoamerica. London; Berkeley: University of California Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/collectionKey/F76EVNU3/itemKey/E9VHCKDG |
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Hassig lists horses among the new military "technologies" the Spanish introduced to the region in the sixteenth century
[1]
[1]: (Hassig 1992, 143) Hassig, Robert. 1992. War and Society in Ancient Mesoamerica. London; Berkeley: University of California Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/collectionKey/F76EVNU3/itemKey/E9VHCKDG |
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Not native to region.
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Not native to region.
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Figurines found in archaeological contexts depict horsemen.
[1]
First century BCE historian Diodorus Siculus narrates a battle between a queen of Assyria (considered Shammuramat?) and an Indian polity in which the Indians used horses.
[2]
If "the first archaeologically recognizable, large post-Indus urban settlements are not earlier than the fifth century BC ... solidly visible states ... appear in a sudden profusion in the late first millennium B.C."
[3]
- who was king Stabrobates of India who used war elephants against a queen of Assyria (considered Shammuramat?) in the 9th century BCE?
[4]
One could infer king Stabrobates, if not based there himself, must have subdued and controlled the Kachi Plain region in order to invade Mesopotamia from ’India’. (Another source says Assyria invaded India and were driven out of Pakistan and India).
[5]
Diodorus Siculus says this too, queen Semiramis was based in Bactra (Bactria?).
[2]
If king Stabrobates’s polity controlled the Kachi Plain, then we code the according to the military technology he possessed. This would have included weapons of war. Note: one military historian estimates that the Assyrian army had a strategic range of 2000 km
[6]
which places the Indus region in reach of their forces.
[1]: Ceccarelli, pers. comm. to E. Cioni, Feb 2017 [2]: Diodorus Siculus. Delphi Complete Works of Diodorus Siculus. Delphi Classics. [3]: (Ahmed 2014, 64) Mukhtar Ahmed. 2014. Ancient Pakistan - An Archaeological History: Volume V: The End of the Harappan Civilization, and the Aftermath. Foursome Group. [4]: (Mayor 2014, 289) Adrienne Mayor. Animals in Warfare. Gordon Lindsay Campbell. ed. 2014. The Oxford Handbook of Animals in Classical Thought and Life. Oxford University Press. Oxford. [5]: (Kistler 2007, 18) John M Kistler. 2007. War Elephants. University of Nebraska Press. Lincoln. [6]: (Gabriel 2002, 9) Richard A Gabriel. 2002. The Great Armies of Antiquity. Praeger. Westport. |
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"Yakut warriors ( säpi, säpi kisita ) were usually mounted horsemen ( minjär ), but there were also foot soldiers ( sat[unknown]ykisita ). Their weapons ( säp ) consisted of a light bent bow ( s[unknown]a ), a quiver ( käsäx, s[unknown]adax ), and arrows ( aya ) ."
[1]
[1]: Jochelson, Waldemar. 1933. “Yakut.” Anthropological Papers, 172 |
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"Yakut warriors ( säpi, säpi kisita ) were usually mounted horsemen ( minjär ), but there were also foot soldiers ( sat[unknown]ykisita ). Their weapons ( säp ) consisted of a light bent bow ( s[unknown]a ), a quiver ( käsäx, s[unknown]adax ), and arrows ( aya ) ."
[1]
[1]: Jochelson, Waldemar. 1933. “Yakut.” Anthropological Papers, 172 |
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Horse breeding, chariots, cavalry.
[1]
According to this source, for which we require expert confirmation: “Horses may have been considered sacred since Napatan pharaohs were often found buried together with their horses. However, unlike the Egyptians, the Kushites preferred to ride directly on top of horses rather than use chariots or oxen."
[2]
Horse remains from Buhen, Upper Nubia, show characteristics of domestication (1700-1600 BC)
[3]
[1]: (Török 1997, 158) [3]: Kelekna, Pita. Northern Africa: Equestrian Penetration of the Sahara and the Sahel and Its Impact on Adjacent Regions in Olsen, Sandra, ed. 2013. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, in press. |
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[1]
. "The horse and light chariot were introduced into the Hittite world, as elsewhere in the Near East, probably around 1600..."
[2]
[1]: Lorenz J. and I. Schrakamp (2011) Hittite Military and Warfare, pp. 139 [In:] H. Genz and D. P. Mielke (ed.) Insights Into Hittite History And Archaeology, Colloquia Antiqua 2, Leuven, Paris, Walpole MA: PEETERS, pp. 125-151 [2]: (Bryce 2002, 111) |
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first used for warfare for chariots much later that this polity
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[1]
. "The horse and light chariot were introduced into the Hittite world, as elsewhere in the Near East, probably around 1600..."
[2]
"So important were their chariot horses in their lives that the very land-measurement system of the Hittites came to be based upon the average height of their horses: twelve hands (1.21m). Yes: to the modern reader such is not even considered to be a horse, but a lowly ’pony’ - nevertheless, that is the average size of the original, wild horse of Asia Minor and Iran, and such horses, trained and used as they were, were fully big enough to terrify every army in the Middle East not provided with their equals, as the panicked testimonials of the Hebrews of the Old Testament amply convey."
[3]
[1]: Lorenz J. and I. Schrakamp (2011) Hittite Military and Warfare, pp. 139 [In:] H. Genz and D. P. Mielke (ed.) Insights Into Hittite History And Archaeology, Colloquia Antiqua 2, Leuven, Paris, Walpole MA: PEETERS, pp. 125-151 [2]: (Bryce 2002, 111) [3]: (Bennett 31-32) Deb Bennet. 1998. Conquerors. The Roots of New World Horsemanship. Amigo Publications. |
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[1]
. "The horse and light chariot were introduced into the Hittite world, as elsewhere in the Near East, probably around 1600..."
[2]
The efficiency and prowess of the Hittite army stemmed largely from the ability to use a battle chariot. A light horse chariot was an invention of the second millennium BC, quickly adopted by the armies of the Hittites and other peoples. The chariots were already mentioned in the relations of the early wars of the Hittites, but only in the late empire did this type of weapon achieve a high degree of efficiency by developing a system of dressage horses and adding a third chariot warrior.
[1]: Lorenz J. and I. Schrakamp (2011) Hittite Military and Warfare, pp. 139 [In:] H. Genz and D. P. Mielke (ed.) Insights Into Hittite History And Archaeology, Colloquia Antiqua 2, Leuven, Paris, Walpole MA: PEETERS, pp. 125-151 [2]: (Bryce 2002, 111) |
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Horse bridle ornaments decorated in a nomadic animal style might reflect the impact on Lydian horsemanship of Cimmerians and Scythians, who were present at Sardis in the seventh and early sixth centuries b.c.e
[1]
[1]: Crawford H. Greenewalt, ‘Sardis: A First Millennium B.C.E. Capital in Western Anatolia’, The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Anatolia: (10,000-323 BCE), Edited by Gregory McMahon and Sharon Steadman, 2011, p.1125 |
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[1]
“Horse riding epitomised the Thracians. Euripides and Homer called the Thracians “a race of horsemen”, and Thrace, “the land of the Thracian horsemen”.20 This description seems justified, as even though the cavalry onlymade up a small proportion of their army, they were quite numerous. For instance, although Sitalkes army was only one-third cavalry, this represented about 50,000men.”
[2]
[1]: Lund, H. S. (1992) Lysimachus: A study in early Hellenistic kingship. Routledge: London and New York. p24-5 [2]: Webber, C. (2003) Odrysian Cavalry, Army, Equipment and Tactics. Bar International Series 1139, pp. 529-554. p530 |
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At the site of Çatalhöyük in Building 1, on its Southern wall, a wallpainting depicting two horse-like animals was found [Czeszewska 2010: 171], but whether this depiction is connected with warfare is rather unknown.
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[1]
. "The horse and light chariot were introduced into the Hittite world, as elsewhere in the Near East, probably around 1600..."
[2]
[1]: Lorenz J. and I. Schrakamp (2011) Hittite Military and Warfare, pp. 139 [In:] H. Genz and D. P. Mielke (ed.) Insights Into Hittite History And Archaeology, Colloquia Antiqua 2, Leuven, Paris, Walpole MA: PEETERS, pp. 125-151 [2]: (Bryce 2002, 111) |
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Based on previous polities, it is clear horses were a large part of warfare in the region, particularly chariots
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Cavalry was important part of the Seljuk armies.
[1]
The Turcomen tribal soldiers fought on horse back, wore leather-armour, using tactics such as “harassment horse archery”
[2]
Even when the Seljuks adopted new military organisation mounted archers remained central to their forces. The ghulam slave soldiers “fought and were equipped in much the same manner as the ghulams and mamluks” elsewhere in Middle east
[2]
At its best equipment was similar to that used in Iran "with perhaps some Byzantine or even Western European influence.”
[2]
[1]: ‘Turks, Seljuk and Ottoman’, Holmes, Richard, ed., The Oxford companion to military history (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). [2]: Nicolle, David. Arms and Armour of the Crusading Era, 1050-1350: Islam, Eastern Europe and Asia. Rev. and updated ed. London : Mechanicsburg, Pa: Greenhill Books ; Stackpole Books, 1999. p.208 |
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"Although the horse was adopted by the eastern tribes as a beast of burden, there seems to be little reference to its use in warfare except in the later 18th and early 19th centuries and particularly by the western tribes Sauk, Fox, Winnebago, etc. However, the Iroquois and Cherokee has large numbers of horses from the mid-18th century on."
[1]
[1]: (Johnson and Hook 24) Johnson, Michael G., and Richard Hook. 1990. American Woodland Indians. Men-at-Arms. Osprey. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/collectionKey/943RGM7A/itemKey/X87SHFX7 |
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Bronze horse harnesses found at Dalverzin-tepe (Chust culture) in Bactria and Ferghana valley around this time.
[1]
"In the 12th century BC chariot warfare tactics lost their importance in Andronovo society; mounted horsemen armed with bows and arrows replaced chariot drivers."
[2]
Tazabagyab culture is considered to have had its origin in Andronovo culture.
[3]
Andronovo culture (2000-900 BCE, Alakul phase 2100-1400 BCE, Fedorovo phase 1400-1200 BCE, Alekseyevka phase 1200-1000 BCE). Tazabagyab culture (15th - 11th), Suyarganskaya culture (11th - 9th), Amirabad culture (9th - 8th).
[1]: (Askarov 1992, 448-449) A Askarov. The beginning of the Iron Age in Transoxania. Ahmad Hasan Dani, Vadim Mikhailovich Masson. ed. History of Civilizations of Central Asia, Volume 1. The dawn of civilization: earliest times to 700 B.C. UNESCO. Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Limited. Delhi. [2]: (Kuz’mina 2007, 138) Elena Efimovna Kuzʹmina. 2007. The Origin of the Indo-Iranians. J P Mallory ed. BRILL. Leiden. [3]: (Mallory 1997, 20-21) J P Mallory. Andronovo culture. J P Mallory. D Q Adams. eds. 1997. Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers. Chicago. |
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Infomation found on Table 1 about Faunal spectra of the Iron Ages sites of southern Central Asia.
[1]
[1]: (Lhuillier and Mashkour 2017: 657) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/P47UMRDJ. |
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"During the seventh and sixth centuries B.C. several nomadic states of northern Iranian tribes came into being in Central Asia. In the west some Saka tribal confederations are mentioned in ancient Greek literature and Old Persian inscriptions, while in the east the Hsien-yün, and later the Yüeh-chih and the Hsiung-nu, tribal confederations are attested by the Chinese sources. ... Lively contacts and easy communications promoted the rise and spread of a fairly uniform nomadic culture in the steppe zone. The same types of horse-harness (bridle, bit, cheek-piece, saddle, trappings), arms (bow, bow-case, arrow and quiver, sword, battle-axe, mail) and garments (trousers, caftan, waist-girdle, boots, pointed cap) were used in the steppe zone from Central Europe to Korea."
[1]
[1]: (Harmatta 1994, 476-477) Harmatta, J. Conclusion. in Harmatta, Janos. Puri, B. N. Etemadi, G. F. eds. 1994. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume II. The development of sedentary and nomadic civilizatins 700 B.C. to A.D. 250. UNESCO Publishing. |
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Cavalry. "In the seventh century the Arab Caliphate overran the Sāssānian Empire and, as far as we can tell, no great changes took place in the Persian equipment then or for a long time afterwards."
[1]
Mounted warriors.
[2]
[1]: (Robinson 1967) Robinson, H. Russell. 1967. Oriental Armour. Walker and Co. New York. [2]: (Khorasani 2014) Khorasani, Manouchehr Moshtagh. 2014. The Development of Persian Armour from the Sassanian to the Qajar Period. Harnischtreffen 26-28 September 2014. |
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"The cavalry appears to have consisted at most about 10-25 per cent of the army ... of specialized heavy and light contingents, the former consisting mainly of the Yemenis ... and the latter of the Bedouins."
[1]
The horse was "introduced into Arabia, during the fourth-second centuries BC".
[2]
[1]: (Syvanne 2015, 134) Ilkka Syvanne. 2015. Military History of Late Rome 284-361. Pen and Sword. Barnsley. [2]: (Hoyland 2001, 188) Robert G Hoyland. 2001. Arabia and the Arabs: From the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam. Routledge. London. |
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"The cavalry appears to have consisted at most about 10-25 per cent of the army ... of specialized heavy and light contingents, the former consisting mainly of the Yemenis ... and the latter of the Bedouins."
[1]
The horse was "introduced into Arabia, during the fourth-second centuries BC".
[2]
[1]: (Syvanne 2015, 134) Ilkka Syvanne. 2015. Military History of Late Rome 284-361. Pen and Sword. Barnsley. [2]: (Hoyland 2001, 188) Robert G Hoyland. 2001. Arabia and the Arabs: From the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam. Routledge. London. |
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The following paragraph suggests that horses were present: ’But al-jirafi goes on, more importantly, to relate that al-Ahmar wrote al-Mansur al-Husayn a brusque letter demanding a meeting. The Imam feared an attempt at assassination; so he’assassinated alAhmar first, stuck his head on a lance, and galloped off with it through a hail of bullets from the shaykh’s enraged tribesmen (aljirafi 1951: 182). In fact, al-Ahrnar, accompanied by Bin juzaylan of DhU Muhammad and by Ahmad Muhammad Hubaysh of Sufyan, seems to have come to ’Asir, just outside San’a’, to seek a settlement (Zabarah 1941: 539 and 1958: 486). The details are probably lost forever, and we are told only that al-Ahmar ’had wished to make independent his own rule of part of the country’ (ibid.), which he very well may have done; but al-Mansur alHusayn’s view of the matter, as recorded in the histories, has all the vigorous clarity of the Zaydi tradition. The taunt to the tribesmen at the time was, typically, that they were no better than polytheists: he brandished al-Ahmar’s head on his spear and cried ’this is the head of your idol’.’
[1]
[1]: Dresch, Paul 1989. "Tribes, Government and History in Yemen", 203p |
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Al-Mujahid and his cavalry attacked those Ma’azibah opposite them and put them to flight. The sultan’s forces killed 12 of them; one of the sultan’s troups, Muhammad b, Hazim who was a brave man, but who had given bad advice, was captured and put to death by the relatives of the dead Ma’azibah. Then al-Mujahid raided the Ma^zibah as far as Mahjariyyah, a village in Wadi Rima’, and defeated them. He killed one of their cavalrymen Mufrih b, Junaydah,^ The Bughvah gives slightly varying detail; 200 instead of 100 horses; al-Mujahid cut off the heads of 7 of the Ma’azibah and he does not include the reference to Muhammad b, Hazim giving bad advice,^’
[1]
Sultan’s army at the attack on San’a "The sultan took to the field and marched to the said city of San’ a with his army, in which there were three thousand horsemen, sons of Christians, as black as Moors [ie Ethiopians]. They were those of Prester John, whom they purchased at the age of eight or nine years, and had them trained to arms. These constituted his own guard, because they were worth more than the rest"
[2]
[1]: Porter, Venetia Ann (1992) The history and monuments of the Tahirid dynasty of the Yemen 858-923/1454-1517, Durham theses, Durham University, pp. 45-46 , Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/5867/ [2]: Porter, Venetia Ann (1992) The history and monuments of the Tahirid dynasty of the Yemen 858-923/1454-1517, Durham theses, Durham University, pp. 111-113, Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/5867/ |
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The Sulayhids used African mercenaries
[1]
and Sudanic warriors had cavalry.
[2]
Code also can be inferred from Abbasid Caliphate
[3]
which occupied Yemen between 751-868 CE.
[1]: (Stookey 1978, 66) Robert W Stookey. 1978. Yemen: The Politics of the Yemen Arab Republic. Westview Press. Boulder. [2]: Jacquelin A Blair. Nicholas Roumas. Fernando Martell advised by Jeffrey L Forgeng. 2011. The Progression of Arms and Armor from Ancient Greece to the European Renaissance across Eurasia and Africa. Worcester Polytechnic Institute. [3]: (Nicolle 1982, 20) Nicolle, D. 1982. The Armies of Islam, 7th-11th Centuries. Osprey Publishing. |
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Inferred from use among predecessors the Abbasids, in the time period under consideration, and among successors the Rasulids. "In any event, textual evidence corroborates the pictorial material studied by Nicolle: contrary to a still widely common view, the horse armour was not unknown in the early Middle Eastern armies. It is likely that its use gradually increased from the generalization of the heavy cavalry after the Abbasid took power in Baghdad and reformed the army under the influence of Iranian and central Asiatic traditions. After this reform, the Middle Eastern Islamic armies largely relied on horsemen, whether they were born free or military slaves. The warrior dynasties that ruled the Middle East from the fragmentation of the Abbasid Empire in the tenth–eleventh century onward were also strongly associated with the horse. It is worth noting with Mahoney, in this issue, that when he deals with the arrival of the Rasūlid in Yemen in the early thirteenth century, the chronicler al‑Kharazjī also emphasizes the major role played by the horse in the creation and preservation of the new dynasty."
[1]
[1]: Jérémie Schiettecatte et Abbès Zouache, « The Horse in Arabia and the Arabian Horse: Origins, Myths and Realities », Arabian Humanities [En ligne], 8 | 2017, mis en ligne le 30 juin 2017, consulté le 11 juillet 2024. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/arabianhumanities/3280 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/cy.3280 Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/5S5UUTBQ/library |
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The following quote broadly refers to pre-Islamic Arabia. "The manner of deployment of this arsenal is elucidated by battle scenes in the rock art of pastoralist tribes (Pl. 29c) and by their poetry, which commonly narrates whole incidents. Both, incidentally, make clear that the camel was ridden to battle and in retreat (Pl. 29d), but the horse was used during the battle itself"
[1]
[1]: (Hoyland 2001, 191) Hoyland, R. 2001. Arabia and the Arabs: From the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam. Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/hoylan/titleCreatorYear/items/AUHRSTGG/item-list |
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Horses.
[1]
At the Battle of Omdurman of the Second Sudan War 1898 CE General Kitchener had "2,469 horses, 896 mules, 3,524 camels, and 229 donkeys."
[2]
[1]: (Spiers 1996, 194) Edward Spiers. The Late Victorian Army 1868-1914. David G Chandler. Ian Beckett. eds. 1996. The Oxford History of the British Army. Oxford University Press. Oxford. [2]: (Spiers 1996, 206) Edward Spiers. The Late Victorian Army 1868-1914. David G Chandler. Ian Beckett. eds. 1996. The Oxford History of the British Army. Oxford University Press. Oxford. |
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"Moreover, the villages were also impotant as the feed the elephants and the horses, which were an integral part of the military warfare machinery, used to come from them."
[1]
[1]: (Yadav 2011: 360-361) Yadav, D. 2011. ASPECTS OF RURAL SETTLEMENT UNDER THE GAHAAVALA DYNASTY: C. 11 TH CENTURY CE TO 13 TH CENTURY CE (AN INSCRIPTIONAL ANALYSIS). Proceedings of the Indian History Congress , 2011, Vol. 72, PART-I (2011), pp. 360-367. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/F8STV588/library |
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"By the end of the Eastern Han the system of universal military service, developed during the Warring States period and maintained into Western Han, had been abandoned, as China’s rulers found smaller, more professional forces to be of greater utility in guarding the steppe frontier and also less of a threat to the central authority (they were, for example, less susceptible to being suborned by local elites). These forces included highly effective cavalry contingents recruited from among steppe peoples, such as the Wuhuan of the Northeast."
[1]
[1]: (Graff 2019: 294) Graff, D. A. 2019. The Art of War. In Dien and Knapp (eds) The Cambridge History of China Volume 2: The Six Dynasties, 220–589 pp. 275-295. Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/8I4JZ4PC/library |
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