The Equine History Collective and Cheiron, the International Journal of Equine and Equestrian History are delighted to invite you to the seminar ”Horse training and management in ancient Egypt and beyond”, the first in a series of lectures on horse training from the ancient world to the modern day.

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More information about our speakers:

Miriam Bibby FSA Scot FRHistS is an equine historian, author, and editor. She is co-editor-in-chief of Cheiron, the International Journal of Equine and Equestrian History and an affiliate of the University of Glasgow’s School of Interdisciplinary Studies. Miriam is a former course developer for the University of Manchester’s networked learning course in Egyptology and has worked for several museums and heritage organisations. She was the founder of Ancient Egypt Magazine. Miriam’s MPhil topic was the Horse in Ancient Egypt. She subsequently gained a PhD on the subject of the little-known Galloway horse.

SELECT PUBLICATIONS:

Bibby, Miriam A. “‘They Shall Henceforth Be Fed in my Presence’: Observations on the Training and Treatment of Chariot Horses in Ancient Egypt.” Chariots in Antiquity: Essays in Honour of Joost Crouwel ed. Peter Raulwing, Stefan Burmeister, Gail Brownrigg, and Katheryn M. Linduff, 67-82. Oxford: BAR Publishing, 2023.

Bibby, Miriam A. “The Arrival of the Horse in Egypt: New Approaches and a Hypothesis.” Current Research in Egyptology III ed. Rachel Ives, Daniel Lines, Christopher Naunton, and Nina Wahlberg, 13-18.  Oxford: Archaeopress, 2003.

Bibby, Miriam A. “Egyptian horses and chariots: a metaphor for control.” Tracking-up Winter 2008 – 2009, 18-20.

ABSTRACT

Back in the 1990s, I chose the horse in ancient Egypt as a topic for my Certificate in Egyptology dissertation, and subsequently received the Egyptology Certificate with Distinction. This encouraged me to research an MPhil on the same topic. From foundational work we are now at a point where scholars take a more nuanced, informed and equid-focussed approach to the topic. This I aimed to do in a recently published paper “‘They Shall Henceforth Be Fed in my Presence’: Observations on the Training and Treatment of Chariot Horses in Ancient Egypt” in Chariots in Antiquity: Essays in Honour of Joost Crouwel. My presentation draws on this chapter to encourage further debate and research into how horses were trained and managed in ancient Egypt. This treatment was not only influenced by the needs of the horses themselves, but also intended to maintain the complex vision of order – Ma’at – within the Egyptian cosmos.

Lonneke Delpeut is a PhD-student at the Institute of Egyptology, specialising in the art history and visual culture of ancient Egypt. Her BA-thesis was about the role of the image of the horse as a status symbol in Egyptian private tombs, looking at how images of horses were used by the tomb owners to show how special they were. Her MA-thesis specialised more in visual studies and looked at images of horses as a source of information by differentiating what is depicted from how it is depicted. Her PhD project proposal is a direct result of the work done in her MA-thesis.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Delpeut, L.P.P., Rogner, F., (in press), ‘The King Himself Training His Horses: Two New Perspectives on an Unusual Scene in Ramses III’s Temple at Medinet Habu’, Göttinger Miszellen.

Delpeut, L.P.P., Willekes, C., 2023, ‘Reality as a Representational Strategy in Depictions of Horses in Ancient Greek and Egyptian Art: How Purpose Influences Appearance’, Arts 2023, 12(2), 57.

Delpeut, L.P.P., 2021c, ‘What makes a Horse a Horse? Configurational Aspects of Ancient Egyptian Equines’, Cheiron: The International Journal of Equine and Equestrian History: Nov. 2021, Trivent Publishing: Hungary, 1-45.

ABSTRACT

Lonneke Delpeut will present her upcoming article about the earliest two-dimensional depiction of horse training in history, located in the temple of Medinet Habu in Luxor, Egypt. This scene, of which you see a sneak preview on the poster, shows a group of horses being part of a desensitising training, commonly used to prepare horses for stressful situations. This type of training is still used for military and police horses to this day. In addition to that, she will touch upon some archaeological remains that hint at how horses were kept in ancient Egypt.

Alberto Maria Pollastrini obtained his PhD in Egyptology from Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris in 2021. He is currently a member of the Research Unit AOROC – Archaeology & Philology of the East and West at Paris Sciences and Letters University, France. He specializes in Egyptian and Western Asiatic warfare and hoplology, particularly from the New Kingdom and Late Period. He also participated in excavation campaigns in Egypt and Italy.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Pollastrini A. M. (Forthcoming). Helmets and Body Armour in New Kingdom Egypt, Bloomsbury Publishing, UK.

Pollastrini A. M., “The Body Armour of Ramesses II” in: Mohamed Raafat Abbas and Friedhelm Hoffmann (eds.), Perspectives on the Ramesside Military System, Ägypten und Altes Testament (121), Munster. Zaphon Verlag, 2023, pp. 125-136.

Pollastrini A. M., “Les artisans armouriers et leur ateliers au Nouvel Empire” Égypte Afrique et Orient 106, 2022, pp. 37-44.

ABSTRACT

What is our current understanding of ancient Egyptian horsemanship?

The recent discovery of King Seneb-kay’s tomb at Abydos has helped strengthen the old theory that horses were ridden before the introduction of the war chariot during the 17th Dynasty, perhaps even in the Middle Kingdom. But how extensive is our current knowledge of ancient Egyptian horsemanship? The answer may be disappointing, considering the absence of written sources and the scarcity of iconographic sources. However, the few data available are not without significance. According to images, Egyptian equestrian traditions were far more advanced than generally assumed, especially about warfare. In this instance, we can assume that horses and riders received quite different physical and military training from the crews and steeds of war chariots, but in both cases, it was repetitive and harsh. Training for mounted archery probably had to be even more rigorous to enable the perfect synergy between man and horse, which formed the most effective ‘weapon system’ of antiquity.