DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1118#0480
RIDING NOT PRACTISED BY MINOANS
Tiryns we see the same. On the sarcophagus the horse, as, elsewhere on
it, a goat, is of a conventional blue tint, perhaps indicative of grey.
Nose- in a]i these pictorial representations it is clear that there was a nose-
band. The evidence supplied by the figures of early chariots and draught
animals on the Sumerian monuments shows that the practice was of remote
antiquity in the old Chaldaean lands where wheeled traffic originated.1
Slfun- Tlle fact that on tlle latefrescoes (L- M. Ill a), at Mycenae and Tiryns,
known, horses are to be seen led by grooms, must not be allowed to suggest
the impression that at this period the art of riding- was known either in
Crete or Mainland Greece.2 As we have seen above,3 even on the proto-
Geometrical 'krater' from Muliana, where a horse is seen with the legless
body of a warrior rising above it, the artist was still quite unfamiliar with
the idea of a mounted rider. The same ignorance is implied by rude
Geometric seal impressions, and even on a jug of 'Phaleron' date from
Athens we see a rider sitting helplessly on a horse's rump.4
Homeric The entire absence of horsemen on Minoan monuments is the more
ences to significant when we recall the special predilection that they display for feats
hte°md °^ s^'" 'n wn'cn men and animals take part. Had the art of riding been
then practised, it cannot be doubted that feats of horsemanship would have
appeared in paintings, reliefs, and intaglios, beside those in which the
Minoan cow-boys show their prowess. It is of interest, as illustrating the
comparatively late date at which the Homeric poems were put together,
that the art of riding was at that time not unknown. But, as was long ago
1 This, indeed, seems to be the natural still rare. For Egyptian riders of Rameses IPs
method, taken over in these regions by the time, see Chabas, Aniiquite historique, p.
horse from the earliest beasts of draught—oxen 422 seqq. and PI. III.
and asses. The appearance of bits in Central 3 p. 374, Fig. 312, c.
Europe coincides with the advent in the ' On a kantharos from Grave IX of the
Danubian plains of a race of riders from the Dipylon Cemetery (Bruckner and Pemice,
Asiatic side. In Iliad xix, 1. 393, we already Ath. Mitth., 1S93, PI. VIII, 2). On a seal of
read of bits (xaAir-ov's) in connexion with similar transitional style from Megara (Furt-
chariot horses. Helbig (Horn. Epos, p. 156) wangler, Olympia, p. 1S8), the horseman is
detects one on a chariot horse of Rameses II. naively indicated with his body somewhat
- In contemporary Egypt riding was hardly raised above the horse's back. On the
known in the XVIIIth Dynasty. The open- ' Melian ' and Early Attic class of vases the
work axe-head of XVIIIth Dynasty type with horseman is understood and becomes a recog-
a figure of a riding warrior in the B.M. (Budge, nized subject. In bronze works of the ' Italo-
Archaco/ogia, liii, PI. Ill, 2) is altogether Haistatt' Province figures of riders do not go
exceptional, and may, as W. Max Milller sug- back beyond the Eighth Century B.C. (I'01
gests (Asien und Europa, p. 301, n. 4), refer to liallstatt examples, see Hoernes, Gesch. fl-
an Asiatic, though on that side, too, riding was bildendcr Kunst in Europa, p. 4S3.)
heroic.
Tiryns we see the same. On the sarcophagus the horse, as, elsewhere on
it, a goat, is of a conventional blue tint, perhaps indicative of grey.
Nose- in a]i these pictorial representations it is clear that there was a nose-
band. The evidence supplied by the figures of early chariots and draught
animals on the Sumerian monuments shows that the practice was of remote
antiquity in the old Chaldaean lands where wheeled traffic originated.1
Slfun- Tlle fact that on tlle latefrescoes (L- M. Ill a), at Mycenae and Tiryns,
known, horses are to be seen led by grooms, must not be allowed to suggest
the impression that at this period the art of riding- was known either in
Crete or Mainland Greece.2 As we have seen above,3 even on the proto-
Geometrical 'krater' from Muliana, where a horse is seen with the legless
body of a warrior rising above it, the artist was still quite unfamiliar with
the idea of a mounted rider. The same ignorance is implied by rude
Geometric seal impressions, and even on a jug of 'Phaleron' date from
Athens we see a rider sitting helplessly on a horse's rump.4
Homeric The entire absence of horsemen on Minoan monuments is the more
ences to significant when we recall the special predilection that they display for feats
hte°md °^ s^'" 'n wn'cn men and animals take part. Had the art of riding been
then practised, it cannot be doubted that feats of horsemanship would have
appeared in paintings, reliefs, and intaglios, beside those in which the
Minoan cow-boys show their prowess. It is of interest, as illustrating the
comparatively late date at which the Homeric poems were put together,
that the art of riding was at that time not unknown. But, as was long ago
1 This, indeed, seems to be the natural still rare. For Egyptian riders of Rameses IPs
method, taken over in these regions by the time, see Chabas, Aniiquite historique, p.
horse from the earliest beasts of draught—oxen 422 seqq. and PI. III.
and asses. The appearance of bits in Central 3 p. 374, Fig. 312, c.
Europe coincides with the advent in the ' On a kantharos from Grave IX of the
Danubian plains of a race of riders from the Dipylon Cemetery (Bruckner and Pemice,
Asiatic side. In Iliad xix, 1. 393, we already Ath. Mitth., 1S93, PI. VIII, 2). On a seal of
read of bits (xaAir-ov's) in connexion with similar transitional style from Megara (Furt-
chariot horses. Helbig (Horn. Epos, p. 156) wangler, Olympia, p. 1S8), the horseman is
detects one on a chariot horse of Rameses II. naively indicated with his body somewhat
- In contemporary Egypt riding was hardly raised above the horse's back. On the
known in the XVIIIth Dynasty. The open- ' Melian ' and Early Attic class of vases the
work axe-head of XVIIIth Dynasty type with horseman is understood and becomes a recog-
a figure of a riding warrior in the B.M. (Budge, nized subject. In bronze works of the ' Italo-
Archaco/ogia, liii, PI. Ill, 2) is altogether Haistatt' Province figures of riders do not go
exceptional, and may, as W. Max Milller sug- back beyond the Eighth Century B.C. (I'01
gests (Asien und Europa, p. 301, n. 4), refer to liallstatt examples, see Hoernes, Gesch. fl-
an Asiatic, though on that side, too, riding was bildendcr Kunst in Europa, p. 4S3.)
heroic.