that, as horse domestication expanded, wild horses were evidently added
to the herds. Recent examination of the Early Bronze Age horse remains
from two sites at Kanligeçit (Kirklareli), in Turkish Thrace, radiocarbon
dated 2600–2300 calbc, have been identified as work horses, for riding
and for transportation. So they may have been used as pack animals, for
traction, or simply for getting about the countryside.^110 Benecke thinks
that these animals were imported from Anatolia, on the basis of metrical
comparisons with some north-west Anatolian examples (although there
were no horses at Troy untilc. 1700 bc). The domesticated horse isfirst
attested in Mesopotamia and the Levant in the third millenniumbc.At
present the range of data sets within the whole region of western Asia is
still unsatisfactory for a more precise model of the wider process of
domestication, particularly in view of the genetic history of domesticated
horses in Eurasia. Justin reports the incident in which Philip II brought
20,000 mares from his campaign against the Scythian king Atheas back
to Macedonia specifically for breeding purposes (9.2.16). This explains
how complex genetic patterns actually emerged.
Much of what we know about horses of thefirst millenniumbcin the
north Aegean comes from artefacts—coin obverses, funerary reliefs,
painted images, and statuettes offer various facets of the everyday and
the symbolic associations of equids and people in the north.^111 The range
of these images testifies to the enormous social importance of horses in
the whole of the north Aegean region. The subject deserves in-depth
study in its own right and I can hardly do justice to it in a brief survey
intended to highlight the economic dimensions of horse ownership. The
climate, humidity, ample provision of rivers, and the availability of
grazing land made the area an excellent one for horse-rearing
(Fig. 4.11). Of the surviving horse skeletons recovered from excavation,
the vast majority have come from burials and only a tiny proportion of
registeredfinds have been subjected to any kind of scientific analysis.
There has been no systematic study of all the available skeletal material
and much of the evidence has yet to be published, even in preliminary
form.^112 Perhaps the most detailed investigation has been applied in the
(^110) Levine 2006; Kirklareli-Kanligeçit: Benecke 2006.
(^111) See e.g. Prestianni-Giallombardo and Tripodi 1996 (Macedonian coin types);
Zhivkova 1973, pls 1, 11–12, 22–3 (Kazanluk tomb paintings); Curtis and Tallis 2012,
108 – 54 with contemporary Near Eastern examples of Arab-type horses and harness
equipment. 112
Kouzmanov 2005, 143–4, summarizes the data from a wide number of Thracian
burials. He notes that only a few of the specimens analysed exceeded 1.36 m in height
(although the examples from Kaloyanovo, Sveshtari, and Zimnicea certainly exceeded 1.4 m;
cf. Archibald 1998, 246–51, 288–97, for detailed discussion of contexts. Kouzmanov also
184 Thelongue duréein the north Aegean