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A Pair of Horse Bits of the Second Millennium B.C. from Iraq

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

M. A. Littauer  and
J. H. Crouwel
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Extract

This note concerns a pair of copper/bronze horse bits from recent excavations at Tell al-Haddad, a site in the region of the Hamrin Dam project in eastern Iraq. The bits were found in 1980 by Iraqi archaeologists in the course of the removal of a grave belonging to a modern cemetery that covered the whole of the mound. Nothing was found with the bits to fix their date, but pottery described by the excavators as Kassite was found over the tell, below the surface, but above Old Babylonian levels. The bits were assigned to the Kassite period.

The nearly identical bits clearly form a pair and show no sign of wear. They have solid bar mouthpieces and circular cheekpieces (Fig. 1; Plate XIIa). The mouthpieces (overall L.: c. 0·227 m, within cheekpieces: c. 0·168 m) are round in section and relatively thick (0·011 m). Their ends pass through the centres of the cheekpieces and are hammered out flat and rolled back on themselves, forming small loops that may have carried rings for the attachment of the reins.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 50 , 1988 , pp. 169 - 171
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1988

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References

1 For this site, see Hanoon, Na'il, Sumer 40:1-2 (1984), 70 f.Google Scholar; also Iraq 43 (1981), 177 f.Google Scholar; Iraq 47 (1985), 220 f.Google Scholar (with bibliography). From textual evidence it seems clear that Tell al-Haddad, along with two mounds at neighbouring al-Sib, was called Me-Turan in the Old Babylonian period and Me-Turnat in Neo-Assyrian times.

2 The preliminary report in Sumer 40:1-2 (1984)Google Scholar is slightly inaccurate in that the bronzes shown on p. 79, Fig. 21 do not come from Old Babylonian tombs at al-Sib but represent a selection of objects from this site and Tell al-Haddad.

3 See Potratz, J. A. H., Die Pferdetrensen des alten Orient (Roma, 1966; hereafter Potratz 1966), 110 ff.Google Scholar (type 2); Littauer, M. A. and Crouwel, J. H., Wheeled vehicles and ridden animals in the ancient Near East (Leiden-Köln, 1979; hereafter Littauer and Crouwel 1979), 86ff.Google Scholar (type 1). Published material assembled in Littauer and Crouwel, , Levant 18 (1986), 164, n. 5.Google Scholar

4 Littauer, and Crouwel, , Levant 14 (1982), 178 with Pl. XVIICrossRefGoogle Scholar (Jerusalem) and Levant 18 (1986). 163 ff. with Pls. XLII and XLIII (New York bit)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Potratz 1966, 112 nos. 10–11 with Pls. 118–119 (“Luristan” bits).

5 Littauer, and Crouwel, , Levant 18 (1986), 163 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Potratz 1966, Pl. 118 (British Museum).

6 See amongst others Littauer and Crouwel 1979, 118 f.; Potratz 1966, 107, 138 ff.; Moorey, P. R. S., Catalogue of the ancient Persian bronzes in the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford, 1971; hereafter Moorey 1971), 106 ff.Google Scholar

7 Bittel, K., Istanbuler Mitteilungen 25 (1975), 303 ff.Google Scholar with Figs. 3–5 and Pl. 56.

8 It should be noted that “Luristan” bits with circular cheekpieces were already attributed to the 2nd rather than to the 1st millennium B.c. by Moorey 1971, 110, because of their similarity to bits from the Levant.

9 See Littauer and Crouwel 1979, 90 ff.

10 See Littauer, and Crouwel, , Levant 18 (1986), 166CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Littauer, , Antiquity 43 (1969), 289 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Borchardt, L., MDOG 50 (1912), 35 ff. with Fig. 26–27Google Scholar = Potratz 1966, Pl. 115.