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4,300-Year-Old Horse Sculpture Found in Syria

The recent discovery of a 4,300-year-old clay horse figurine may push back the emergence of the domesticated horse by centuries and may signal that this arrival played a more important role in the ancient Near East than was previously thought. In September 1992, members of a University of Chicago expedition in Syria, led by archaeologist Thomas Holland, uncovered the figurine in an excavation trench at Tell Es-Sweyhat, a site about 200 miles northeast of Damascus.

The 5-inch-long, 3-inch-high figurine—the oldest known sculpture of a domesticated horse—probably dates to 2300 B.C. Most scholars believe that the earliest horse domestication developed sometime after 4000 B.C. among nomads in the Eurasian steppes (present-day southern Russia) but that it was not introduced to the Near East until the late third millennium B.C.

The precise details of the figurine suggest that the horse was well regarded. Its mane, ears and genitals were carefully modeled with fine, applied strips of clay. A hole bored through the horse’s muzzle, where a ring could be placed to hold reins, indicates that the sculpture was modeled after a domesticated horse that may have drawn a chariot. The discovery, at the site, of several model chariots, dated to the same period as the figurine, supports this idea. Although its purpose is uncertain, Holland believes the figurine—found in a large courtyard of a public-building complex—may have served as a cultic figure to ensure fertility among horses used for breeding.