Comparative Notes on Hurro-Urartian, Northern Caucasian

These unique signs of the economic and cultural role of the horse in the northern
part of the Mesopotamian area on the border of Asia Minor can be compared to the
previously discovered much earlier figurines interpreted by some archaeologists as
images of the harnessed horse from the Balkanic area in the northwestern part of the
Circumpontic zone 119 , as well as to similar figurines of horses in the Volga region of the
IV mil. B.C. 120 Statuettes and vase drawings of horses and other signs of their
importance as well as their bones are found in Mesopotamia (in Hafadzh, near
Baghdad), Elam (Susa) and adjoining areas of Iran. 121 But it is generally supposed that
the horse penetrated into these more southern areas after its domestication in the
northern Eurasian steppes. Chronologically close to the Near Eastern traces of a
domesticated horse are bones of horses from Asia Minor of the Bronze Age period. 122
For a comparison with the Mozan/Urkesh discoveries, data on the neighboring Nor un
Tepe of a much earlier age 123 as well as on other places in Anatolia seem particularly
interesting: Demirci Hüyük 124 and YarIkkaya, where the horse appears in the second
half of the IV mil. B.C. From this point of view it is interesting to compare data pointing
to the early spread of horses in the Transcaucasian area, particularly adjacent Armenia
(ancient Hajasa and Urartu) 125 ; the earliest trace of the horse in Georgia comes from
Kvacxelebi in the very beginning of the III mil. B.C. 126
The domestication of the horse (as well as its earlier use in cultic practice, which is
not easily distinguishable from its later domestication on the basis of archaeological
traces) is supposed by many scholars to have begun in the IV mil. B.C. (perhaps even
earlier in the V mil. or at least at the cusp of the V mil. B.C.). The Caucasian Caspian
119 Gheorghiu 1993; 1994 with references. The zoological interpretation of some figurines of quadrupeds
(cf. for instance an item from Gavra-VI: fig. 109 in Childe 1950, 215) is not always clear.
120 Kuz’mina 1996, n.63 (detailed references).
121 Noettes 1931; Hermes 1936a; 1936b; Potratz 1938; Wiesner 1939; HanÇar 1955; Hänsel and Zimmer
1994.
122 Bökönyi 1978, 54; Piggott 1979, 10; 1983; Mellaart 1981.
123 Zarins 1979, 60.
124 Rauh 1981; cf. Boessneck and Driesch 1976; Bökönyi 1978, 54-55 (discussion of the possibility of
domesticated horses).
125 Mezhlumjan 1965 (with a suggestion for the domesticated character of the horse from the neolithic
village of Shengevit); Esajan 1966, 119; 1994; Levine 1990, 731.
126 Kushnareva and Chubanishvili 1970, 110.