The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders From the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World

by David W. Anthony

  Figure 16.3 Early images of men riding equids in the Near East and Central Asia: (top) Akkadian seal impression from Kish, 2350–2200 BCE (after Buchanan 1966); (middle) seal impression of the BMAC from a looted grave in Afghanistan, 2100–1800 BCE (after Sarianidi 1986); (bottom) Ur III seal impression of Abbakalla, animal disburser for king Shu-Sin, 2050–2040 BCE (after Owen 1991).

  Akkadian armies and trade networks reached far and wide, but inside Akkad was an enemy it could not conquer with arms: crop failure. During the Akkadian era the climate became cooler and drier, and the agricultural economy of the empire suffered. Harvey Weiss of Yale has argued that some northern Akkadian cities were entirely abandoned, and their populations might have moved south into the irrigated floodplains of southern Mesopotamia.4 The Gutians, a coalition of chiefs from the western Iranian uplands (perhaps Azerbaijan?) defeated the Akkadian army and overran the city of Akkad in 2170 BCE. Its ruins have never been found.

  About 2100 BCE the first king of the Third Dynasty of Ur, even then an ancient Sumerian city in what is now southern Iraq, expelled the Gutians and reestablished the power of southern Mesopotamia. The brief Ur III period, 2100–2000 BCE, was the last time that Sumerian, the language of the first cities, was a language of royal administration. A century of bitter wars erupted between the Sumerian Ur III kings and the Elamite city-states of the Iranian plateau, occasionally interrupted by negotiations and marriage exchanges. King Shu-Sin of Ur bragged that he conquered a path across Elam and through Shimashki until his armies finally were stopped only by the Caspian Sea.

  During this period of struggle and empire, 2100–2000 BCE, the bones of horses appeared for the first time at important sites on the Iranian plateau such as the large city of Malyan in Fars and the fortified administrative center at Godin Tepe in western Iran. Bit wear made with a hard bit, probably metal, appeared on the teeth of some of the equids (both mules and horses) from Malyan. Excavated by Bill Sumner and brought by Mindy Zeder to the collections of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. these teeth were the first archaeological specimens that we examined when we started our bit wear project in 1985. Now we know what then we only suspected: the horses and mules of the Kaftari phase at Malyan were bitted with hard bits. Bits were a new technology for controlling equids in Iran, different from the lip- and noserings that had appeared before this in Mesopotamian works of art. Of course bits and bit-wear were very old in the steppes by 2000 BCE.5

  Horses also appeared in significant numbers in the cities of Mesopotamia for the first time during the Ur III period; this was when the word for horse first appeared in written records. It meant “ass of the mountains,” showing that horses were flowing into Mesopotamia from western Iran and eastern Anatolia. The Ur III kings fed horses to lions for exotic entertainment. They did not use horse-drawn chariots, which had not yet appeared in Near Eastern warfare. But they did have solid-wheeled battle wagons and battle carts armed with javelins, pulled by teams of their smaller native equids—asses, which were manageable but small, and onagers or hemiones, which were almost untamable but larger. Ass-onager hybrids probably pulled Sumerian battle carts and battle wagons. Horses could have been used initially as breeding stock to make a larger, stronger ass-horse hybrid—a mule. Mules were bitted at Malyan.

  The Sumerians recognized in horses an arched-neck pride that asses and onagers simply did not possess. King Shulgi compared himself in one inscription to “a horse of the highway that swishes his tail.” We are not sure exactly what horses were doing on Ur III highways, but a seal impression of one Abbakalla, the royal animal disburser for king Shu-Sin, showed a man riding a galloping equid that looks like a horse (see figure 16.3).6 Ceramic figurines of the same age showed humans astride schematic animals that have equine proportions; and ceramic plaques dated at the time of Ur III or just afterward showed men astride equids that probably were horses, some riding in awkward poses on the rump and others in more natural forward seats. No Ur III images showed a chariot, so the first clear images of horses in Mesopotamia show men riding them.7

  About 2000 BCE an Elamite and Shimashki alliance defeated the last of the Ur III kings, Ibbi-Sin, and dragged him to Elam in chains. After this stunning event the kings of Elam and Shimashki played a controlling role in Mesopotamian politics for several centuries. Between 2000 and 1700 BCE the power, independence, and wealth of the Old Elamite (Malyan) and Shimashkian (Hissar? Godin?) overlords of the Iranian plateau was at its height. The treaties they negotiated for the Ur III wars were sealed by gifts and trade agreements that channeled lapis lazuli, carved steatite vessels, copper, tin, and horses from one prince to another. The Sintashta culture appeared at just the same time, but showed up 2000 km to the north in the remote grasslands of the Ural-Tobol steppes. The metal trade and the horse trade might have tied the two worlds together. Could the Elamite defeat of Ibbi-Sin have been aided by chariot-driving Sintashta mercenaries from the steppes? It is possible. Vehicles like chariots, with two spoked wheels and a standing driver, but guided by equids with lip- or nose-rings, began to appear on seal images in Anatolia just after the defeat of Ibbi-Sin. They were not yet common, but that was about to change.

  The metal trade might have provided the initial incentive for prospectors to explore across the Central Asian deserts that had previously separated the northern Eurasian steppe cultures from those of Iran. Vast amounts of metal were demanded by Near Eastern merchants during the heyday of the Old Elamite kings. Zimri-Lim, king of the powerful city-state of Mari in northern Syria between 1776 and 1761 BCE, distributed gifts totaling more than 410 kg (905 lb) of tin—not bronze, but tin—to his allies during a single tour in his eighth year. Zimri-Lim also was chided by an adviser for riding a horse in public, an activity still considered insulting to the honor of an Assyrian king:8

  May my lord honor his kingship. You may be the king of the Haneans, but you are also the king of the Akkadians. May my Lord not ride horses; (instead) let him ride either a chariot or kudanu-mule so that he would honor his kingship.

  Zimri-Lim’s advisers accepted the fact that kings could ride in chariots—Near Eastern monarchs had by then ridden in wheeled vehicles of other kinds for more than a thousand years. But only rude barbarians actually rode on the backs of the large, sweaty, smelly animals that pulled them. Horses, in Zimri-Lim’s day, were still exotic animals associated with crude foreigners. A steady supply of horses first began between 2100 and 2000 BCE. Chariots appeared across the Near East after 2000 BCE. How?

  The Tin Trade and the Gateway to the North

  Tin was the most important trade commodity in the Bronze Age Near East. In the palace records of Mari it was said to be worth ten times its weight in silver. A copper-tin alloy was easier for the metal smith to cast, and it made a harder, lighter-colored metal than either pure copper or arsenical bronze, the older alternatives. But the source of Near Eastern tin remains an enigma. Large tin deposits existed in England and Malaysia, but these places were far beyond the reach of Near Eastern traders in the Bronze Age. There were small tin deposits in western Serbia—and a scatter of Old European copper objects from the Danube valley contained elevated tin, perhaps derived from this source—but no ancient mines have been found there. Ancient mines in eastern Anatolia near Goltepe might have supplied a trickle of tin before 2000 BCE, but their proven tin content is very low, and tin was imported at great cost to Anatolia from northern Syria after 2000 BCE. It was imported into northern Syria from somewhere far to the east. The letters of king Zimri-Lim of Mari said flatly that he acquired his tin from Elam, through merchants at Malyan (Anshan) and Susa. An inscription on a statue of Gudea of Lagash, ca. 2100 BCE, was thought to refer to the “tin of Melukkha,” implying that tin came up the Arabian Gulf in ships sent by Harappan merchants; but the passage might have been mistranslated. Intentional tin-bronze alloys occurred in about 30% of the objects tested from the Indus-valley cities of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, although most had such a low tin content (70% of them
had only 1% tin, 99% copper) that it seems the best recipe for tin bronze (8–12% tin, 92–88% copper) was not yet known in Harappa. Still, “Melukkha” could have been one source of Mesopotamian tin. Tin-bronzes have been found in sites in Oman, at the entrance to the Arabian Gulf, in association with imported pottery and beads from Harappa and bone combs and seals made in Bactria. Oman had no tin of its own but could have been a coastal port and trans-shipment point for tin that came from the Indus valley.9

  Where were the tin mines? Could the tin exported by the Elamite kings and by Harappan merchants have come from the same sources? Quite possibly. The most probable sources were in western and northern Afghanistan, where tin ore has been found by modern mineral surveyors, although no ancient mines have been found there, and also in the Zeravshan River valley, where the oldest tin mines in the ancient world have been found near the site of Sarazm. Sarazm also was the portal through which horses, chariots, and steppe cultures first arrived at the edges of Central Asia.

  Sarazm was founded before 3500 BCE (4880±30 BP, 4940±30 BP for phase I) as a northern colony of the Namazga I-II culture. The Namazga home settlements (Namazga, Anau, Altyn-Depe, Geoksur) were farming towns situated on alluvial fans where the rivers that flowed off the Iranian plateau emerged into the Central Asian deserts. Perhaps the lure that enticed Namazga farmers to venture north across the Kara Kum desert to Sarazm was the turquoise that outcropped in the desert near the lower Zeravshan River, a source they could have learned about from Kelteminar foragers. Sarazm probably was founded as a collection point for turquoise. It was situated on the middle Zeravshan more than 100 km upstream from the turquoise deposits at an elevation where the valley was lush and green and crops could be grown. It grew to a large town, eventually covering more than 30 ha (74 acres). Its people were buried with ornaments of turquoise, carnelian, silver, copper, and lapis lazuli. Late Kelteminar pottery was found at Sarazm in its phase II, dated about 3000–2600 BCE (4230 ± 40BP), and turquoise workshops have been found in the late Kelteminar camps of Kaptarnikum and Lyavlyakan in the desert near the lower Zeravshan. Turquoise from the Zeravshan and from a second source near Nishapur in northeastern Iran was traded into Mesopotamia, the Indus valley, and perhaps even to Maikop (the Maikop chieftain was buried with a necklace of turquoise beads). But the Zeravshan also contained polymetallic deposits of copper, lead, silver—and tin.

  Oddly, no tin has been found at Sarazm itself. Crucibles, slag, and smelting furnaces appeared at Sarazm at least as early as the phase III settlement (radiocarbon dated 2400–2000 BCE), probably for processing the rich copper deposits in the Zeravshan valley. Sarazm III yielded a variety of copper knives, daggers, mirrors, fishhooks, awls, and broad-headed pins. Most were made of pure copper, but a few objects contained 1.8–2.7% arsenic, probably an intentional arsenical bronze. Tin-bronzes began to appear in small amounts in the Kopet Dag home region, in Altyn-Depe and Namazga, during the Namazga IV period, equivalent to late Sarazm II and III. A small amount of tin, perhaps just placer minerals retrieved from the river, probably came from the Zeravshan before 2000 BCE, even if we cannot see it at Sarazm.10

  The tin mines of the Zeravshan River valley were found and investigated by N. Boroffka and H. Parzinger between 1997 and 1999.11 Two tin mines with Bronze Age workings were excavated. The largest was in the desert on the lower Zeravshan at Karnab (Uzbekistan), about 170 km west of Sarazm, exploiting cassiterite ores with a moderate tin content—probably ordinarily about 3%, although some samples yielded as much as 22% tin. The pottery and radiocarbon dates show that the Karnab mine was worked by people from the northern steppes, connected with the Andronovo horizon (see below). Dates ranged from 1900 to 1300 BCE (the oldest was Bln 5127, 3476 ± 32 BP, or 1900–1750 BCE; see table 16.1). A few pieces of Namazga V/VI pottery were found in the Andronovo mining camp at Karnab. The other mining complex was at Mushiston in the upper Zeravshan (Tajikistan), just 40 km east of Sarazm, working stannite, cassiterite and copper ores with a very high tin content (maximum 34%). Andronovo miners also left their pottery at Mushiston, where wood beams produced radiocarbon dates as old as Karnab. Sarazm probably was abandoned when these Andronovo mining operations began. Whether the Zeravshan tin mines were worked before the steppe cultures arrived is unknown.

  Sarazm probably was abandoned around 2000 BCE, just at the Namazga V/VI transition. On the lower Zeravshan, the smaller villages of the Zaman Baba culture probably were abandoned about the same time as Sarazm.12 The Zaman Baba culture had established small villages of pit-houses supported by irrigation agriculture in the large oasis in the lower Zeravshan delta just a couple of centuries earlier. Zaman Baba and Sarazm were abandoned when people from the northern steppes arrived in the Zeravshan.13

  Sarazm exported both copper and turquoise southward during the Akkadian and Ur III periods. Could it have pulled steppe copper miners and horse traders into the chain of supply for the urban trade? Could that explain the sudden intensification of copper production in Sintashta settlements and the simultaneous appearance of horses in Iran and Mesopotamia beginning about 2100 BCE? The answer lies among the ruins of walled cities in Central Asia south of Sarazm, cities that interacted with the cultures of the northern steppes before the Andronovo tin miners appeared on the Zeravshan frontier.

  THE BACTRIA-MARGIANA ARCHAEOLOGICAL COMPLEX

  Around 2100 BCE a substantial population colonized the Murgab River delta north of the Iranian plateau. The Murgab River flowed down from the mountains of western Afghanistan, snaked across 180 km of desert, then fanned out into the sands, dropping deep loads of silt and creating a fertile island of vegetation about 80 by 100 km in size. This was Margiana, a region that quickly became and remained one of the richest oases in Central Asia. The immigrants built new walled towns, temples, and palaces (Gonur, Togolok) on virgin soil during the late Namazga V period, at the end of the regional Middle Bronze Age (figure 16.4). They might have been escaping from the military conflicts that raged periodically across the Iranian plateau, or they might have relocated to a larger river system with more reliable flows in a period of intensifying drought. Anthropological studies of their skeletons show that they came from the Iranian plateau, and their pottery types seem to have been derived from the Namazga V-type towns of the Kopet Dag.14

  The colonization phase in Margiana, 2100–2000 BCE, was followed by a much richer period, 2000–1800 BCE, during Namazga VI, the beginning of the regional Late Bronze Age. New walled towns now spread to the upper Amu Darya valley, ancient Bactria, where Sapalli-Tepe, Dashly-3, and Djarkutan were erected on virgin soil. The towns of Bactria and Margiana shared a distinctive set of seal types, architectural styles, brick-lined tomb types, and pottery. The LBA civilization of Bactria and Margiana is called the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC). The irrigated countryside was dominated by large towns surrounded by thick yellow-brick walls with narrow gates and high corner towers. At the center of the larger towns were walled palaces or citadels that contained temples. The brick houses and streets of Djarkutan covered almost 100 ha, commanded by a high-walled citadel about 100 by 100 m. Local lords ruled from smaller strongholds such as Togolok 1, just .5 ha (1.2 acres) in size but heavily walled with large corner turrets. Trade and crafts flourished in the crowded houses and alleys of these Central Asian walled towns and fortresses. Their rulers had relations with the civilizations of Mesopotamia, Elam, Harappa, and the Arabian Gulf.

  TABLE 16.1

  Selected Radiocarbon Dates from Earlier Late Bronze Age Cultures in the Steppes

  Between 2000 and 1800 BCE, BMAC styles and exported objects (notably small jars made of carved steatite) appeared in many sites and cemeteries across the Iranian plateau. Crested axes like those of the BMAC appeared at Shadad and other sites in eastern and central Iran. A cemetery at Mehrgarh VIII in Baluchistan, on the border between the Harappan and Elamite civilizations, contained so many BMAC artifacts that it suggests an actual movement of BMAC people into Baluchistan. BMAC-style sealings,
ivory combs, steatite vessels, and pottery goblets appeared in the Arabian Gulf from Umm-al-Nar on the Oman peninsula up the Arabian coast to Falaika island in Kuwait. Beadmakers in BMAC towns used shells obtained from both the Indian Ocean (Engina medicaria, Lambis truncate sebae) and the Mediterranean Sea (Nassarius gibbosulus), as well as steatite, alabaster, lapis lazuli, turquoise, silver, and gold.15

  Figure 16.4 Three walled towns of the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) in Central Asia, 2100–1800 BCE. Wall foundations of the central circular citadel/temple and town at Dashly 3, Bactria (after Sarianidi 1977, figure 13); wall foundations at Gonur Depe, Margiana (combined from Hiebert 1994; and Sarianidi 1995); wall foundations and artist’s reconstruction of Togolok 21, Margiana (after Hiebert 1994; and Sarianidi 1987).

  The metalsmiths of the BMAC made beautiful objects of bronze, lead, silver, and gold. They cast delicate metal figures by the lost-wax process, which made it possible to cast very detailed metal objects. They made crested bronze shaft-hole axes with distinctive down-curved blades, tanged daggers, mirrors, pins decorated with cast animal and human figures, and a variety of distinctive metal compartmented seals (figure 16.5). The metals used in the first colonization period, late Namazga V, were unalloyed copper, arsenical bronze, and a copper-lead alloy with up to 8–10% lead.

  About 2000 BCE, during the Namazga VI/BMAC period, tin-bronze suddenly appeared prominently in sites of the BMAC. Tin-bronzes were common at two BMAC sites, Sapalli and Djarkutan, reaching more than 50% of objects, although at neighboring Dashly-3, also in Bactria, tin-bronzes were just 9% of metal objects. Tin-bronzes were rare in Margiana (less than 10% of metal objects at Gonur, none at all at Togolok). Tinbronze was abundant only in Bactria, closer to the Zeravshan. It looks like the tin mines of the Zeravshan were established or greatly expanded at the beginning of the mature BMAC period, about 2000 BCE.16