The Glorious Horses, Evolution of horse in Indo-Iranian, before and after migration

Mousavi, Seyed Mehdi; Aryamanesh, Shahin

doi:10.30465/shc.2019.24377.1870

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

¹ Associate professor of Archaeology in Tarbiyat Modarres University

² Phd of Archaeology, Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, Tissaphernes Archaeological Research Group

https://doi.org/10.30465/shc.2019.24377.1870

Abstract

We know that the horse had high position in the indo-Iranian tribes and played a very important role in the indo-Iranian tribes. This high position of horse reflected in Iranian and Indian sacred text such as Avesta and Vedas. These reflections are seen both in old texts such as Rigveda of Vedas and Yasht in Avesta and latest pahlavi texts such as Bundahishn and Minooye Kherad. Moreover, in Scythians tribes horse had Great importance. In the ancient era, some of cultural features of each tribe were important. Scythians had a special funeral ceremony for dead Kings those reflected in Herodotus history. They had buried those kings with horse, golden and silver and bronze goods and other things. This funeral ceremony reflected in ancient graves of Scythians sites. Nevertheless, the horse's position as a magnificent, glorious, Venerable and respectable beast is transformed in the long run. Authors in this research, at first review horse position in Iranian and Indian sacred text and then based on Cultural materialism theory that introduced by Marvin Harris, pay attention to the evolution of the ritual, economic and practical status of the horse for the Indo-Iranian people and examine and explain the changes the position of the horse after Indo-Iranian migration and we showed how the horse is gradually losing its ritual role and only its warring role had remained.

Keywords

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The Glorious Horses, Evolution of horse in Indo-Iranian, before and after migration

References

References

Volume 9, Issue 1 - Serial Number 17
September 2019
Pages 297-319

The Glorious Horses, Evolution of horse in Indo-Iranian, before and after migration

References

References

Volume 9, Issue 1 - Serial Number 17September 2019Pages 297-319

Volume 9, Issue 1 - Serial Number 17
September 2019
Pages 297-319