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These recent photos show me experimenting with a Roman four-horn saddle. The Romans got this from the Parthians and the Parthians, of course, were famed as horse-archers. I am indebted to my friend Scott Thomas for the loan of his magnificent saddle. (Scott is not only my farrier, he is also a former winner of ‘Forged in Fire’ and a superb bladesmith.) Also huge thanks and plaudits go to my wife, Kim Hawkins, for her wonderful photography.

I was fascinated to discover that it was perfectly straightforward and intuitive to lean into the front horns and that this lifted one’s seat clear of the saddle just as much as does standing in the stirrups, thus enabling one’s hips to act as shock absorbers and so remove the bounce of the horse from the moment of shooting. QED stirrups were not the game-changing invention that suddenly allowed horse-archers to shoot from this position, as is so often proposed. They undoubtedly help in getting into an even better and more stable shooting position and in allowing the body to recruit the muscles of the legs, as well as the entire rest of the body into the draw (assuming a similar posture to the infantry heavy bow shooter or the weightlifter, with an angled pelvis) and so enabling the shooting of ever heavier bows. They were also a boon in getting onto horses, as they gradually evolved into taller animals. My arrival into this four-horned saddle was an inelegant affair involving a teetering step-ladder – my advanced years appear to have stolen my erstwhile springiness. Stirrups also make endurance riding less tiring but they were certainly not a pre-requisite either for horse-archers or for the style of riding that modern equestrians refer to as two-point.

Evidence for the four-horn saddle in use by the Parthians is to be found on the stone carving of a Parthian horse-archer, now in the Museum für Islamisches Kunst in Berlin, which is on page 55 of my book The Composite Bow. Here we see the rider leaning forward at a distinctive angle, the same angle that we would expect for someone in two-point. However the artist has not raised the rioder’s seat from the saddle. This may be for structural reasons with the stone. It may be that the artist got this detail wrong. It may be that artist assumed that the action of the horse would be better accommodated with the rider snug against the rear horns – the horse is leaping forward as if pouncing on prey. This imagery of military horses leaping forward in the same way as predator animals, like lions, leap on their prey is common in ancient art – it is a trope. Of course horses do not move like this – it is a metaphor for attacking one’s enemies. The closest a horse gets to this position is in jumping BUT in jumping the front legs are folded.

Some may baulk that I take art evidence to propose a point and then selectively excuse a small element of the piece that doesn’t fit with my theory. It may be fair criticism. However, the leaping horse IS an artistic convention in early military art and as such is not representative of a natural action. That does not mean we cannot take other clues, such as the arrows in the bow-hand, the rider’s posture and the style of bow at face value.

Observant readers will have noted that I am using a Scythian style bow in the above photos. It is a replica, using modern materials, from Attila Archery (finished with birch bark by my friend David Wright). The limbs are considerably wider than on a traditional horn and sinew Scythian bow, which they have to be for technical reasons but the profile shape is very close. It is a joy to shoot.

What I hope to do next (time and life permitting) is to make a Scythian-style saddle. Plenty of evidence exists for them. They are basically pad saddles but they do have four projections (using either bone or wood) which are similar to the four horns of the Parthian/Roman version. The projections on the Scythian saddle are smaller and at slightly different angles and so I do not know for sure it will work in the same way but it will be interesting to find out. Also interesting to experiment with a lance as to how the rear projections help one sit into an impact.

There are two man styles of horse-archers today. Those who ride, elevated from the saddle (in a forward leaning two-point seat) in order to shoot and those who sit rooted to the saddle while they shoot. The sit-tight brigade tend to be in the USA, where they ride in the Western (cowboy) tradition in Western saddles. Many of them are very good indeed, when it comes to scoring. Of course you don’t need to have either correct or beautiful form to be good at archery – you just have to have unfailingly consistent form. It is possible to shoot a bow from a horse with either system. Those who have a traditional horse-archery culture – Turkey, Iran, Poland etc almost exclusively ride with the two-point seat and that, to my mind is where the most thrilling horse-archery is taking place today. It follows the historical model and the two-point position removes a lot of the motion of the horse from the shot and enables the archer to recruit the muscles of his whole body into drawing the bow – not least of all assisting him to draw it more quickly. The sedentary rider must depend on the strength of his arms alone.

It has been a question on my mind whether or not horse-archers lifted themselves from the saddle to shoot before the development of stirrups. These initial trials demonstrate that it was possible.

I am giving a lecture on the Scythians at the British Museum on November 4th. It is my hope that I will have had a chance to work with a Scythian saddle before then but time is a commodity in short supply in my busy life. I’m currently on a plane, en route to the Ukraine (via London) to do some Egyptian chariot-archery for German television. ... See MoreSee Less

15 hours ago  ·  

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