Bioarchaeology of the Near East, 19:35-40 (2025)

A critical note on the identification of horses in third-millennium BCE Mesopotamian iconography

Zainab A. Albshir
Faculty of Archaeology, University of Warsaw,
ul. Krakowskie Przedmieście 26/28, 00-927 Warsaw, Poland
email: z.albshir@uw.edu.pl

Abstract: This note reassesses claims that certain late third-millennium BCE Mesopotamian cylinder seals depict horses. The highly schematic rendering of these impressions limits the reliability of taxonomic identification, and their anatomical features may align also with kunga, the hybrid equids produced by mating domestic donkeys with Syrian wild asses. Contemporary cuneiform sources describe kunga as prestigious draught animals, and there is abundant evidence confirming their intentional breeding during this period. Zooarchaeological data indicate that securely identified horse remains are absent from southern Mesopotamia before the early second millennium BCE, and the earliest confirmed specimens derive from northern Mesopotamia. Taken together, these lines of evidence suggest that the late third-millennium seal impressions cannot be securely interpreted as the representations of true horses and should be also considered as depictions of other equids.

Key words: horse domestication; cylinder seals; kunga; zooarchaeology

https://doi.org/10.47888/bne-1903 | Received 12 September 2025; accepted 22 December 2025; published online 28 December 2025.

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