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ByBraden Phillips
Published January 4, 2024
• 5 min read
As early as 2,700 years ago, a herdswoman who lived in the arid stretches of northwest China was buried in a coat made of animal hides, woolen pants, and leather boots. Dressed to ride, she was also buried with her leather saddle.
Found in the Yanghai cemetery near Turpan and dated to between 700 and 400 B.C., this saddle, the oldest yet found, challenges assumptions about who was using such gear, and for what purpose.
The find was “a surprise,” according to Patrick Wertmann of the University of Zurich, lead author of a study of the saddle, published in Archaeological Research in Asia. Saddle finds are rare, as their organic components often decay. Other kinds of horse gear, such as bridles and bits, are more commonly found, but they do not necessarily indicate saddle usage.
First saddles?
Until the Yanghai find, the oldest known saddles belonged to the Pazyryk culture, centered on the Altay area of Kazakhstan and Russia to the north of Yanghai and Turpan. Although the Pazyryk saddles have been indirectly dated to the fifth century B.C., Wertmann considered that the Pazyryk culture pioneered saddle use centuries earlier.
“Horse riding was probably introduced to northwest China from the [Pazyryk] region, and it’s possible that saddles also arrived that way,” he said. However, until such earlier specimens are found (or the fifth-century B.C. saddles are redated and found to be older), the Yanghai saddle is considered to be the world’s oldest yet recovered.
(Domestic horses’ mysterious origins may finally be revealed: southern Russia.)
Comfortable seats
Preserved by the region’s arid climate, the Yanghai saddle offers rich insights into early horse-riding technology and the society that created it. Its two wing-shaped hides, filled with a mixture of straw, deer hair, and camel hair, were sewn together along the outer edges and separated by a section without stuffing (known as the gullet), which eased the pressure on the horse’s spine.
(See the stunning photo of a nomadic Kazakh eagle hunter on horseback.)
The emergence of such designs reveals “the increasing care about the comfort and safety of the rider, and the health of the horse,” said Wertmann. Greater comfort made it possible to travel longer distances, increasing interaction with different people. “Unlike the younger finds from the elite Scythian burials, this early saddle was made from inexpensive materials and used by a common woman,” Wertmann’s study notes. “Yet it is testimony to the same mastery of craftsmanship.”
When people began to ride horses and when they began to use saddles are much debated topics. One study suggests horseback riding originated in what is today Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary around 3000 B.C. In the centuries before the saddle emerged, horse riders rode bareback or sat on mats or blankets.
(Meet the wife of Genghis Khan, who ruled an empire defined by horses.)
The Yanghai saddle also shakes assumptions that horse-riding saddles were used solely by men for military purposes. “The discovery of this saddle inside the tomb of a woman suggests that women participated in the everyday activities of mounted pastoralists, which included herding and traveling,” said Wertmann.
Equine Artworks
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Horses and riders are popular subjects in ancient Chinese art. Two of the oldest are bronze horses from 1191–1148 B.C., wearing simple mats rather than saddles. A bronze mirror dating from 770 to 256 B.C. features a decorative rider on a horse with a saddle similar to the one found at Yanghai. The saddles on the famous Qin dynasty terra-cotta cavalry horses (246 to 208 B.C.) are more sophisticated, resembling Scythian design. Perhaps the most famous—and colorful—are the figurines made during the Tang dynasty (A.D. 618-907). By this time, saddle blankets and stirrups often appear, as shown here.
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