Taldy 2: Saka of Saryarka

Salve,
summer upon us, and I have been travelling and found no way to post  anything; all right, perhaps it is the sun and rain duo that has been fiercely lashing us... and strawberries season, straight from the strawberry bushes :)
Ad rem, there is a very nice article at the Karagandy Oblast Museum website on the Saka;
 and could not stop myself from copying the picture of the reconstructed Saka and his horse onto my blog. Obviously all copyrights to this image lay with the Museum etc

All of us who are interested in the history of horsemanship and horse tack, the reconstruction of the Saka King horse's bridle and reins should be most interesting , because it shows the third rein and its attachment (naturally leather, since the Saka were cattle herders and horse breeders and tanned leather as well as rawhide were most likely plentiful ). Also note the way the throatlatch is arranged in a similar fashion to the  the way we saw it portrayed in the Achaemenid stone reliefs of Persepolis Apadana -

Also this photo shows a little bit of the saddle. Looking at the horse: it is a very fine specimen, similar to the tall ones discovered in the Saka Kurgans of Pazyryk in the Ukok Plateau, Altai Mountains, and portrayed in the felt carpet discovered by S. I. Rudenko's team  in the Pazyryk Kurgan.

Museum Website