Dario recomends a novel of prehistory and then the Maykop culture horse

 Salvete Omnes,

so we have this brand new year, whatever... but life and Old Man Time are relentless in their going, so many thousand years ago Heraclitus of Ephesus cleverly stated - panta rhei... and some other sentences worth pondering. 
My new drawing tablet has not arrived before the end of the last year, so I am looking forward to get it this year, fingers crossed.
Ad rem, the recommendation -

yesterday I finished reading a 'historical fantasy' novel by a British writer Dan Davis and it was a very enjoyable 'ride' into the Eurasian steppe some 5000 years ago, especially since his fictional story is so  deeply immersed into the Yamnaya and other prehistoric cultures of our Eastern  Europe, but also is based on the ancient Greek and other Indo-European mythology, including mu most favorite Greek mythology hero - Heracles.
The story titled Godborn is already the second novel in his Gods of Bronze series, and I am looking forward to read the next installment sometime this year (so many books and articles to read, especially on academia,edu and archive.org and other research and internet libraries).

And the same author Dan Davies has a channel on YT, and there you can find many interesting presentations , and one of them is this presentation on the Maykop culture in the Kuban steppe (3,700-3000 BC) and North Caucasus reaching south to the Kura River (and Kura-Araxes culture) and Transcaucasia; so the Maykop  existed along the Yamnaya culture in the north, including also a  separate cultural 'fusion' known in Russian archaeology as Novotitorovskaya culture (very interesting wagons that have been discovered all over the area and more about them in the future). Meantime in the south, in today's Iraq there was Uruk and the flowering of the Summerian culture   (rather known via school education and multiple museum collections).

Enjoy Dan's presentation and his novels (but be forewarned that his book covers for the Gods of Bronze are pure fantasy) - note that is basically based on David Anthony's book The Horse, the Wheel et al. - which is great and it shows that our author is doing his research and is versed in the subject quite deeply. Congrats! (obviously also Mallory  and others).
Nota bene from the Maykop kurgan (of the Mykop culture) comes probably the oldest image of the horse of the post-glacial period in human history.

from one of the most influential Soviet and Russian archaeologists  Svetlana Alexandrovna Pletnieva's book on the cultural treasures from the Hermitage museum comes this photo of the metal(silver) vessel with a horse- above, and a drawing showing the horse with other animals (you could watch Dan's video presentation for details or read dr Anthony's chapter on the Maykop chief/king burial) from the vessel itself.

and one of the bulls from the burial. 

Valete

Franz Roubaud - Caucasus equestrian

Salvete Omnes,

Franz Roubaud - when young a disciple and later member  of Jozef Brandt's circle of painters in Munich, Bavarian Kingdom - was a prolific Russian painter.
Perhaps most famous for his Borodino 1812 Panorama project, he was a prolific equestrian painter, especially painting the Caucasus Mountains region and the ancient peoples who lived and fought and bred horses there.

From Wiki Commons gallery we can get good quality images of maestro Roubaud's canvases depicting the horse people of the most mysterious mountains that divide Asia and Europe in the south.

Valete

Shota Rustavelli - Knight in Panther's Skin in Georgian XVIIc miniatures

 Salvete Omnes,
it has been some time since  I read Shota Rustavelli's Vephkhistqaosani (English- The Knight in the Panther's Skin; in Polish the title is translated beautifully as 'Witeź w tygrysiej skórze' ) and looking at the Wiki Commons I find a nice gallery of different illustrations to the Georgian XII century epic.
Below poet Shota Rustavelli as imagined by the artist 
-
I have never been to Georgia in the Caucasus, perhaps one day, but I like their national epic, and the music of various Georgian Karvelian ethnic groups (nota bene there is the Kartvelian Laz - albeit Muslim - population in Turkey, but they mostly lost their language and culture during the last century).
The epic is still important for the Georgians, as some of the articles on academia seem to suggest and underline. 

 The XVII century artist Mamuka Tavaqarashvili painted illustrations for a copy of manuscript in AD 1646, when he was at the court of mtavri  Levan II Dadiani, ruler of Mingrelia ( Christian Georgian principality).
the illuminations show accurate weaponry, armor, and horse tack and many other aspects of the Georgian life during the XVII century.
You can read the epic work directly from the net - eg  here.
 
This 1912 translation was done by Marjory Scott Wardrop.
some of the plates showing horses and warriors


 

 
 

 

 

Valete,

ps
There is a very important academic researcher from the present Georgia Mamuka Tsutsurmia, whose research  on the Medieval warfare in context of Georgia etc can be read on academia. eg the articles on the so called Krakow Wawel Castle helmet (first & second).