Two Greek pottery painters - their chariot horses

 Salvete Omnes,

two VI [6th] century BC painters from the ancient Greek world - in the theme of Iliad 

Exekias  -  the pottery from the MET.

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Painter of the Vatican Mourner -

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Valete

Beauty from Getty Museum - Homer's Iliad horse-stealing episode

 Salvete Omnes, 

today we have the last day of July 2026, time flies or as ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus said - panta rhei. 

While another ancient Greek - Homer - and his compositions - the Iliad and the Odyssey - have been with our culture for close to 3,000 years, inspiring countless writers, painters, sculptors and film makers - eg the latest Nolan's film.

So our horse-related image comes from the Iliad milieu, but from the  early Archaic period of the ancient Greek history & art,  as it shows Odysseus and Diomedes' infiltration the Thracian camp, the Trojan allies, at Troy in order to steal their famous horses ("huge of size, a wonder to behold'' or -  ''His[Rheos] be verily the fairest horses that ever I saw, and the greatest, whiter than snow, and in speed like the winds.'). Odysseus slays (of honey-sweet life) Rhesos/Rhesus, a Thracian king, and 12 other sleepingThracian warriors. - Book X of Iliad,

Murray's translation

Here you can read the description from Getty Collections webpage - where the amphora's photos are available for study. The authorship has been attributed to Inscription Painters (Chalcidician style) from Rhegion, Southern Italy (then so called Magna Graecia due to the Greek colonization and settlement) 

the amazingly well portrayed white stallion 

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the act of killing of king Rhesos you can also study from the Wiki Commons page, where horse side of the amphora does not appear. Note that Odysseus is carrying a bow and arrows in a quiver slung on his back.

Valete

1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed - videos

salve,
Let us pivot a bit from Central Europe and our early modern warrior-cavalryman winged hussar  to the eastern Mediterranean, into the world of the great Bronze Age civilizations that around 1200 BC collapsed suddenly under the might of many factors that apparently overcame  them at once, or how it appears to have taken place according to the researchers.

Naturally I have a lot of interest in the Bronze Age civilization and studied it a bit at the university, especially interesting is the moment in history when we see the  arrival of the chariot and horse in the eastern and southern Mediterranean states like Egypt, Canaan, Anatolia and so on around XVII century BC.
The collapse of the Bronze Age civilisation [here a short entry from the Ancient Warfare magazine ] is very intriguing.
I am most interested in the Indo-Europeans: for obvious reasons the people who domesticated the horse, invented two-wheel chariotry and trained horses for war and hunt.

the Hittites, [there are two short  studies on their military - Hittite Warrior, and Hittite Fortifications 1650-700], and the Bible History Daily has this article on the last days of Hattusa.

and proto-Greeks also known as

the Mycenaeans (study of their citadels Mycenaean Citadels c. 1350-1200 BC and another study about Troy's fortifications)
and Sea Peoples,

Egyptians and their New Kingdom are also of great interest to me as well, their horses and chariotry especially - short study on their military here - with great Angus McBride plates, also there is a much better book on the New Kingdom's military.

 Also the Canaanites and Minoans hold my interest, the Mionoans famous for the Minotaur myth and the bull dancers (and their figurative art in general)

  since they all had much developed horse culture  and chariotry.
There is this rather very weak study of the Bronze Age chariotry.
Previously I have read Robert Drews' books on the subject
* The End of The Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe ca. 1200 B.C [a review by D. Gill ]
* The Coming Of The Greeks: Indo-European Conquests in the Aegean and The * Near East [a review in French by H. Cassimatis ]
* Early Riders: The Beginnings of Mounted Warfare in Asia and Europe [a review by Denis Sinor ] but would like to read this one.
Also, Nicolas Grguric study
* The Mycenaens c. 16500-1100 BC
and lately there are newer and much more radical and exciting studies by  Raffaele D'Amato & Andrea Salimbeti [messer Andrea fabulous website]  :
  * Bronze Age Greek Warrior 1600-1100 BC.
 *  Sea Peoples of the Bronze Age Mediterranean c.1400 BC-1000BC.

Going back to the tittle work, the 1177BC author Eric H. Cline was recorded giving these lectures on the very subject:
video from 2015 [link]
video from 2016 [link]
Yale lecture  [link]
Getty Villa lecture [link]
Sailing the Wine Dark Seas  - another lecture [link]

 One of my more favorite books as per reconstructions is the work by Peter Connolly on the ancient world of Odysseus and Achilles.

a different lecture on the same subject - Bronze Age collapse

..and do read (Chapman's translation) or read and listen to the Iliad - eg this recording of Buckley's translation  (also can be view in a form of graphic story telling  ) and the Odyssey. 
enjoy