Horse Rituals among the Indo-Europeans

Abstract The seventh chapter takes up an issue from the previous chapter, the explanation of abundant horse remains on some steppe sites due to rituals. It further reviews archaeological and literary evidence for horse sacrifices in Scythian burials, and then reviews the evidence for horse burials among other Indo-European cultures: the pagan Balts, the Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Sutton Hoo, and a Mycenaean burial at Marathon. It also discusses the Vedic horse-sacrifice, the aśvamedha, and reviews parallels among the Romans and Irish, concluding that horse-offerings marked an important Indo-European ritual. Finally, the chapter takes note of some mythological horse transformations and the shared prohibition of contact with horses among the brahmins of India, the flamen dialis in Rome, and pagan Anglo-Saxon priest Coifi in Northumbria, suggesting that sacerdotal avoidance of contact with horses was a shared Indo-European inheritance that could only have occurred if horse riding were part of that inheritance.