Purdue archaeologists part of ancient horse find in Nile River Valley
An ancient horse burial at Tombos along the Nile River Valley shows that a member of the horse family thousands of years ago was more important to the culture than previously thought, which provides a window into human-animal relationships more than 3,000 years ago.
The research findings are published in Antiquity, and reported by the University of California, Santa Barbara. The Tombos horse was discovered in 2011, and members of the Purdue team – professor Michele Buzon and alumna Sarah Schrader – played a part in the excavation and analysis. The horse is dated to the Third Intermediate Period, 1050-728 B.C.E., and it was found more than 5 feet underground in a tomb. The horse, with some chestnut-colored fur remaining, had been buried in a funeral position with a burial shroud.