John, you know, I can't think of a single treatment of this subject that
would have validity as a scholarly piece of work. This may stem in part
from the fact that there continues to be controversy as to when and where
nailed horseshoes first appear -- as you've seen recently if you follow
this Forum, there is good evidence that they begin in Roman times in
western Europe and maybe earlier in the East, but there are still many
doubters who think they don't come along until Atilla the Hun.
The best general hippological work IMO is the one entitled "Horsemanship"
written in 1974 by Charles Chenevix-Trench. Also right up there are
Isenbart's "The Kingdom of the Horse", Jankovich's "They Rode Into
Europe," Gianoli's "Horses and Horsemanship Through the Ages," and Anthony
Dent's "The Horse Through Fifty Centuries of Civilization." All of these
give lots of photographs and some historical artwork and/or documents, and
all of them mention horseshoes, but horseshoes are not the main focus of
the work.
There are also quite a number of books written by farriers, usually for
the ear of other farriers, but sometimes also in an attempt to communicate
with the horse owner; and a few of these, vis. especially Doug Butler's
encyclopedic "Horseshoeing", attempt a history. Again, however, history is
not the main focus and none of the authors have any credentials as
historians or archaeologists.
I would love to hear from anyone else on this list if they know of a
scholarly or "accessible scholarly" work on the subject of the history of
the horseshoe. There may be something in the more antique literature, back
from a day when horseshoes still mattered to the military and to the
transportation and farming industries. From a historical point of view,
the subject is still of importance today and, I would think, would make a
wonderful thesis subject. -- Dr. Deb
> Hello all
>
> I have a non-archaeologist friend who is interested in learning more about
> horseshoes (origins, evolution of the technology, etc etc). Horses aren't
> really my specialty, so I thought I'd turn to the listserv for some help.
> Any references would be greatly appreciated!
>
>
>
> John
>
>
>
> John Gorczyk
>
> Anthropology PhD program
>
> Cornell University
>
>
>
>
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