The Skull of Quadruped and Bipedal Vertebrates. Djillali Hadjouis

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Figure 2.6. Inflammatory lesions involving osteoarthritis on the L4-L5 of horses, caused by heavy service work during the 19th century in Arcueil (draught and/or ploughing). Note the intervertebral osteophysical formation (© Hadjouis)

The archeological sites of the Paris Basin have yielded skeletons of horses, donkeys and hybrid forms from all periods presenting important pathologies related to various jobs.

      2.1.5. Introduction to animal bone pathologies and zoonoses

      Since the Paleolithic, mosquitoes and animals have been in contact with humans through which the majority of infectious or parasitic agents have had as breeding grounds different species, whose great contamination revealed its first symptoms during the Neolithic period.

      Some of these infectious diseases, especially those of epidemic origin such as the plague (Yersinia pestis) or parasitic diseases such as malaria (Plasmodium falciparum), are systematically researched by laboratory teams, and particularly the skeletons that are part of the burial complexes that are currently being excavated. Because zoonoses (diseases transmitted by animals), vectors of parasitic illnesses developed after the sedentarization and breeding of animals since Neolithic times, are becoming more and more significant by promoting the emergence of pathologies carried by domesticated species: mange, roundworms, ringworm in dogs, bovine tuberculosis, measles, chickenpox, distomatosis in cattle, Malta fever, small fluke in goats and sheep, tapeworm in pigs, influenza in migratory birds and plague in rodents (Biraben 1995). While the epidemic spread has occupied these territories for several centuries, we must not neglect thalassemia, also known in this same Mediterranean region, particularly in Greece since the Bronze Age. For Biraben (1976), the existence of the plague before its penetration into Europe can be traced back to the 2nd century BCE. Its traces were found in the Mediterranean all along the route corresponding to the late Phoenician expansion, and also to the Roman conquest. The example of tuberculosis is well known in Egypt through DNA, radiography and macroscopy, while elsewhere it remains unknown as for other infections, because it is not systematically researched due to the lack of adequate programs.

      2.1.6. The horse’s status over the centuries

      The horse’s status during Antiquity was very high, to the point where the binomial of the species Equus (name of the genus) and caballus (name of the species, designating gelding or pack horse) took on a double meaning. The qualities and virtues of the horse were praised in the Middle Ages, considering the species as faithful to its master and ardent in combat. The horse was also used as a service animal, in daily life (an animal for transport, draught and pack animal) (Duchet Suchaux and Pastoureau 2002). The place occupied by the horse during the Middle Ages was linked to the development of equestrian enterprises.

      In the foreword by Assia Djebar of the académie française, written for Salah Guemriche’s dictionary of French words of Arabic origin (2007), she says about horses:

      I give myself the free pleasure of parading in front of you, precisely in equestrian art, the 9 terms of which at least 6 are a summary of the different breeds of horses. Imagine, dear reader, that you dreamed of having, supreme luxury, in your stable, 6 exceptional horses: one day you would ride the chestnut – which, according to its Arabic root, is distinguished by the reddish-fawn color of its coat; on the second day, your choice would be a zain horse – whose coat is of a single color without white fur; on the third day, your preference would be for a strawberry roan horse – with a grayish, but mottled color; on the fourth day, you would be proud of your aubin, which is a small horse from Ireland … Then perhaps your gelding – which is neutered – would stay in the stable; and on the sixth day, you would reserve the jennet, a small, fast horse, for yourself. (author’s translation)

      The texts on equestrian art in the Arab-Muslim world are legion. In the only text that was miraculously saved from the fire that targeted the destruction of the Arabic manuscripts stored in the Spanish monastery of El Escorial in 1671, Ibn al-Awam, a famous Sevillian Arab agronomist of the 12th century, describes his agronomical work. Dozens of pages are devoted to the horse alone, considered an animal with unequalled virtues. He describes, in addition to the way of treating the sick animal, the ways of riding a horse, with or without weapons (Clément-Mullet 2000).

      In the 19th century, the unpublished sum of documents on horse riding and hippology gathered by General Daumas (1803–1871) in the book The Horses of the Sahara illustrates the relations that the Arabs had with the horse, its breeding, its education, the care to be given to it and the thousand ways of using it (Pouillon 2008).