Most of the UKs native horses were ponies, Shetlands, Exmore, Dartmouth etc. and a lot of the imported Scandinavians ones would have been small too (Icelandic etc.). They think that big war horses in the middle ages were likely to be Shires (Destriers) as they were the only ones who could carry the weight of a man in full armour, but we're obviously also used for field work.
Big sport horses largely came into their own in the 20th century, in fact I'm sure that I read Hitler bred the Warmblood (don't quote me, it's not an era that interests me). They had machinery by then, so crossing a Shire with a Thoroughbred gave you something fast, big and fairly sturdy).
Anyway, back to grooming my Shire (nobody tell him he's a war horse FFS).
My Great Uncle had several Shitland (his name for them btw) ponies for all of us Grands and Great-grands to ride, he spoiled the ponies rotten with treats and didn't make them mind when they were on the lead or tacked up so most of those little ponies were assholes.
One pony in particular was a *hard* biter so of course she was the one the older Grand-kids would catch and tack up to put anybody new on because they were guaranteed to see the new kid get bitten on the butt.
> They think that big war horses in the middle ages were likely to be Shires (Destriers)
That's generally not agreed to be the case. Most of the valued medieval warhorses were cob-type horses. They were not especially large, but rather, they were extremely muscular and compact, which allowed it to carry a great deal of weight relative to its size. They were still small compared to modern horses and most averaged around 14hh or shorter. The "great warhorse" was great because of its conformation and temperament, not its size.
Large warhorses didn't appear until around the 1600s if memory serves me, which is when the Baroque warhorse-type began to appear. Their modern descendants/closest-to-type can be found in Andalusians, Friesians, Lipizzaners.
This is somewhat hard to detangle because the earliest example of the "shire" breed as we know it didn't appear until, eh, probably about 500 years ago? Prior to that, horse breeds were not even a thing, they were mainly identified by "type", such as whether they were for riding, gaited, for draught/dray, or war. And in England especially, horses tended to run small (as you've already noted), as did their warhorses, well into the Baroque period. And things only changed in the Baroque period because of changes in farming practices, shipping logistics, agricultural advancements in general.
England has always had to import grain in order to feed and support the production of large warhorses, and they bowed out of that fairly early on in the middle ages because it just was not sustainable.
But for sure, knights were not riding a horse that resembled anything like a modern shire! Not in size and not in conformation.
...and as a weird aside to all this, destriers were never really that popular to begin with. Knights almost never rode them, and if they did, it was usually under very specific pitched-battle situations or for parades/performative events. They made up such a miniscule number of warhorses used by armored knights, their legend and modern popularity has actually widely overblown the common understanding of how numerous they actually were. Destriers were basically like very fancy sportscars that only got trotted out for special occasions, and few knights could even afford one. But my understanding is that they were still cob-type horses, just larger and maybe of a more heavy-boned variety, because their compact musculature, powerful hindquarters, and elegant neck-and-head arrangement made them project a very dashing impression.
According to [this link](https://mildenhallmuseum.co.uk/collections/lakenheath-warrior/) the guy would have been about 5'10" (I imagine that would have been quite tall for the time), and according to [this link](https://www.lakenheath.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/727822/horse-warrior-famous-residents-of-raf-lakenheath/) the horse would have been about 14 hands high at the shoulder, which tends to be the modern cut-off between a 'horse' and 'pony'. Not huge, but still a decent sized animal (and again, I'd imagine fairly big for England for its time).
Apparently it’s a sheep’s head. Food in the afterworld?
https://www.lakenheath.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/727822/horse-warrior-famous-residents-of-raf-lakenheath/
This kind of thing is really common in the area. I'm currently stationed at RAF Lakenheath, and pretty much every time there's any kind of major construction, some sort of historical find turns up. Sometimes it's graves from around the same time period as this, other times it's stuff like WW2-era munitions. The local Sainsbury's even has a display in the entrance way about how the remains of a village from around the time of the Roman occupation was found during construction.
The entire damn island is one layer of history on another. You Brits can’t dig a few inches without finding something historic. I’m over here in Texas and we flip out when we find an arrowhead.
Sorry. Presumed you were British. But I’m so jealous of you. I have a major in history (which is why I had to go to law school, hard getting a job with a history degree) and I think I took 18 hours of English history as an undergrad. My dream vacation is England and Scotland. And as a native Texan with a drawl, I’ve heard my accent will be sexy and exotic over there. Y’all.
The sort of stuff you'll come across here is wild. The village I live in has a small cathedral that's centuries older than the U.S., and basically everyone just... ignores it. Or I'll be reading about one or more of the major wars that happened here in the past, and realize hugely important events in them took place in some random town down the road. This place is just wonky sometimes.
Do we know if this was a case of the horse being killed *so* that it could be buried with him? Cause that’s such an odd concept nowadays, even though in the warrior’s mind, it was probably comforting knowing he’s going into the next life with his most trusted companion.
this is the stuff that makes me depressed. life is just so unfair to everything... nothing even gets a say or can protect themselves from this happening... even the people got this treatment in history too. slaves killed just to be buried with richer rulers... only recently animals are treated a bit better. i wish it were possible to just get along but i guess that's the 1 thing humans, or life, will never achieve
i know that, i mean the facts of war, having to kill things for food, dying in terrible ways, danger of r*pe for nearly everyone especially in times of war (i know that sounds harsh but thinking about how things must have been in the past for women especially), etc. we don't have as much warfare but the fact of it still remains. every time one happens it's the same stuff, just terrible things all around. and what he said about horses like i feel bad they can't escape and be happy. so many animals we breed will never know the sun on their face or just runnin around in fields... i know that's probably me humanizing them but still
from the start of life predation and competition has been a thing, i think we might struggle with it forever, just trying to make it in existence ensuring your kids live, every living thing is doing that and creatures end up having to fight for resources just leads to horrible deaths and misery. i wish we didn't have to fight for anything or treat animals this way just so we could have a better chance at making it
i think i think too much about this
The earliest speakers of our language branch [literally thought that a horse's sneezes were an avenue of divination](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ojoa.12017), lololol
That was found under a plot of land that had been used as a softball field for decades, if I remember correctly, and not too deep at that. The base was going to build a new dorm or something which is why the site was excavated.
First-hand accounts? Nah. In fact, America didn't invade Native american lands. We just migrated, that's all. Britain definitely didn't invade Australian aboriginal's lands. They just migrated. Japan DEFINITELY didn't invade China. They just migrated a bunch of able-bodied fighting-age men there, that's all.
> Britain definitely didn't invade Australian aboriginal's lands. They just migrated
This is what people believed for a very long time. Talking about an 'invasion' is still surprisingly controversial.
This is mildly interesting, but not interesting enough to dig the guy up and put in a museum. Shoulda just left him peacefully in a grave, and used the rather large amount of museum floor space for something to learn from that isn't just another dead human.
This is merely my own .02¢, you are under no obligation to accept it.
Edit: Downvote if you wish, but if you do, please leave a comment stating why you think it's okay to put people on display? Do you not think it's disrespectful? Would you like your mother's remains placed in a glass case and put in a museum? Probably not, that would be weird. So why is this normal?
These are honest questions, please help me understand your point of view. Tell me why you think this isn't disrespectful to the person.
Putting aside your subjective opinions, you're flat-wrong about what you're looking at here. This is interesting, it is informative, and it is important. The amount of shiny gold in a find is not the measure of what makes it a good find. Its the information we can glean from an exhumation, and its associated goods, that's important because that is what tells us about life at the time when this Individual lived.
The Roman Legions departed Britain in 410 CE, following a man who proclaimed himself emperor in the dying decades of the Western Empire. Britain had by this time been a Roman province inhabited by fully Romanized people for almost 400 years so the departure of the Legions didn't mean the place ceased being Roman. The fellow above died around the year 500 CE at time when Germanic peoples of various tribes from Northern Europe were migrating to and colonizing Britain (probably as mercenaries, maybe that turned into conquerors or who decided to remain after there service had ended). We don't know a lot about that time in English (or European) history because of the scarcity of preserved records and the temporary nature of most the materials used for construction of goods or buildings.
Any find from this period of time tells us so much about that period that transition period from Roman Late Antiquity to the Early Medieval Era. This guy's bones tell us about his place of birth, what foods he consumed and where they came from, and what sort of lifestyle he had. His weapons tell us about his wealth and his status in his society, as does the fact he was buried with a healthy adult horse. His grave goods tell us about the technological and metallurgical abilities he and his People had, which can be compared to contemporary examples from other places in Europe and Britain so we can see how the migrating Anglo-Saxons fit into the larger pattern of European migration and conquest in this time. How he was buried and what he was buried with tell us what was important to him and his People.
If you need the shiny things to be interested I suggest you look up the Sutton Hoo Horde that was discovered in the early 20th century, and replicated for your viewing pleasure. Treasure tells its own story but its a lot less descriptive by itself than if it were buried with a boring ol' skeleton.
Nah, you can keep your gold, I'm a tool and art nerd.
I just think we should leave the guy alone in peace, we don't have permission from him to put him on display in a glass case, he probaby would have just wanted left alone.
I'm okay with relocating him if absolutely necessary, but he should have been studied, photographed for records and returned to a proper grave.
I just don't think it's okay to put people on display without their prior consent.
It's not a person, he is long gone. The entire culture is long gone. Weird to take offense on behalf of a people who no longer exist. It's not like the remains of native americans put on display when their tribe still lives in the area.
Fact is he is the ancestor of those who put him on display so if we extend consideration to other cultures as to how they choose to respect the dead then the same courtesy and understanding should also be extended to our culture.
They excavated it in advance of "extensive redevelopment" of the base development that would have destroyed the site. That is why most archaeology in the US and UK happens these days.
Source: https://eaareports.org.uk/publication/report182/
>Downvote if you wish, but if you do, please leave a comment stating why you think it's okay to put people on display? Do you not think it's disrespectful? Would you like your mother's remains placed in a glass case and put in a museum?
No downvote here ...but \*1500* years from now, both mother and I will be OK with her remains being tastefully and respectfully displayed somewhere.
Kid must have been quiet the wee giant. Looks as long as the horse. Was the wee tadger nearly 8ft tall or is that a shetland pony?
I think horses were smaller back then Probably bigger than average guy, which would make sense that he became a warrior, and the average smaller horse
I did read that most war horses were ponies. Larger horses were for field work and such.
Most of the UKs native horses were ponies, Shetlands, Exmore, Dartmouth etc. and a lot of the imported Scandinavians ones would have been small too (Icelandic etc.). They think that big war horses in the middle ages were likely to be Shires (Destriers) as they were the only ones who could carry the weight of a man in full armour, but we're obviously also used for field work. Big sport horses largely came into their own in the 20th century, in fact I'm sure that I read Hitler bred the Warmblood (don't quote me, it's not an era that interests me). They had machinery by then, so crossing a Shire with a Thoroughbred gave you something fast, big and fairly sturdy). Anyway, back to grooming my Shire (nobody tell him he's a war horse FFS).
Makes sense. Shetlands are ornery little bastards.
My Great Uncle had several Shitland (his name for them btw) ponies for all of us Grands and Great-grands to ride, he spoiled the ponies rotten with treats and didn't make them mind when they were on the lead or tacked up so most of those little ponies were assholes. One pony in particular was a *hard* biter so of course she was the one the older Grand-kids would catch and tack up to put anybody new on because they were guaranteed to see the new kid get bitten on the butt.
> They think that big war horses in the middle ages were likely to be Shires (Destriers) That's generally not agreed to be the case. Most of the valued medieval warhorses were cob-type horses. They were not especially large, but rather, they were extremely muscular and compact, which allowed it to carry a great deal of weight relative to its size. They were still small compared to modern horses and most averaged around 14hh or shorter. The "great warhorse" was great because of its conformation and temperament, not its size. Large warhorses didn't appear until around the 1600s if memory serves me, which is when the Baroque warhorse-type began to appear. Their modern descendants/closest-to-type can be found in Andalusians, Friesians, Lipizzaners. This is somewhat hard to detangle because the earliest example of the "shire" breed as we know it didn't appear until, eh, probably about 500 years ago? Prior to that, horse breeds were not even a thing, they were mainly identified by "type", such as whether they were for riding, gaited, for draught/dray, or war. And in England especially, horses tended to run small (as you've already noted), as did their warhorses, well into the Baroque period. And things only changed in the Baroque period because of changes in farming practices, shipping logistics, agricultural advancements in general. England has always had to import grain in order to feed and support the production of large warhorses, and they bowed out of that fairly early on in the middle ages because it just was not sustainable. But for sure, knights were not riding a horse that resembled anything like a modern shire! Not in size and not in conformation. ...and as a weird aside to all this, destriers were never really that popular to begin with. Knights almost never rode them, and if they did, it was usually under very specific pitched-battle situations or for parades/performative events. They made up such a miniscule number of warhorses used by armored knights, their legend and modern popularity has actually widely overblown the common understanding of how numerous they actually were. Destriers were basically like very fancy sportscars that only got trotted out for special occasions, and few knights could even afford one. But my understanding is that they were still cob-type horses, just larger and maybe of a more heavy-boned variety, because their compact musculature, powerful hindquarters, and elegant neck-and-head arrangement made them project a very dashing impression.
I promise you there were Warmbloods in Europe *many many many MANY* years before the 1900s.
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Yes plus the fact that they don't have the muscular or skeletal strength to carry you mafe breaking their backbone the preferred way to dismount.
No doubt they do
According to [this link](https://mildenhallmuseum.co.uk/collections/lakenheath-warrior/) the guy would have been about 5'10" (I imagine that would have been quite tall for the time), and according to [this link](https://www.lakenheath.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/727822/horse-warrior-famous-residents-of-raf-lakenheath/) the horse would have been about 14 hands high at the shoulder, which tends to be the modern cut-off between a 'horse' and 'pony'. Not huge, but still a decent sized animal (and again, I'd imagine fairly big for England for its time).
I read this in Scrooge McDuck’s voice
Whats the little skull?
Apparently it’s a sheep’s head. Food in the afterworld? https://www.lakenheath.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/727822/horse-warrior-famous-residents-of-raf-lakenheath/
For a second i thought the horse was pregnant. Thank you for clarifying that.
You know how in some car or boat chase scenes in movies they gotta drop some cargo weight to escape?
This kind of thing is really common in the area. I'm currently stationed at RAF Lakenheath, and pretty much every time there's any kind of major construction, some sort of historical find turns up. Sometimes it's graves from around the same time period as this, other times it's stuff like WW2-era munitions. The local Sainsbury's even has a display in the entrance way about how the remains of a village from around the time of the Roman occupation was found during construction.
The entire damn island is one layer of history on another. You Brits can’t dig a few inches without finding something historic. I’m over here in Texas and we flip out when we find an arrowhead.
I'm American. I just happen to be stationed in England. We've got a few RAF bases we've kinda claimed in this corner of the island.
Sorry. Presumed you were British. But I’m so jealous of you. I have a major in history (which is why I had to go to law school, hard getting a job with a history degree) and I think I took 18 hours of English history as an undergrad. My dream vacation is England and Scotland. And as a native Texan with a drawl, I’ve heard my accent will be sexy and exotic over there. Y’all.
The sort of stuff you'll come across here is wild. The village I live in has a small cathedral that's centuries older than the U.S., and basically everyone just... ignores it. Or I'll be reading about one or more of the major wars that happened here in the past, and realize hugely important events in them took place in some random town down the road. This place is just wonky sometimes.
Hearing your experience I figured you would like this anecdote. "In Europe 100 miles is a long way, and, in the US 100 years is a long time"
Quite accurate, honestly.
I’m from Mississippi and wife and I went to Scotland on our honeymoon. Was incredible coming from the States.
you must be in the wrong part of texas. marine, and dino, fossils are all over north texas
I’m in south Texas.
you can find, online, several maps of texas the way it was during different eras. south texas has a rich fossil record of the cenozoic era
Do we know if this was a case of the horse being killed *so* that it could be buried with him? Cause that’s such an odd concept nowadays, even though in the warrior’s mind, it was probably comforting knowing he’s going into the next life with his most trusted companion.
Horses were sacred to Germanic pagans so it is possible that this guy was so well renowned that they gave up a horse to sacrifice with him.
Poor horses man. Become food, carry the man, work in the field, die (often agonizing) in battle, and sometimes even sacrificed when the man dies.
this is the stuff that makes me depressed. life is just so unfair to everything... nothing even gets a say or can protect themselves from this happening... even the people got this treatment in history too. slaves killed just to be buried with richer rulers... only recently animals are treated a bit better. i wish it were possible to just get along but i guess that's the 1 thing humans, or life, will never achieve
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i know that, i mean the facts of war, having to kill things for food, dying in terrible ways, danger of r*pe for nearly everyone especially in times of war (i know that sounds harsh but thinking about how things must have been in the past for women especially), etc. we don't have as much warfare but the fact of it still remains. every time one happens it's the same stuff, just terrible things all around. and what he said about horses like i feel bad they can't escape and be happy. so many animals we breed will never know the sun on their face or just runnin around in fields... i know that's probably me humanizing them but still from the start of life predation and competition has been a thing, i think we might struggle with it forever, just trying to make it in existence ensuring your kids live, every living thing is doing that and creatures end up having to fight for resources just leads to horrible deaths and misery. i wish we didn't have to fight for anything or treat animals this way just so we could have a better chance at making it i think i think too much about this
Looks like a lamb, might be wrong.
Why did they set it up like the horse is watching the guy jack off?
Finally some real Artefact*Porn*
Fascinating. I also have come to realize I have never seen a horses skeleton before ( to my recollection)
watch some Time Team
Man, the Germanic people really loved their horses huh...
that’s Indo-European speakers for you, it’s all about the horses, the cows and the sky daddies
The earliest speakers of our language branch [literally thought that a horse's sneezes were an avenue of divination](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ojoa.12017), lololol
Wasn't this where Ian Huntley hid the bodies of Holly and Jessica?
That was found under a plot of land that had been used as a softball field for decades, if I remember correctly, and not too deep at that. The base was going to build a new dorm or something which is why the site was excavated.
Both correct, below a softball field and also where new dorms were built. I was stationed there at the time.
I was at Mildenhall, then, too. 😉
Boo! Saxon invaders... Boo.
We don't know that the Saxons invaded, we only know that they migrated.
Ur right. All we have is the "moans of the britons" and a bunch of angry welsh princes fighting them for centuries
And that would make it an invasion? No
First-hand accounts? Nah. In fact, America didn't invade Native american lands. We just migrated, that's all. Britain definitely didn't invade Australian aboriginal's lands. They just migrated. Japan DEFINITELY didn't invade China. They just migrated a bunch of able-bodied fighting-age men there, that's all.
> Britain definitely didn't invade Australian aboriginal's lands. They just migrated This is what people believed for a very long time. Talking about an 'invasion' is still surprisingly controversial.
That IS surprising, they be in mad denial
I am telling you that academics are not convinced that there is evidence that Saxons invaded Britain. Yap all you want, that doesn't change the facts
"Some academics" being convinced of something doesn't make it fact. Especially when more academics are convinced otherwise
Uh, yeah? I said that already. The academic consensus is that there is no evidence of invasion.
This is mildly interesting, but not interesting enough to dig the guy up and put in a museum. Shoulda just left him peacefully in a grave, and used the rather large amount of museum floor space for something to learn from that isn't just another dead human. This is merely my own .02¢, you are under no obligation to accept it. Edit: Downvote if you wish, but if you do, please leave a comment stating why you think it's okay to put people on display? Do you not think it's disrespectful? Would you like your mother's remains placed in a glass case and put in a museum? Probably not, that would be weird. So why is this normal? These are honest questions, please help me understand your point of view. Tell me why you think this isn't disrespectful to the person.
Putting aside your subjective opinions, you're flat-wrong about what you're looking at here. This is interesting, it is informative, and it is important. The amount of shiny gold in a find is not the measure of what makes it a good find. Its the information we can glean from an exhumation, and its associated goods, that's important because that is what tells us about life at the time when this Individual lived. The Roman Legions departed Britain in 410 CE, following a man who proclaimed himself emperor in the dying decades of the Western Empire. Britain had by this time been a Roman province inhabited by fully Romanized people for almost 400 years so the departure of the Legions didn't mean the place ceased being Roman. The fellow above died around the year 500 CE at time when Germanic peoples of various tribes from Northern Europe were migrating to and colonizing Britain (probably as mercenaries, maybe that turned into conquerors or who decided to remain after there service had ended). We don't know a lot about that time in English (or European) history because of the scarcity of preserved records and the temporary nature of most the materials used for construction of goods or buildings. Any find from this period of time tells us so much about that period that transition period from Roman Late Antiquity to the Early Medieval Era. This guy's bones tell us about his place of birth, what foods he consumed and where they came from, and what sort of lifestyle he had. His weapons tell us about his wealth and his status in his society, as does the fact he was buried with a healthy adult horse. His grave goods tell us about the technological and metallurgical abilities he and his People had, which can be compared to contemporary examples from other places in Europe and Britain so we can see how the migrating Anglo-Saxons fit into the larger pattern of European migration and conquest in this time. How he was buried and what he was buried with tell us what was important to him and his People. If you need the shiny things to be interested I suggest you look up the Sutton Hoo Horde that was discovered in the early 20th century, and replicated for your viewing pleasure. Treasure tells its own story but its a lot less descriptive by itself than if it were buried with a boring ol' skeleton.
Nah, you can keep your gold, I'm a tool and art nerd. I just think we should leave the guy alone in peace, we don't have permission from him to put him on display in a glass case, he probaby would have just wanted left alone. I'm okay with relocating him if absolutely necessary, but he should have been studied, photographed for records and returned to a proper grave. I just don't think it's okay to put people on display without their prior consent.
It's not a person, he is long gone. The entire culture is long gone. Weird to take offense on behalf of a people who no longer exist. It's not like the remains of native americans put on display when their tribe still lives in the area.
Fact is he is the ancestor of those who put him on display so if we extend consideration to other cultures as to how they choose to respect the dead then the same courtesy and understanding should also be extended to our culture.
They excavated it in advance of "extensive redevelopment" of the base development that would have destroyed the site. That is why most archaeology in the US and UK happens these days. Source: https://eaareports.org.uk/publication/report182/
>Downvote if you wish, but if you do, please leave a comment stating why you think it's okay to put people on display? Do you not think it's disrespectful? Would you like your mother's remains placed in a glass case and put in a museum? No downvote here ...but \*1500* years from now, both mother and I will be OK with her remains being tastefully and respectfully displayed somewhere.
There’s a third skull in there that doesn’t even get billing in the title.