Mounted cavalry as a military arm
Caballería montada como arma de guerra
- Date
- c. 865 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Nimrud (Kalhu), Nineveh, Iraq
- Credited to
- Neo-Assyrian army (Ashurnasirpal II and Tiglath-Pileser III)
- Field
- Conflict
What it is
The first regular units of combat horsemen, shown in the reliefs of Ashurnasirpal II's palace, where the mounted archer is accompanied by a handler holding the reins. Under Tiglath-Pileser III riders fight alone with spear or bow and largely replace the chariot.
Without stirrups or a rigid saddle, ancient cavalry was mostly light archers and lancers; the stirrup (around the 4th century AD) came much later. There are hints of isolated riders in the Bronze Age but no regular units.
What it led to
- decline of the war chariot as the main arm
- light cavalry of the Scythians, Medes and Persians
- armies capable of long-range reconnaissance and pursuit