World's oldest saddle unearthed in China
In northwestern China, archaeologists have discovered a well-preserved leather saddle, which may be the oldest ever found. The saddle was unearthed in a tomb in Yanghai, in the Turpan Basin of China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The tomb belonged to a woman who was dressed in a hide coat, woollen trousers and short leather boots, with the saddle placed as if she were seated on it.
Consisting of two cowhide cushions filled with a combination of straw, deer, and camel hair, according to radiocarbon dating it was created between 724 and 396 B.C. and may have existed before the saddles used by the Scythians, nomadic horse riders from the western and central Eurasian Steppe who had connections with the ancient Greeks and Romans. The earliest known Scythian saddles date back to the third and fifth centuries B.C. and have been found in the Altai Mountains area of Russian Siberia and eastern Kazakhstan.
