I just came across this horse/Talk . The Sumerians did have four -wheel chariots drawn by onagers / asses. These asses looked like ponies and did not look like donkeys. They are shown on the "Standard of Ur" and it seem they were light colored. (Asen ,asier were nature 'god's of Germanic people . As was also the name of Roman money or coins .) H. Jonat |
Mounted nomads had dominated the steppe since at least the appearance of the Scythian tribes. Don't they count for something?
I would be very surprised if any relationship between Sumerian and Altaic speech was more than coincidental - as far as I know no proposal for a relationship between Sumerian and any other language has gained general acceptance. But that is neither here nor there. Regarding horses, the Sumerians were definitely not a horse-back culture since horses had yet to be domesticated at the time (they used oxen and onagers instead). I don't think that horses were ever used as mounts until the iron age. In short, antiquity of the Huns, whatever that may be, is not the same as antiquity of the Huns as a mounted group and I don't think the transition could have possibly taken place before around the time of the Scythians anyways.