Shahvalad Evanesyan, a resident of Ijevan from the village of Koti, found items of scientific value in a crack of one of the cliffs around Ijevan a few years ago – metal parts of a horse’s bridle, bits. Sargis Ter-Hakobyan, a resident of the town of Ijevan and a former worker of the historic museum, informed that bridles with such a tight bit had been mainly used for war horses; they are genealogically connected with the Eastern countries. One of them is small in size; one can assume that horses with such bridles were ridden since young age. The bit of the bridle was put in the horse’s mouth, the double check pieces that were of leather were placed on the horse’s tongue and the rear part of the big round ring attached to the check piece was in the horse’s teeth. The bit was attached to the jaw with a throat lash through two front rings. The reins of the bridle were attached to the big round ring. Maneuvering was made easier by pushing the ring to the nostrils.
Probably this kind of bridles were brought to Armenia in the first part of the second century from China through Persia and starting from as early as the fourth century, it was the main type of bits of the Armenian cavalry in the early Middle Ages. Those bits gave horses a set of advantages – they couldn’t neigh while riding and reveal their whereabouts, they could trot longer distances without getting tired, they couldn’t bite other riders while riding and during a battle or impede each other. Sargis Ter-Hakobyan informed that he kept the finds of high historic value.
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Voskan SARGSYAN
