Scientists have found that the inhabitants of ancient Mesopotamia used hybrid donkeys. The corresponding article was published in the journal Science Advances.
According to images and texts dating back about 4500 years, the elite of ancient Mesopotamia used some kind of mounts. For a long time, it was a mystery to scientists what kind of animals they were, since the domestication of horses happened a little later. The texts on cuneiform tablets sometimes mention the prestigious kunga animal with a high price. In particular, they were harnessed to war chariots.
Scientists from the French Jacques Monod Institute studied the genotype of these "kung", samples of which were obtained from the burial place of Umm el-Marra in northern Syria. They compared their DNA to modern and ancient horses and donkeys.
It turned out that the animals buried there are hybrids of a domestic donkey and a kulan, a wild animal of the equine family. These hybrids could not produce offspring, and therefore, in order to reproduce them, it was necessary to recapture the male kulan. One of these capture scenes is depicted, in particular, on a bas-relief in Nineveh.
Instead of domesticating the wild horses that inhabited the region, the Sumerians produced and used hybrids, combining the qualities of two parents to produce offspring that were stronger and faster than donkeys, but more manageable than kulans.
bbabo.Net