correspond to holes for small nails, wherewith to attach a shoe to a hoof, as they extend along the clamp which Col. Smith says was employed to grasp the front of the hoof. Fellows also gives a copy (No. 30) of a fourlimbed figure belonging to this class (fig. 71), the original being in the British Museum, and which could never be meant to represent a shoe.
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| fig. 71 |
Sir Charles Fellows does not attempt to explain the origin or import of the triquetra, and it would certainly require a lively imagination to associate it in any way with horse-shoes. On the contrary, a very frequent device on the ancient coins of Pamphylia is three human legs, arranged like the hooks on the triquetra, and the same as borne by the currency of the Isle of Man. Figure 72 is a copy of an ancient coin in the British Museum, which has neither prongs nor men's legs, but cocks' heads! Surely there is nothing here to offer the remotest conjecture as to the origin of Eastern shoeing!
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| fig. 72 |
Col. Smith asserts that 'there are indeed ancient Tartar horse-shoes of a circular form, apparently with only three nails or fasteners to the outside of the hoof;'[1] but we may be pardoned for doubting the correctness of this statement.
That shoeing was known among the Arabs as early as the days of Mohammed, appears certain. In the chapter
- 1855. Fig. 25. I am greatly indebted to Mr A. T. Murray of the British Museum, for tracings and impressions of these interesting and rare coins.
- ↑ The Natural History of Horses, p. 130.
