NEW YORK.- A new exhibit at New York City's American Museum of Natural History examines the powerful and continuing relationship between horses and humans and explores the origins of the horse family, extending back more than 50 million years. This trailblazing exhibition also explores early interactions between horses and humans that eventually led to horse domestication, and shows how horses have, over time, changed warfare, trade, transportation, agriculture, sports, and many other facets of human life.
The exhibit, called "The Horse," showcases spectacular fossils and cultural objects from around the world, many from the Museum's extraordinary collections. Other highlights include a diorama depicting several horse species that lived ten million years ago, examples of the horse in art from the Paleolithic to the present, horse gear and armor from 15th-century Germany, and a horse-drawn fire engine from the 19th century. Exciting new archaeological discoveries shed light on the domestication of the horse, and historical artifacts trace the role of horses in sport from early forms of fox hunting to modern polo, the Triple Crown, and the Olympics.
Numerous interactive stations throughout the exhibition--including videos, computer interactives, hands-on activities, and touchable casts--invite visitors to measure their strength in horsepower; examine different gaits of a horse by looking through a zoetrope (a precursor to the modern movie projector); and learn about the latest developments in the study of horse biology and the role of the horse in modern society. Throughout the exhibition, visitors see unusual objects and be asked to identify them, including such items as a Roman horse shoe, a stirrup, a bit ornament, and a whip used in buzkashi, a sport on horseback played in Central Asia.