Horse Soft Bit

The Mesoptamian Nose Ring, 2,000 BC

The use of the nose-ring on the horse in Mesopotamia was probably due to its effectiveness as a control device on oxen and onagers. A rider held a rein from a nose ring in one hand and a whip in the other. Directional control would have been by leg, stick, voice signal, or by a shift in the rider's balance. The nose ring fell from use in the Near East in the early second millennium BC

The Soft Bit, 4,000 B. C.

The first "bridle" appeared in what is now eastern Europe and southern Russia. These bridles and antler or bone cheekpieces, and the mouthpieces were of rope, sinew, or rawhide. Then as now, the other parts of the bridle served the purpose of holding the bit in the proper position in the horse's mouth. The cheekpieces from the early bridle are all that remain today. The soft mouthpieces must have decomposed long ago. The cheekpieces positioned the sinew mouthpiece properly on the "bars" of the horse's mouth, the toothless portion of the horse's gum. This type of bit was perhaps the most gentle on the horse.

As noted earlier, recent work by Dr. David Anthony on the Steppes of the Ukraine, indicate that the soft bit might well have been used here as early as 4,000 BC by the nomadic tribes of the area.