Greek Saddles

[MeinPanzer]

hello
regarding Scythians aka Saka and their impact on the saddlery and harness development in the ancient world, perhaps it would have been worthwhile to look at the other side of the Great Steppe - China. There is a perfect representation of as 'treed saddle' with small pommel and cantle from the 'buried terracotta army' of first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terracotta_Army
It is dated to the 3rd century BC and cavalry horses have those low saddles. Unfortunately those saddles were not depicted in the Osprey's Ancient Chinese Armies. I have a picture of such horse and try to post it later.
Perhaps correspondingly Macedonians were using such saddles around 4th century, being in constant 'touch' with the Scythians and Scytho-Thracians of Danube area... otherwise I am not sure how Alexander was able to execute those cavalry charges, full gear and long lance etc.

As far as I can tell form what evidence I've seen, the "Scythian" saddle was only in use as far west as Thrace by the late fourth/early third century BC and not Macedonia. It is clear from iconographic evidence that even if the Macedonians knew of the saddle, at least the large majority of Macedonian cavalrymen right down to the end of the Hellenistic kingdoms rode only with a saddle cloth. The one exception that I know is a relief of an Epirote cavalryman from Apollonia dating to the 2nd C. BC which shows a cavalryman clearly riding in a saddle.