Arabian, al-Kharj, Arabia, from the Arabian Horse Archives
From the website of the Arabian Horse Archives comes this photos of a handsome desert bred stallion at the stud of King Abd al-‘Aziz Aal Saud of Saudi Arabian, in 1946 or 1949. Notice the very dark skin around the eye and the muzzle, a distinctive trait of authenticity (asalah).
This photo is “part of a series of 120 primarily glass slides taken by Joe Buchanan’s father, Robert Earle Buchanan, a professor of Agriculture at Iowa State University, on trips to the Middle East in 1946 and 1949. In the Comar Arabians collection of Garth and Joe Buchanan. Now held by Carolyn and Dick Hasbrook, Twinbrook Arabians, Ames, Iowa.”
I find the contrast between the barefoot rider with the pointy beard straight out of the middle ages, and the modern machines creeping in the background just fascinating..
Very anachronistic. It’s sometimes hard to believe that just a short few years after this, a good many Bedu were urbanized and their horses dispersed.
And so much of the history was lost with that dispersal.