Bonus episode today, a bit of a crossover with the bronze age stuff I am doing on Youtube about the video game Total War Pharaoh. Despite that, I think it will be of general enough interest to go on the podcast feed because the history of cavalry and the evolution and impact of the horse is keenly relevant here in the iron age, ironically more so than in the bronze age that the game is trying to shoehorn it into. This full lore breakdown explains the actual history of cavalry, goes deep into the dynamics of the bronze age collapse, and explains why it matters that cavalry was never a force in the archaic near-east.