FIG. 9.
A horseshoe of that kind is shown by Fig. 8, which was used in North Africa in the twelfth century, and became the model for all forms of horseshoes of the Mahometan tribes. Even now quite similar shoes (Fig. 9) are made south and east from the Caspian Sea, at the Amu-Darja, in Samarkand, etc., which were probably introduced under Tamerlane, the conqueror of nearly the whole of Asia Minor in the fourteenth century.
The so-called "Sarmatische" (Sarmatian) horseshoe (Figs. 10 and 11), of South Russia, shows in its form, at the same time, traces of the last named shoe, however, greatly influenced by the Mongolian shoe, the "Goldenen Horde," which at the turn of the sixteenth to the seventeenth century played havoc at the Volga and the Aral. The unusual width of the toe, and especially the lightness of the iron, reminds us of the Turkomanic horseshoe, whereas, on the contrary, the large bean-shaped holes, as well as the calks, were furnished through Mongolian influence.
FIG. 10.
The Sarmatian tribes were principally horsemen, and it is not surprising, therefore, that the coat of arms of the former kingdom of Poland in the second and third quadrate shows a silver rider in armor on a silver running horse shod with golden shoes, and that at present about 1,000 families in 25 lineages of the Polish Counts Jastrzembiec Bolesezy, the so-called "Polnische Hufeisen Adel" (Polish Horseshoe Nobility), at the same time also carried the horseshoe on their coats of arms. The silver horseshoe in a blue field appears here as a symbol of the "Herbestpfardes" (autumnal horse), to which, after the christianization of Poland, was added the golden cross. The noblemen participating in the murder of the holy Stanislaus in 1084 had to carry the horseshoe reversed on their escutcheon.
FIG. 11.
From the African and Turkomanic horseshoe, through the turning up of the toes and heels, originated later the Turkish, Grecian and Montenegrin horseshoe of the present as shown by Fig. 12.