The writer of the book of Judith gives Holofernes 12,000 horse-archers, and Ezekiel seems to speak of all the "desirable young men" as "horsemen riding upon horses." The sculptures show on the whole a considerable excess of cavalry over chariots, though the preponderance is not uniformly exhibited throughout the different periods.
During the time of the Upper dynasty, cavalry appears to have been but little used.

Tiglath-Pileser I.in the whole of his long Inscription has not a single mention of them, though he speaks of his chariots continually.

In the sculptures of Asshur-izir-pal, the father of the Black-Obelisk king, while chariots abound, horsemen occur only in rare instances.

Afterwards, under Sargon and Sennacherib, we notice a great change in this respect.

The chariot comes to be almost confined to the king, while horsemen are frequent in the battle scenes.
In the first period the horses' trappings consisted of a head-stall, a collar, and one or more strings of beads.