A 20 mule team in Death Valley.
CREDIT: By NPS image from [1], Public Domain, https://commons. wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=124025.
ON THE BACKS oeMULE TRAIN Used to pull pioneer wagons, in farming operations and to haul boats through water, mules have helped to shape civilization in many different ways.
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By DEBBIE MACRAE
ith a history as old as the Egyptian pyramids, and likely developed during ancient times in what would have been known as Constantinople or the Ottoman Empire, (now northwestern Turkey), the mule is the world’s oldest and most commonly known “man-made hybrid” animal. Even in the most powerful horse empires, the mule was considered more intelligent and more valuable than the greatest of chariot horses. Mules were often three times as much as a good horse, and seven times the value of a donkey, immortalized in monuments and depicted in Egyptian hieroglyphics. Turquoise mining expeditions sent by the Pharaohs into the 54 WESTERN HORSE REVIEW January/February 2022
Sinai, marked their routes with stone carvings depicting the use of mules, as opposed to camels, sometime between 2100 BC and 1500 BC. Hardier than its parents, with stronger hooves, higher intelligence, more endurance, and a lower sleep requirement, mules were revered by Royalty as symbols of social status, and preferred for farming, mining, military transportation, and gifts. The mules of the Americas were introduced into the New World by Christopher Columbus. Four jacks and four jennys would provide the lineage for exploration by the Conquistadores, and these were fairly small in stature. America, however, would become a leading mule producer with a gift from King Charles of Spain to George Washington in 1785
