Historian of China and the Silk Roads, esp. animal history, manuscripts, labour, and pet-keeping
Research Fellow @ IHR London | Co-founder of Chinese Animal Studies Network | Book Review Editor @ Animal History
Kelsey Granger
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Was great to share more about my research on China's Xuanquan Postal Station 懸泉置 in the latest issue of Archaeology Magazine @archaeologymag.bsky.social, including some of my favourite postal horse names from the edge of Han-dynasty China! 🐴✉️🛞
archaeology.org/issues/july-...
4) Overall, these documents uncover how precarious ancient China's postal system really was and how it required both people and horses to work together in arduous conditions. Many more examples of what this meant in action for the horses and their drivers in the article:
Rounding out 2025 with an essay for T'oung Pao discussing recent publications on Chinese animals, including books on talking parrots, sacred oxen, marital camels, and bathing elephants! It's definitely been an exciting year in an exciting field of research 🐉🐘🐫🐃🦜
brill.com/view/journal...
2) In the eyes of the law, horses were worth more dead than alive if they got injured on the job, and yet a 24-year-old horse Yarrow Elder enjoyed retirement at the end of his working life. Some horses clearly received special treatment!
Thrilled that my article on postal horses in ancient China has been published in the latest #AnimalHistory! 🐎 What do excavated administrative texts from 1st C. BCE-CE tell us about equine life and labour on the edge of empire? A lot, it turns out! (1/4) #Xuanquan #postalhorses ✉️🛞🐴
