212 HORSE-SHOES AND HORSESHOEING. 



the standard of Hosein, at Ardbeil, was made from a 

 horse-shoe belonging to Abbas, uncle of Mohammed, by 

 order of his daughter Fatima. "It was brought," says 

 the legend, " from Arabia by Scheik Sed Reddeen, son of 

 the holy Scheik Sofi, who was son of another holy vil- 

 lager, after the manner of the Moslem ! " If the inten- 

 tion had been to advance a mere falsehood, it is to be 

 wondered that Fatima, or the Prophet himself, should 

 not have furnished a sacred shoe of one of the celebrated 

 mares, from which sprung so many of the first breeds of 

 Arabia, according to the assertions of devout Moslems. 

 A horse-shoe most likely it was,' adds this writer, ' but 

 how an uncle of Mohammed should possess horses when 

 the Bein Koreish, as a tribe, were without, and the Pro- 

 phet himself in the beginning of his career had only three, 

 is quite another question.' 



It appears very unlikely that such an article as that 

 shown in the Circassian brand-mark could ever have 

 been employed as a shoe, or fixed to the hoof by the 

 three clamps indicated above ; but to show that the 

 Lycian triquetra could not be intended to represent a 

 horse-shoe, I have copied in figures 68, 69, 70, and 71, 

 this and similar impressions of coins. Figure 69 is the 

 plain triquetra, from the original in the British Museum, 

 and resembling Col. Smith's (who is, I believe, the author 

 of the article just quoted from) Circassian shoe, in having 

 no dots or points ; 70 is the triquetra that the writer refers 

 to ; the original is in the Bibliotheque at Paris, but a draw- 

 ing of it is given in Sir Charles Fellows' work on the 

 Coins of Lycia." It will be seen that the points could not 

 ' Coins of Ancient Lycia before the Reign of Alexander. London, 



