King Library Press Presents Ancient Horse Manual

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 30, 2010) − The earliest-known instructions for training horses were recorded in about 1350 BCE. One of the four original clay tablets bearing this text in the ancient cuneiform script is presently on display at the International Museum of the Horse at the Kentucky Horse Park, on loan from the collections at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, Germany.

The first English version of this ancient Hittite equine training manual, known to scholars as the Kikkuli Text, was printed more than 3,000 years later at the King Library Press in 1977. The press was established to teach and perpetuate historic printing methods, and the Kikkuli Text was printed by hand from hand-set type on an antique printing press. Underwritten by Keeneland Library, which holds the copyright for the English translation, that edition was designed by well-known hand press printer Carolyn Hammer, who was curator of Rare Books in University of Kentucky Libraries' Special Collections and who founded the King Library Press in 1956.

Printed on Japanese paper in an edition of 125 copies, the first run of the book was illustrated by book artist Carolyn Whitesel, who based her drawings on ancient Assyrian bas-reliefs. The text’s daily training instructions were printed on sheets folded in three panels, and housed in decorated cardboard cases.

To mark the occasion of the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games coming to Kentucky, Keeneland is again collaborating with UK Libraries on an edition of the Kikkuli Text, also printed at the King Library Press.

The 2010 edition is newly laid out by Press Director Paul Evans Holbrook and digital design expert David Elbon. Hand printed on fine book papers employing a photopolymer transfer process, and highlighted by depictions of Hittite chariots as found among the reliefs decorating the Abu Simbel temple in Egypt, this edition will run to 100 copies, and will be available during the World Equestrian Games.

For more information about the new limited edition Kikkuli Text, contact the King Library Press at (859) 257-1742 or visit the press website: www.uky.edu/Libraries/KLP/.