The Chinese historically used bronze scale models of horses as hippology reference guides to the ideal horse (Harrist 1997:149-150). The Book of the Later Han records two early examples. The horse expert Dongmeng Jing presented Emperor Wu of Han (r. 141-87 BCE) with a cast-bronze horse and written instructions for using the model to judge horses. General Ma Yuan (a renowned equestrian surnamed "horse") presented Emperor Guangwu of Han (r. 25-57 CE) a bronze model of a horse designed to clarify the points to observe in equine judging. The inscription, which listed four generations of Ma's horse teachers, said (tr. Creel 1965:659), "Horses are the foundation of military might, the great resource of the state." Some Chinese scholars propose that the famous "Flying Horse" discovered in a Han tomb in Gansu was a physiognomic model for a superior horse in motion.
