kunga

This was an animal much prized in the third millennium B.C.E. in the ancient kingdom of Syria.  It was a cross between a domestic donkey and a wild ass and had greater strength than the donkey making it useful as a draught animal in agriculture and in war.  There are mosaic images of chariots being drawn by these equids (members of the horse family).  Being hybrids they were sterile so they could not reproduce themselves.  Each one had to come individually from a breeding program so they were very expensive.  The rulers of the kingdom of Nagar displayed them as tokens of their wealth and monopolised trade in kungas in the region.  

 Despite references, descriptions and pictures no one was quite sure what they were until a palaeogenomic study of the bones of animals buried alongside their owner in a royal burial compound near Aleppo revealed the genetic mix of domestic donkey and Syrian wild ass.  Their placement in the burial compound was a sign of their elite status.

Apparently a similar hybrid was produced in the London zoo in 1883.  There can be no other attempt because the Syrian wild ass is now extinct.This was an animal much prized in the third millennium B.C.E. in the ancient kingdom of Syria.  It was a cross between a domestic donkey and a wild ass and had greater strength than the donkey making it useful as a draught animal in agriculture and in war.  There are mosaic images of chariots being drawn by these equids (members of the horse family).  Being hybrids they were sterile so they could not reproduce themselves.  Each one had to come individually from a breeding program so they were very expensive.  The rulers of the kingdom of Nagar displayed them as tokens of their wealth and monopolised trade in kungas in the region.