The largest and most comprehensive collection of exotic Arabian equine art and artifacts ever assembled will be on view to group tours when A Gift from the Desert: The Art, History and Culture of the Arabian Horse is presented next summer, May 29-Oct. 15, 2010, in the Kentucky Horse Park's International Museum of the Horse.

This breathtaking exhibition, presented by the Saudi Arabian Equestrian Federation, has already been named one of the American Bus Association's Top 100 Events for 2010. It will feature 410 artifacts and works of art from 26 museums and private lenders including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the British Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Oxford University, Ashmolean Museum, Egyptian Museum of Cairo, Carnegie Museum of Art, National Museum of Warsaw, Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, American Museum of Natural History, and many others.

Among the priceless works of art and artifacts in A Gift from the Desert are the Standard of Ur (circa 2,600 BCE), the first depiction of equine driving, and the Kikkuli tablet, the world's earliest known treatise on horse care and training from the Hittite civilization.

Some items are expected to be particularly popular with group tour visitors, including the robes and dagger used by T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) in his famous march across the desert, an outstanding collection of Orientalist paintings depicting Near Eastern life and equestrian culture, early depictions of the earliest Arabian-type horses from Egypt's New Kingdom, and a stunning selection of saddles, tack, armor, and arms (many bejeweled), from the Ottoman Empire