Native to West Asia, they were found in Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Turkey, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq.

The bones of a Syrian wild ass have been identified at an 11,000 year-old archaeological site at Göbekli Tepe, Turkey.

[10] Cuneiform from the third millennium BCE report the hunting of an 'equid of the desert' (anše-edin-na), valued for its meat and hide, which may have been E. h. hemippus.

[11] Assyrian art from the 7th century BCE found at Nineveh includes a scene of hunters capturing Syrian wild asses with lassos.

[9] In addition to the Bronze Age kunga, a couple of modern hybrids were produced by the London Zoo in the late 19th century.

[14] However, its numbers began to drop precipitously during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries due to overhunting, and its existence was further imperiled by the regional upheaval of World War I.

It also was reintroduced, along with the Turkmenian kulan, to Israel, where they both reproduce wild ass hybrids in the Negev Mountains and the Yotvata Hai-Bar Nature Reserve.