Ancient Archery

=> wow TIF, I love your "Larry Dog" coin (it's certainly an upgrade when compared against my humble example ... yummy coin!!)

*woof*

 

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This has been a really neat thread in a short few hours of seeing what you guys whipped out of your collections! Really amazing. Thank you for sharing and not minding my long posts about stuff getting in your way.

 

He definitely has skills. Do wonder what the difference was between where and how the arrows were kept when hunting and when in battle though. But different cultures went about archery in different ways, so lumping all ancient archers and their techniques into one category brings about an issue in itself. Besides different scenarios would call for different techniques as well. Anyway, even if the video was highly edited, or not, doesnt change the fact that the guy posses skill with the bow and arrow.

 

When you read Roman history to don't hear a lot about Roman archery. Of course, the Parthians are famed for archery and most Parthian coins have a bow held by an archer on the reverse. Coins with Diana, most of them provincial (and therefore somewhat "Greek"), usually have a bow as an attribute (to identify her). I can think of Greek silver coins with a bow. Can anyone think of and illustrate a Roman *imperial* coin that shows a bow and arrow being used by a Roman?

 

If I remember my history correctly, the Romans were not archers, slingers, or great horseman, so they incorporated these from other cultures (Greek slingers, Thracian Cavalry, Gaul archers/horsemen) into the auxiliaries. You have to wonder how good an archer or a slinger was during the height of the Roman Legions.

 

I tried to go back to the original link in the first post and it had changed to a video about Japanese archery. Here is a link to the original:



which is about rapid fire archery by Lars Andersen. [Edit] Now, just after posting this, I just went back to the first post in this thread and it had changed back! Odd.

 

Well I know that elves are good at archery... oh wait. Got the LoTR and Rome mixed up for a bit.

ummm back on topic.

 

Lars Andersen ...

man, that's brutal ..... the dude has skilz!!


Oh, and "wow" => great coin, icerain!! (yummy)

 

Great video! Here are my two archery-themed coins:



Apollo is holding a bow while sitting on the prow of this tetradrachm:

 

Wowza! Gorgeous images and coins!

 

The English (Welsh?) longbow was quit effective against the French in the Hundred Years War.......

Nothing more to offer than.......wow! Lars was amazing. Chris? I would't want to face this guy on the field of battle.

 

Ditto that, Ken! To him we all have apples on our heads!

 

The French were so incensed with the accuracy of the English bowman, that if one were captured by them, the index and middle finger were chopped off.......

 

I've heard this and have no reason to doubt it. In addition, the story goes that archers would hold up those same two fingers and shake them so as to taunt the French. And, thus, the backward "victory sign" in England has a meaning similar to our middle finger. So the story goes.....

 

Syracuse, Sicily, AR 12 litrai, 214-212 BC

Reverse: Artemis, in her short skirt and boots, is ready to fire her bow and arrow and her hound is off to chase down the unfortunate target!

 

The two depictions of Artemis in this thread are interesting: TIF's provincial and ancientnut's Sicilian. In both instances, she has a quiver, so the statement in the OP video that a quiver is a modern idea is obviously not true. However, on ancientnut's coin, it's clear that the arrow is drawn on the right side of the bow, and that does jibe with the information on the video.

But we're talking about Artemis here, the daughter of Zeus. Perhaps she didn't need to fire arrows in rapid succession. Perhaps one arrow from her bow wreaked enough devastation.