Archery (20835)

Archery is the practice of using a bow to shoot arrows. Archery has historically been used in hunting and combat and has become a precision sport. more...

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A person practicing archery is called an archer, and one who is fond of or an expert at archery is sometimes called a toxophilite.

History

The earliest concrete evidence of archery dates back 5,000 years. The bow probably originated for use in hunting and was then adopted as a tool of warfare. It was one of the earliest forms of artillery. Bows eventually replaced the atlatl as the predominant means for launching projectiles.

Classical civilizations, notably the Persians, Macedonians, Nubians, Greeks, Parthians, Indians, Chinese, and Koreans, fielded large numbers of archers in their armies. Arrows proved exceptionally destructive against massed formations, and the use of archers often proved decisive.

During the Middle Ages, archery in warfare was not as prevalent and dominant in Western Europe as popular myth dictates. Archers were quite often the lowest-paid soldiers in an army or were conscripted from the peasantry. This was due to the cheap nature of the bow and arrow, as compared to the expense needed to equip a professional man-at-arms with good armour and a sword. Professional archers required a lifetime of training and expensive bows to be effective, and were thus rare in Europe (see English longbow).

Archery was highly developed in Asia and in the Islamic world. The horse archers were the main military force of most of the Equestrian Nomads. In modern times, horse archery continues to be practised in some Asian countries but is not used in international competition. Central Asian tribesmen were extremely adept at archery on horseback. Archery is the national sport of the Kingdom of Bhutan.

The advent of firearms rendered bows obsolete in warfare. Early firearms were vastly inferior in range, rate-of-fire, and armor penetration to high-quality bows, but required significantly less training to use properly. Armies equipped with guns could thus provide superior firepower by sheer weight of numbers, and highly-trained archers became obsolete.

Equipment

Types of bows

A longbow is a type of bow that is tall (roughly equal to or greater than the height of a person), is not recurved, and has relatively narrow limbs that are circular or D-shaped in cross section. The traditional English longbow is made so that its thickness is at least ⅝ of its width. If the thickness is less than ⅝ of its width then the bow would be considered a flatbow. Typically a longbow is widest at the handle. Longbows have been used for hunting and warfare, by many cultures around the world, a famous example being the English longbow, during the Middle Ages.

Read more at Wikipedia.org