WARRIORS

 Hello ladies and gents this is the Viking telling you that today we are talking about 

Horseback archers of the East, Orient and ancient world

Around 4000 years ago, an entirely new and highly specialised tradition of bow-making was developed. Rather than shaping tall bows from a single piece of long wood, ancient bowyers began constructing more compact designs made out of composite layers of wood, animal horn, sinew and glue.

The shift in styles aligned with a rise in the use of horses in the ancient world.

Mounted tribes were capable of migrating across entire continents and the wooden bow, which needed to be almost as tall as the person using it to be effective, was no longer a viable tool. Composite bows were shorter and more powerful – and, critically, could be used on horseback.

It’s as challenging as it sounds – both then and now. Using a bow while sitting on a horse requires the rider to let go of the reins with both hands, requiring excellent equestrian skills to remain in sync with the animal as well as archery ability to accurately release an arrow.

The relationship between archery and horses can be traced back at least to the ancient Egyptians.

In the glory days of the New Kingdom, around 1300 BC, shooting from a chariot was a skill so desirable that even pharaohs such as Rameses II were depicted practising it. In total, 20 composite bows were found in the tomb of Tutankhamen, many inscribed with his name. 

Perhaps the most legendary early mounted archers were the Scythians, a collection of aggressive nomad tribes who struck fear up and down the Silk Road around the 7th century BC, and whose archery skills were lauded across antiquity.

As historian Jacob Bronowski said in the 1970s: 

The Scythians were a terror that swept over countries that did not know the technique of riding. The Greeks when they saw the Scythian riders believed the horse and the rider to be one, that is how they invented the legend of the centaur… We cannot hope to recapture today the terror that the mounted horse struck into the Middle East and Europe when it first appeared.

Already masters of horsemanship, the Scythians developed lighter archery equipment to increase their speed. Additionally, they opted to use a bowcase and quiver called a gorytos, attached to a rider’s hip and easily accessible. At least one surviving example has been proved to be made from human skin. By this time, the composite bow had been radically improved, with the ears and grips strengthened with bone. 

(The Scythians are also credited with inventing the saddle, an almost equally important invention to human history as the bow.)

Across the ancient world, empires rose and fell. In turn, the Assyrians, the Persians and the Etruscan armies all employed horseback archers, each celebrated in their time for their nobility and expertise.

The Persians, founders of the first true world empire, were said by Herodotus to train their sons from the age of five to 20 in four things only: “riding, swordsmanship, archery, and truth-telling”.

Large armies rarely relied solely on skirmishing horse archers, but there are many examples of victories in which horse archers played a leading part. Alexander the Great used mounted archers recruited among the Scythians and Dahae during the Greek invasion of India.

Archery was not a usual feature of the Roman military (as they belatedly realised), but the Romans, scarred from battles with mounted archers, later made use of foreign levies, with regiments of equites sagittarii acting as Rome's horse archers in combat.

The Parthians, an ancient Iranian people who built their empire around 50 AD, are credited with inventing the military tactic known as the “Parthian shot” – turning and shooting an arrow from a horse while galloping away from the enemy – a technique that rapidly spread across the ancient world. 

However, not all mounted archers were fast and light. Heavyweight horse archers, such as those in the Byzantine and Turkish armies, gradually formed into disciplined units, and shot as volleys rather than as lightweight individual attackers. 

And as always have a chilled day from the Viking