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 Scythians are also credited with inventing the saddle, an almost equally important invention to human history as the bow.)Īcross the ancient world, empires rose and fell. By this time, the composite bow had been radically improved, with the ears and grips strengthened with bone. At least one surviving example has been proved to be made from human skin.

Additionally, they opted to use a bowcase and quiver called a gorytos, attached to a rider’s hip and easily accessible.

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.Īlready masters of horsemanship, the Scythians developed lighter archery equipment to increase their speed. The Scythians were a terror that swept over countries that did not know the technique of riding. 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.Īs historian Jacob Bronowski said in the 1970s: In total, 20 composite bows were found in the tomb of Tutankhamen, many inscribed with his name. 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.

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

Horse bow and quiver