OF ARROW-RELEASE. 



173 



offer the suggestion that during these wars he might have 

 acquired the more vigorous release as practiced by the 

 Asiatics. 1 Whatever may be the method depicted in the 

 drawing of Seti, it is quite unlike the releases of the time 

 of Usurtasen, and equally unlike the figures of Rameses 

 II., which are so often portrayed. 



In Figs. 33, 34, copied from Rosallini, the thumb and 

 the forefinger partially bent may be intended to represent 

 the primary release, as in no other way could be inter- 

 preted the bent forefinger and straightened thumb holding 



Fig. 34. Egyptian. Rameses II. 



the tip of the arrow, with three other fingers free from the 

 string. 



In the British Museum are casts of a hunting scene, and 

 also of battle scenes of the time of Rameses II., in which the 

 shaft-hand of the archer is in an inverted position. This 

 form of release associated with a vertical bow is an impos- 

 sible one. Either the hand is wrongly drawn, or the atti- 

 tude of the bow is incorrectly given. The only explanation 

 of this discrepancy is the assumption that the bow was 



1 It would be extremely interesting to know whether any object answering the 

 purpose of a thumb-ring has ever been found among the relics of ancient Egypt. 



