142 BULLETIN OF THE ESSEX INSTITUTE. 



Hammer, Esq., of Copenhagen, and from the unrivalled 

 collection of armor and weapons of Louis Richard Zschille, 

 of Grossenhain, which was exhibited at the Columbian Ex- 

 position, and from the Louvre, the British Museum and 

 the Museums of Zürich, Brüssels, Antwerp and the Uni- 

 versity of Pennsylvania. 



It seemed with the material at my command that some 

 light might be thrown on the uses of this object, but after 

 a greatly interrupted study of it for over seven years I re- 

 luctantly yield the solvingof the enigma to others, having 

 got no neareran explanation of it than when I first began, 

 contented, however, with the conviction that the usual 

 attribution assigned to it has been disproved. 



I must here express my indebtedness to Mr. Edward 

 Robinson, Curator of Classical Antiquities of the Boston 

 Museum of Fine Arts, for numerous references to works 

 containing allusions to this object. To Prof. Henry W. 

 Haynes, I am also under obligations for important cita- 

 tions ; and to Mr. Ross Turner, for two examples which 

 he purchased in Florence ; also to Mr. Dwight Blaney, 

 for a number of sketches of bow-pullers in the Museum of 

 Archgeology, at Florence, and in the British Museum. 



To the courtesy of Mr. Stuart Culin, Director of the 

 Museum of Archaeology, University of Pennsylvania, and 

 to Mrs. Cornelius Stevenson, Curator of the Mediterranean 

 Collections, I am indebted for the privilege of figuring the 

 süperb example on Plate I. 



As the object under discussion has been almost univer- 

 sally labelled bow-stretcher in museum collections I shall 

 use a similar term bow-puller in referring to it. 



The bow-puller is usually of bronze, rarely of iron, 

 roughly cast. (The accompanying figures 1, 2 and 3, in 

 outline, represent the front, top and side views respective- 

 ly of a piain form of bow-puller ; on Plate I are shown in 

 half-tone the front and top views of the piain and the 



