ON THE SO-CALLED BOW-PULLER OF ANTIQUITY. 153 



the archers are armed with the Turkish bow ! Cross-bows 

 are often depicted in illustrating the same subject, a weapon 

 that was not known for hundred s of years after the event. 

 As another illustration I may cite the famous Germanic 

 Museum of National Antiquities at Nuremburg. In its 

 collections is a Turkish thumb-ring, a Turkish bow, and 

 other accessories of a Turkish archer's outfit. A detailed 

 drawing, natural size, is exhibited to illustrate the manner 

 in which the thumb-ring is used, and the drawing shows 

 the ring on the wrong hand and upside down ! Even the 

 curious grooved device which is held in the bow hand to 

 permit the archer to draw the arrow sorae inches within 

 the bow is directed outward as if to guide the arrow. In 

 a similar way the idea having obtained that the ancient 

 Greeks pulled the arrow in the Asiatic fashion (see Han- 

 sard — The Book of Archery), Thorwaldsen in restoring 

 the hands of the tigures on the pediments of the temple of 

 iEgina endeavored to represent what he supposed to be 

 the Asiatic method of drawing the bow. As a result he 

 has wrought the fingers in a way utterly impossible for an 

 archer to assume in releasing the arrow, and of course 

 leaving out the thumb-ring or any other appliance of that 

 nature. From this confusion of ideas in regard to the 

 matter it is quite probable that, when the curious bronze 

 implement under discussion was h'rst studied, the two fin- 

 gers so natural ly adjusted themselves in the rings that it 

 was supposed to be an archer's device for drawing the bow, 

 and this error has been transmitted by subsequeut writers 

 on the subject. 



Caylus in 1757 figures this object in his Recueil d'An- 

 tiquites. He expresses no opinion in regard to its use, 

 and further adds that no use has been assigned to it. He 

 figures the object upside down as if standing on three legs, 

 the three spines in this instance, being of the same length. 



