It was our first week in UCL, and some of us might still struggle
to find our own path. Before going to the right direction, don’t you think it
is essential to have a clear aim? Once we know what our absolute goal is,
nothing could stop us from going for it. What else can teach us to aim better
than archery, right? ;)
I chose to do archery as my first activity because it is a
skill that I had always look forward to master in (even though I had this session before in my high school but huh..) Before starting any
activity, as usual, safety first. Our instructors, Tania and Jim (starred in the image) gave us a
safety guideline before we sit and prepare to explore this enthralling sport. Apart from keeping an eye
to a target, it is also vital to be aware of our surroundings, since arrowheads
are very sharp and recklessness could lead to serious injuries. Whenever we are in
‘hold’ position’, which means we have drawn the string and we want to let it
go, GENTLY bring it down, and never let it snap. Shooting need to
be done in an area bounded by the shooting line, which should never be crossed
until we are told that it is safe to do so. This also implies that if an arrow
accidentally falls from the bow, do not bent and try to pick it. Wait for the
instruction of “clear to collect” as the area over the shooting line is
extremely insecure.
There are different types of bows, which are long bow (left), flat
bow (right) and recurve bow. The main components of a bow consist of a stick and a
string. Long bow is an example of a self-bow because it is made of only one
material, which is sapwood. A long bow only take a few days to be made because
the maker only need to shape the wood into a bow shape. The front part of a
long bow is more springy, while the back part of the bow is harder, which is
made up from core of trees. The long bow was probably first used by the
Scandinavians.
Other than that we were also introduced to composite bows such
as flat and recurve bows. They are called composite because they are made of
more than one materials. These type of bows also take longer time to be made,
ranging from 6 months to one and a half year. A flat bow has a flat surface, compared to long bow which is more cylindrical. The limbs of a flat bow
(limbs are area close to the string) were bent, but not the handle of the bow.
Another example of composite bow is the recurve bow (a wooden bow in the middle with a moustache shape in the image above, if that makes any sense to you XD). We were
shown a recurve bow made of cattle bone, leather, thread and wood. This bow is
relatively smaller than other bows. Among the advantages of using a recurve bow
is less energy is required for the archer to shoot due to the bow’s ability to
store more energy. We were also told that one of the reasons why composite bows
were made is due to the lack of resources of woods in Middle East, where these
types of bows were found.
An arrow consist of a tip (also known as head or point), fletching (which is made from feathers), a nock; which is a part at the back of arrow that goes into the string and an arrow sometimes might consist of a barb on part of its shaft close to the arrowhead. An arrow is typically fletched with a 3-fletching, however a 4-fletching arrow is more common for horse riders. This is because less time is needed to figure out which side of the arrow's nock need to be fitted into the string in order to make sure its direction during flight will not be diverted.
Moreover, we were also presented with different types of arrow points , which are Fowling, trilobate, needle Bodkin, normal Bodkin, broadhead and Ambos point. These arrow points are used for different purposes. For example, a Fowling arrowhead has a shape of a crescent, therefore it has two points and the curve part is blunt. This arrowhead is used to cut flight feathers of a bird. A trilobate arrowhead is usually used as an armour piercer due to its ability to pierce in between fibres of cloth with its blades. Needle Bodkin is suitable to be used to pierce into chain mail (image above) that protect an armour’s suit.
A hands-on activity that we did was shooting arrows to hit the target, which is a portrait of a Bambi. As we draw our bows' string, we were experiencing a state called ‘stacking’. Stacking is a
term used to describe the increase in amount of energy needed to pull the string of the bow. It gets more difficult
to pull the string back after a certain point. An archer need to be equipped
with an arm guard to protect his or her arm from the string and also a finger
tab to protect fingers that are used to pull the string. In the old days,
people used a rectangle stone as an arm guard, punched with two holes at each short edges.
We were also taught on how to collect arrows that fell on
the ground, and the ones on target. Once the instruction “clear to collect” has
been given in a training, archers will line up and walk in a line from the
shooting border towards the target and pick up any arrows that they can see in
front of them. After picking up an arrow, the arrowhead must be pointed
downwards to reduce the chance of hurting anyone nearby. To pick an arrow that
hit the target, we must first make sure that there is nobody else behind us.
Then, place our palm on the target around an inch above the arrow and take out
the arrow horizontally out of the target, pointing the arrowhead downwards
after it has successfully come out of the foam target.
As this is an experimental archaeology course, we did an
experiment on the degree of penetration of different types of arrowheads into
various types of material, which are rabbit skin, thin leather (peach), thick leather (dark brown) and chain mail. Scientifically speaking,
(this might remind you guys of your lab experiments in high school) the manipulated
a.k.a independent variable or IV is types of arrowheads, and the dependent variable
or DV is whether the material is pierced or not. We found out that needle
Bodkin is the most ‘powerful’ arrow point, because it successfully penetrated
all materials (however only half of the arrow point of needle Bodkin went into
the thick leather).
At some point, we did face difficulty in searching for the
arrows that had missed the target. If these arrows are left behind, it might be
discovered by other people who come to West Dean even after many years since
most arrowheads are made from metal that do not degrade.
This might sounds so factual, but I found it something intriguing to be learnt. Not only because of the physical and mental health benefits
that archery has to offer, but even Rasulullah s.a.w. really encouraged us to
learn how to shoot an arrow J
End of PrimTech Day 1 :)
Adios!
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