Bow, arrows, bowstring - those who still managed to live in real childhood, with "war toys", hide and seek and other unforgettable games, probably familiar with these words not by hearsay. In my childhood, there was a bow for every rural boy and every other girl, we loved to play the Indians. Of course, the bow or arrow (as we called it then) was self-made, someone better than someone else's - it already depended on where the pope / grandfather's arms grew.The arrows were mainly made of reeds and sometimes, we manned them with iron tips made from a nail, well to feel like a "true" Indian. They ran, they shot, they had fun, often received light wounds, there were no fatal cases of glory to God.
What kind of shooting technique did we have? We held onto the arrow and with it pulled the bowstring - Vzhuuh and the arrow flew, very often not where I was aiming, the main thing is not to someone's eye. Well, in antiquity they shot quite differently, to string the bowstring a special ring was required, the so-called "archer's ring".
Historically, the archer's rings are characteristic mainly for the countries of East and South Asia, as well as Rus, and were not known in Western Europe.
The ring was worn on the thumb of the right hand, with it a string was stretched and at the right time released. What was it for? Firstly, it increased the rate of fire and, especially, it was convenient for the mounted warrior, and secondly, the trauma that could be caused by the string during the descent was minimized.
It is believed that the very first rings of the archer were made of leather and therefore not preserved. Historians know rings made of stone, including semiprecious minerals (jade, jasper, agate, etc.), bones, horns and polished wood. I present to your attention the bronze ring of the archer, presumably the period of Kievan Rus.
Found it was, as usual, quite by accident, during a walk through the forest with a metal detector, in a place not forbidden by the laws of my country. The find is "not frequent" and worthy of attention.
