Thanks to George for the link - I haven't read it yet but it looks quite interesting. I am 40%
Greek from my father's side and an archer. My family is from Methone, mentioned in the Illiad as
having sent 50 skilled archers to the battle at Troy. Archery was recognized as a legitimate form
of fighting in the Trojan war era. In fact, Philoctetes was considered a hero for his skill with
the bow as was Hercules. Teucer, half-brother to Ajax the Great was immortalized as giving some
success to the Achaeans by killing several charging Trojans, including Hector's charioteer. He
fought alongside Ajax, firing from behind his great shield. Probably about 1100 BC is when the bow
started falling into disfavor among the Greeks as a more cowardly form of fighting. However,
archery continued all through Crete's history. Then with the invasion of the Persians the Greeks
again started recognizing the necessity of the bow in warfare. Athenians, Cretans, Corinthians and Scythians were then used on land and sea. Slightly previous to this they used the Scythians, the archers of the day (1/3rd being women) as mercenaries and even as a police force in Athens. Alexander the Great of course used Cretan and Scythian archers in his conquests.
As for the type of wood used - I read somewhere of a Roman writing about how they copied a bow from
the Greeks made out of yew. I am having a replica of a bow from 1250 BC made out of both Juniper
and olive wood. Juniper because it is a wood indigenous to Greece with wonderful qualities and olive because my family in Greece owned olive orchards. Hickory is also indigenous to Greece so I'm sure
they made both bows and arrow from this wood.
For 2 years now I have had a yahoo groups primitive archer site, where we are trying to form a
reenactment and competition club. Things are starting to progress. We hope to have a demo team
put together for next summer when we will travel to renfaires and such. Members so far will portray:
3 or 4 various Native American tribes, 2 medieval longbowman, 2 Polish Hussars and myself as a
Mycenaean Greek.
