Archery
by Dr. Ferenc Bóka
It seems that the preliminary forms of bows were invented in the Paleolithic or Mesolithic periods. This can be supported by the flint arrow-heads and cave drawings found by archeologists. These were hunting tools then. Later on, the bow and arrow became weapons without which it was unimaginable to win a battle in the time of the great civilizations and empires. The most ancient archers were the Assyrians, the Hittites and the Persians. The main force of the Persian army was made up the Medes, who were taught to be the best archers from their early childhood. The Greeks were familiar with archery, as well; however, the Romans despised archery and considered it the weapon of cowards. The mounted people of the steppes, the Huns, the Tatars or the Scythians (who considered themselves the nation of archers) had control over their neighbors, who feared them for millennia. There were two types of bows at the time: the straight bow (or self-bow) and the recurve bow. This latter was used by our ancestors because it could shoot farther than the bows used in the western civilizations, for example, the English Longbow. The success of the eastern raiding nomadic peoples lied not only in their bows but also their tactics. They faked withdrawal which encouraged the enemy to go after them but unexpectedly, the archers turned back in the saddle and started shooting at them. This can be considered the origin of mounted archery, which is very popular even nowadays. The Huns used three-bladed heavy arrow-heads (an improved version of the Scythian arrow-head) that could cause far more damage than the other types. There was a Hun custom that if a high rank warrior died, they buried his horse next to him. The horse was killed by a single shot in the head with such an arrow. This was a painless sudden death. In the west, the English were victorious over the French for a long time because they used lighter bows. The French crossbows were not only heavier but in case of rain they became useless because the string got wet. In the feudal era archery was one of the seven main skills a knight had to learn to use in hunting and in battle.
It is interesting that two Hungarian sportsmen broke the record set up in 1226 in long-distance shooting. At the competition there were 50 contestants and the arrow of József Mónus and Csaba Grózer went 508,74m, thus breaking the medieval record by 6 meters. Mónus has broken his own record, too, since then. The 1226 long-distance record was set up in Sartaul, East-Tajikistan by an archer named Esunkei at a competition organized by Genghis Khan. His record was 502,5m. A pillar was set up to pay homage to the archer, which became known as the stone of Genghis Khan. It can presently be found at the Hermitage Museum at Saint Petersburg.
Archery as a sport and freetime activity started out from England at the beginning of the 20th century. The first archery associations were formed in 1931. Archery was originally not part of the Olympic Games, however, the first international archery competition was held in 1900 at the Paris Olympics. (Baranyi 2009)