page_title: Archery
section_title: Mounted archery
hierarchical_section_title: Archery / History / Mounted archery
caption_attribution_description: English: Young prince Maximilian hunting for birds as a horsed archer, it was depicted in the so-called "Weißkunig" (part of the Triumphal Arch by Albrecht Dürer and his pupils)
context_page_description: Archery is the art, sport, practice, or skill of using a bow to shoot arrows. The word comes from the Latin arcus. Historically, archery has been used for hunting and combat. In modern times, it is mainly a competitive sport and recreational activity. A person who participates in archery is typically called an archer or a bowman, and a person who is fond of or an expert at archery is sometimes called a toxophilite.
context_section_description: Central tribesmen of Asia (after the domestication of the horse) and American Plains Indians (after gaining access to horses by Europeans) became extremely adept at archery on horseback. Lightly armored, but highly mobile archers were excellently suited to warfare in the Central Asian steppes, and they formed a large part of armies that repeatedly conquered large areas of Eurasia. Shorter bows are more suited to use on horseback, and the composite bow enabled mounted archers to use powerful weapons. Empires throughout the Eurasian landmass often strongly associated their respective "barbarian" counterparts with the usage of the bow and arrow, to the point where powerful states like the Han Dynasty referred to their neighbors, the Xiong-nu, as "Those Who Draw the Bow". For example, Xiong-nu mounted bowmen made them more than a match for the Han military, and their threat was at least partially responsible for Chinese expansion into the Ordos region, to create a stronger, more powerful buffer zone against them. It is possible that "barbarian" peoples were responsible for introducing archery or certain types of bows to their "civilized" counterparts—the Xiong-nu and the Han being one example. Similarly, short bows seem to have been introduced to Japan by northeast Asian groups.
caption: Hunting for flying birds from the back of a galloping horse was considered the top category of archery. The favorite hobby of Prince Maximilian, engraved by Dürer
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