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The archer shown is
taken from a grave stelae found at Housesteads
Fort on Hadrian’s Wall and represents an auxiliary archer of the 1st
Hamian Cohort of archers,
probably Syrian in origin. The man wears a mail shirt and a pointed bronze
helmet which has been tinned
and embossed with decorative figures. His main weapon
is a short recurve bow of
wood and sinew and his side arms are a long knife and
small axe or hatchet. On his left arm he
wears a bracer of bronze strips to protect his
forearm from the bowstring and on his right thumb he has a bone ring,
necessary to hold the bowstring when using the ‘Asiatic’ grip
when the string is drawn back
between thumb and forefinger.
The auxiliary
units provided most of the ‘specialist’ troops of the Roman
Army and this man is one such example.
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