When the evolution of human started they were continuously made thing for their luxury. Human wanted to enjoy life with easy efforts this thing lead the foundation of evolution of gadgets. So, it may be said that people where using gadgets since the beginning of history.

Some of the gadgets made in that era is also used these days, and some of them not used but based on the same principle. These ancient gadgets have lighten the way of sciences and technology and lead us to this level of development. Here we are covering some of the ancient gadgets.

1. Antikythera Mechanism:

Antikythera Mechanism is an mechanical calculator from the ancient world. It is also called as the first known mechanical computer. It was designed to calculate astronomical positions. It was discovered in the Antikythera wreck off the Greek island of Antikythera, between Kythera and Crete, in 1901. Technological artifacts of similar complexity did not reappear until a thousand years later.

Its complexity is far in advance of that what was expected from a device that was build about 80 BC (recently new studies suggest it was build even earlier between 150 and 100 BC). The complexities can be observed by following things

1. The part found contains 32 gears.

2. Its use of a Differential Gear to subtract the sidereal motion of the sun from that of the moon to produce the synodic month.

3. The cycle of the phases of the moon, is remarkable and represents the first example of such gearing yet discovered.

4. The full functions of the mechanism may never be known but it appears certain that it displayed the position of the Sun in the zodiac throughout the year as well as the phases of the moon.

As such it can be considered as one of the first known computing devices. Price (1974) speculated that it may also have displayed the positions of the planets as well, thought the gearing required to do this is missing from the fragments that were recovered. “Planetaria” are considered have been also build by Archimedes and they also could be used for educational and research purposes.

The Antikythera Mechanism Research Project, with experts from Britain, Greece and the United States, detected in July 2008 the word “Olympia” on a bronze dial thought to display the 76 year Callippic cycle, as well as the names of other games in ancient Greece, and probably used to track dates of the ancient Olympic games. According to BBC news:

The Antikythera Mechanism has puzzled experts since its discovery by Greek sponge divers in 1901. Researchers have long suspected the ancient clockwork device was used to display astronomical cycles.A team has now found that one of the dials records the dates of the ancient Olympiad.
This could have been to provide a benchmark for the passage of time. The device is made up of bronze gearwheels and dials, and scientists know of nothing like it until at least 1,000 years later.

A number of individuals and groups have been instrumental in advancing the knowledge and understanding of the mechanism including: Derek J. de Solla Price; Allan George Bromley; Michael Wright and The Antikythera Mechanism Research Project.

Following decades of work cleaning the device, in 1951 British science historian Derek J. de Solla Price undertook systematic investigation of the mechanism.

Price published several papers on “Clockwork before the Clock“ and “On the Origin of Clockwork“, before the first major publication in June 1959 on the mechanism: “An Ancient Greek Computer“.

In 1971, Price, by then the first Avalon Professor of the History of Science at Yale University, teamed up with Charalampos Karakalos, professor of nuclear physics at the Greek National Centre of Scientific Research “DEMOKRITOS”. Karakalos took both gamma- and X-ray radiographs of the mechanism, which revealed critical information about the device’s interior configuration.

In 1974, Price wrote “Gears from the Greeks: the Antikythera mechanism — a calendar computer from ca. 80 B.C.“, where he presented a model of how the mechanism could have functioned.

Price’s model, as presented in his “Gears from the Greeks”, was the first theoretical attempt at reconstructing the device. According to that model, the front dial shows the annual progress of the Sun and Moon through the zodiac against the Egyptian calendar. The upper rear dial displays a four-year period and has associated dials showing the Metonic cycle of 235 synodic months, which approximately equals 19 solar years. The lower rear dial plots the cycle of a single synodic month, with a secondary dial showing the lunar year of 12 synodic months.

One of the remarkable proposals made by Price was that the mechanism employed differential gears, which enabled the mechanism to add or subtract angular velocities. The differential was used to compute the synodic lunar cycle by subtracting the effects of the Sun’s movement from those of the sidereal lunar movement.

2. The Coso Artifact:

The Coso Artifact is a spark plug found encased in a lump of hard clay or rock on February 13, 1961 by Wallace Lane, Virginia Maxey, and Mike Mikesell while they were prospecting for geodes near the town of Olancha, California and long claimed as an example of an out-of-place artifact.

When Mikesell started to examine the artifact by new diamond saw blade while cutting what he thought was a geode artifact ruined the blade. Inside the nodule that was cut, Mikesell did not find the cavity that is typical of geodes, but a perfectly circular section of very hard, white material that appeared to be porcelain. In the center of the porcelain cylinder, was a 2-millimeter shaft of bright metal. The metal shaft responded to a magnet.

There were still other odd qualities about the specimen. The outer layer of the specimen was encrusted with fossil shells and their fragments. In addition to shells, the discoverers noticed two nonmagnetic metallic metal objects in the crust, resembling a nail and a washer. Stranger still, the inner layer was hexagonal and seemed to form a casing around the hard porcelain cylinder. Within the inner layer, a layer of decomposing copper surrounded the porcelain cylinder.

There were still other odd qualities about the specimen. The outer layer of the specimen was encrusted with fossil shells and their fragments. In addition to shells, the discoverers noticed two nonmagnetic metallic metal objects in the crust, resembling a nail and a washer. Stranger still, the inner layer was hexagonal and seemed to form a casing around the hard porcelain cylinder. Within the inner layer, a layer of decomposing copper surrounded the porcelain cylinder.

The Coso Artifact is a remarkable example of how creation “science” fails when the assumptions of its theory are implemented in a real life archaeological situation. Young-earth creationists commonly assume that almost all sedimentary layers were deposited during the Great Flood. Therefore, any items closely associated with such strata must date back to the time of Noah.

Perhaps the most surprising revelation is the stunningly poor research Dr. Chittick conducted regarding the artifact. Several times he referenced creationist articles that should have cast the original claims in extreme doubt. But somehow, he continued to be fascinated by the artifact. Anti-creationists familiar with Dr. Chittick will remember a previous incident with Dr. Chittick. When confronted about his fallacious statements by Jim Lippard regarding Lucy’s knee joint in the mid 1990s, he ignored these warnings and continued to mislead his audiences until confronted in person by Pierre Stromberg at the conclusion of a lecture in Seattle.

The Coso Artifact was indeed a remarkable device. It was a 1920s-era Champion spark plug that likely powered a Ford Model T or Model A engine, modified to possibly serve mining operations in the Coso mountain range of California. To suggest that it was a device belonging to an advanced ancient civilization of the past could be interpreted as true, but is an exaggeration of several thousand years.

3. Wooden Wheel:

The wheel is probably the most important mechanical invention of all time. Nearly every machine built since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution involves a single, basic principle embodied in one of mankind’s truly significant inventions. It’s hard to imagine any mechanized system that would be possible without the wheel or the idea of a symmetrical component moving in a circular motion on an axis. From tiny watch gears to automobiles, jet engines and computer disk drives, the principle is the same.

Up till now, it is still a mystery as to who invented the wheel and when the wheel was invented. According to archaeologists, it was probably invented in around 8,000 B.C. in Asia. The oldest wheel known however, was discovered in Mesopotamia and probably dates back to 3,500 B.C.

A wheel with spokes first appeared on Egyptian chariots around 2000 BC, and wheels seem to have developed in Europe by 1400 BC without any influence from the Middle East. Because the idea of the wheel appears so simple, it’s easy to assume that the wheel would have simply “happened” in every culture when it reached a particular level of sophistication. However, this is not the case. The great Inca, Aztec and Maya civilizations reached an extremely high level of development, yet they never used the wheel. In fact, there is no evidence that the use of the wheel existed among native people anywhere in the Western Hemisphere until well after contact with Europeans.

This wheel was believed to have been made by the Sumerians. It was made of planks of wood joined together. The picture below briefly describes the stages of development of the wheel.

Stage one: Early men placed rollers beneath heavy objects so that they could be moved easily.

Stage two: Early men began to place runners under a heavy load, which they discovered would make it easier for the load to drag. This was the invention of the sledge.

Stage three: Men began to combine the roller and the sledge. As the sledge moved forward over the first roller, a second roller was placed under the front end to carry the load when it moved off the first roller. A model of a sledge with such rollers is in the Smithsonian Institution.

Stage four: Soon, men discovered that the rollers which carried the sledge became grooved with use. They soon discovered that these deep grooves actually allowed the sledge to advance a greater distance before the next roller was needed to come on!

Thus, in Stage five : The rollers were changed into wheels. In the process of doing so, wood between the grooves of the roller were cut away to form an axle and wooden pegs were fastened to the runners on each side of the axle. When the wheels turn, the axle turned too in the space between the pegs. The first wooden cart was thus made.

Stage six: A slight improvement was made to the cart. This time, instead of using pegs to join the wheels to the axle, holes for the axle were drilled through the frame of the cart. Axle and wheels were now made separately.

4. The Baghdad Battery:

The Baghdad Battery, sometimes referred to as the Parthian Battery, is the common name for a number of artifacts created in Mesopotamia, possibly during the Parthian or Sassanid period (the early centuries AD). These jars were probably discovered in 1936 in the village of Khuyut Rabbou’a, near Baghdad, Iraq. These artifacts came to wider attention in 1938 when Wilhelm König, the German director of the National Museum of Iraq, found the objects in the museum’s collections. In 1940 König published a paper speculating that they may have been galvanic cells, perhaps used for electroplating gold onto silver objects. This interpretation continues to be considered as at least a hypothetical possibility. If correct, the artifacts would predate Alessandro Volta’s 1800 invention of the electrochemical cell by more than a millennium.

The artifacts consist of ~130 mm (~5 inch) tall terracotta jars containing a copper cylinder made of a rolled-up copper sheet, which houses a single iron rod. At the top, the iron rod is isolated from the copper by bitumen plugs or stoppers, and both rod and cylinder fit snugly inside the opening of the jar which bulges outward towards the middle. The copper cylinder is not watertight, so when the jar was filled with a liquid containing citric acid, this would surround the iron rod as well.

The artifact had been exposed to the weather and had suffered corrosion, although mild given the presence of an electrochemical couple. This has led some scholars to believe lemon juice, grape juice, or vinegar was used as an acidic agent to jump-start the electrochemical reaction with the two metals.

According to BBC “König thought the objects might date to the Parthian period (between 250 BC and AD 224). However according to Dr. St. John Simpson of the Near Eastern department of the British Museum, their original excavation and context were not well recorded, so evidence for this date range is very weak. Furthermore, the style of the pottery is Sassanid.”

5. The Turk:

The Turk, the Mechanical Turk or Automaton Chess Player was a fake chess-playing machine constructed in the late 18th century. From 1770 until its destruction by fire in 1854, it was exhibited by various owners as an automaton, though it was explained in the early 1820s as an elaborate hoax. Constructed and unveiled in 1770 by Wolfgang von Kempelen (1734–1804) to impress the Empress Maria Theresa, the mechanism appeared to be able to play a strong game of chess against a human opponent, as well as perform the knight’s tour, a puzzle that requires the player to move a knight to occupy every square of a chessboard exactly once.

Publicly promoted as an automaton and given its common name based on its appearance, the Turk was in fact a mechanical illusion that allowed a human chess master hiding inside to operate the machine. With a skilled operator, the Turk won most of the games played during its demonstrations around Europe and the Americas for nearly 84 years, playing and defeating many challengers including statesmen such as Napoleon Bonaparte and Benjamin Franklin. Although many had suspected the hidden human operator, the hoax was initially revealed only in the 1820s by the Londoner Robert Willis (see, for instance, his An Attempt to Analyse the Automaton Chess Player, London, 1821).

Kempelen was inspired to build The Turk following his attendance at the court of Maria Theresa of Austria at Schönbrunn Palace, where François Pelletier was performing an illusion act. An exchange following the performance resulted in Kempelen promising to return to the Palace with an invention that would top the illusions.

The result of the challenge was the Automaton Chess-player, known in modern times as The Turk. The machine consisted of a life-sized model of a human head and torso, with a black beard and grey eyes, and dressed in Turkish robes and a turban—”the traditional costume,” according to journalist and author Tom Standage, “of an oriental sorcerer.” Its left arm held a long Turkish smoking pipe while at rest, while its right lay on the top of a large cabinet that measured about three-and-a-half feet (110 cm, according to Jay’s Journal) long, two feet (60 cm) wide, and two-and-a-half feet (75 cm) high. Placed on the top of the cabinet was a chessboard, which measured eighteen inches square. The front of the cabinet consisted of three doors, an opening, and a drawer, which could be opened to reveal a red and white ivory chess set.

The interior of the machine was very complicated and designed to mislead those who observed it. When opened on the left, the front doors of the cabinet exposed a number of gears and cogs similar to clockwork. The section was designed so that if the back doors of the cabinet were open at the same time one could see through the machine. The other side of the cabinet did not house machinery; instead it contained a red cushion and some removable parts, as well as brass structures. This area was also designed to provide a clear line of vision through the machine. Underneath the robes of the Turkish model, two other doors were hidden. These also exposed clockwork machinery and provided a similarly unobstructed view through the machine. The design allowed the presenter of the machine to open every available door to the public, to maintain the illusion.

Neither the clockwork visible to the left side of the machine nor the drawer that housed the chess set extended fully to the rear of the cabinet; they instead went only one third of the way. A sliding seat was also installed, allowing the director inside to slide from place to place and thus evade observation as the presenter opened various doors. The sliding of the seat caused dummy machinery to slide into its place to further conceal the person inside the cabinet.

The chessboard on the top of the cabinet was thin enough to allow for a magnetic linkage. Each piece in the chess set had a small, strong magnet attached to its base, and when they were placed on the board the pieces would attract a magnet attached to a string under their specific places on the board. This allowed the director inside the machine to see which pieces moved where on the chess board. The bottom of the chessboard had corresponding numbers, 1–64, allowing the director to see which places on the board were affected by a player’s move. The internal magnets were positioned in a way that outside magnetic forces did not influence them, and Kempelen would often allow a large magnet to sit at the side of the board in an attempt to show that the machine was not influenced by magnetism.

As a further means of misdirection, the Turk came with a small wooden coffin-like box that the presenter would place on the top of the cabinet. While Johann Nepomuk Mälzel, a later owner of the machine, did not use the box, Kempelen often peered into the box during play, suggesting that the box controlled some aspect of the machine. The box was believed by some to have supernatural power, with Karl Gottlieb von Windisch writing in his 1784 book Inanimate Reason that “[o]ne old lady, in particular, who had not forgotten the tales she had been told in her youth … went and hid herself in a window seat, as distant as she could from the evil spirit, which she firmly believed possessed the machine.”

The interior also contained a pegboard chess board connected to a pantograph-style series of levers that controlled the model’s left arm. The metal pointer on the pantograph moved over the interior chessboard, and would simultaneously move the arm of the Turk over the chessboard on the cabinet. The range of motion allowed the director to move the Turk’s arm up and down, and turning the lever would open and close the Turk’s hand, allowing it to grasp the pieces on the board. All of this was made visible to the director by using a simple candle, which had a ventilation system through the model. Other parts of the machinery allowed for a clockwork-type sound to be played when the Turk made a move, further adding to the machinery illusion, and for the Turk to make various facial expressions. A voice box was added following the Turk’s acquisition by Mälzel, allowing the machine to say “Échec!” (French for “check”) during matches.

An operator inside the machine also had tools to assist in communicating with the presenter outside. Two brass discs equipped with numbers were positioned opposite each other on the inside and outside of the cabinet. A rod could rotate the discs to the desired number, which acted as a code between the two.

6. The Plough:

Farming is perhaps the oldest industry in the World. Historians are generally agreed that the earliest implement was probably a crude pointed bent stick or tree branch which was used to stir the soil surface. In affect a hand held hoe in which the user scratched at the earth to form a tilth in which corn could be sown. Early mans struggle for survival became closely linked to the success of his crops and therefore he cultivated more land in order to grow more corn to sustain his life. It soon became apparent that the more the soil was tilled the better the germination and crop quality.

Man continually strived to become more efficient and those hand held hoes soon developed into simple ploughs, well before the early Egyptians over 4000 years ago. These primitive ploughs were eventually pulled by oxen, camels and even elephants and it is said in some instances women were also used. Animals enabled the land to be tilled more easily and faster, thus more food was produced.

The primitive plough made an open shallow furrow by pushing the soil away to either side, rather than inverting as we know today. The ancient Egyptians made considerable advances in its design albeit primitive to our standards. They also succeeded in growing many crop varieties in their dry arid climate by devising complex irrigation systems. As depicted on many of their monuments, the development of the plough from hand held sticks to implements pulled by animals, put them far ahead compared to other civilisations. However, the Greeks were not so far behind and later developed Egyptian ploughs fitted with wheels. These were known as a crooked ploughs because the beam curved forwards to the draft animal. The fitment of wheels provided far greater control and manoeuvrability. Oak was used for the share beam, elm the draught beam and iron for the shares. Iron at that time was very precious, so plough share metal was used and shaped into weapons in times of war. The Romans however, were very efficient with their conquering advances, but their ploughs were simple and crude in design. Although there had been enormous advances from the simple stirring sticks, for these early ploughs to produce well tilled soil, the land would have to be cross ploughed at right angles to the first operation to ensure all the land was well prepared for sowing.

In our own country following the Romans, early British law required every ploughman to make his own plough, and that no one was entitled to use one unless they constructed it themselves. The word ‘plough’ appears to derive from the Saxon ‘plou’ and some of the history records show that even Saxon farmers fastened their draft animals to ploughs by their horns or even tails to draw the implement through the soil. This barbaric custom even surviving in parts of Ireland until the 17th century.

There was little attempt to change the design of the plough until the mid 1600′s with the Dutch being among the first in improving its shape. This change in shape was soon discovered in Northern England and Scotland with Joseph Foljambe from Rotherham building and patented a plough having what was described as, the perfect implement then in use.

Known as the Rotherham swing plough, because no depth wheel was used, it was like ploughs before it, constructed from wood. The difference was that the fittings and coulter were made of iron and the mouldboard and share were covered with an iron plate. This new design was considered by all who saw it at work to be more efficient and lighter to pull than any other kind at that time. For over 30 years this design proved very popular and was used extensively up and down the country. It was perhaps the first to be factory produced on a large scale.

Man continually experiments to become more efficient and in 1763 a Berwickshire man, John Small, first applied mathematical calculations and science to the mouldboard shape. He experimented with varying mouldboard curvatures and patterns, eventually producing a universal cast iron shape that would turn the soil more effectively with less draft, wear and strain on the ploughman. Over the years this ‘Scots Plough’ as it was know, was the beginning of the plough we all know today.

Like our ancestors, we continue to strive for improvement. If we take a look at plough development over the last 50 years there has been enormous change. Horse ploughs soon became redundant for more efficient steam units with large multi furrow balance ploughs, quietly trundling up and down fields with only the sound of a whistle to indicate a change of ploughing direction.

Using converted horse ploughs, the more manoeuvrable wheeled tractor slowly took over from steam in the early 1900′s and was the start of the format we are all familiar with today. When Harry Fergurson’s 3-point linkage appeared in 1920, it totally revolutionised implement attachment and machine performance and has now become the universal norm.

7. The Dropa Stone Discs:

This is in the in the list of puzzling artifact which has been not solved yet. But we can list it here in the list of gadgets because it would be designed for some purpose. The Dropa are, according to certain controversial writers, a race of dwarf-like extraterrestrials who landed near the Chinese-Tibetan border some twelve thousand years ago. Skeptics note, however, a number of problems with the case (and a lack of corroborative evidence), which offers significant doubt as to the reality of the more sensationalistic Dropa claims. Mainstream critics argue that the entire affair is a hoax.

Alleged Discovery — Chi Pu Tei, a professor of archaeology at Beijing University, and his students were on an expedition to explore a series of caves in the pathless Himalayan mountains of the remote Bayan-Kara-Ula in Qinghai on the border of China and Tibet. The caves may have been artificially carved to be a system of tunnels and underground storerooms. The walls were squared and glazed, as if cut into the mountain with great heat.

They found many neat rows of tombs with short 4 ft 4 in inch skeletons buried within. The skeletons had abnormally big heads, and small, thin, fragile bodies. A member of the team suggested that these might be the remains of an unknown species of mountain gorilla. Prof. Chi Pu Tei was said to respond, “Who ever heard of apes burying one another?”

There were no epitaphs at the graves, but instead hundreds of one foot wide stone discs (“Dropa Stones”) were found having 3/4 inch wide holes in their centers. On the walls were carved pictures of the rising sun, moon, stars, the land, mountains, and lines of pea-sized dots connecting the earth with the sky. Along with the discs, the cave drawings had been determined to be about 12,000 years old.

8. The Abacus:

The history of abacus is as old as the counting problem itself. The traces of abacus have been found to the 2400B.C.Many civilizations developed their own versions of abacus. Firstly the calculations were done on the sun dried wooden frame with the help of sand sprayed over the frame, some stick or finger was used to write on the sand and after finishing the calculation that sand was thrown off or probably reset with the help of hand.

After some time a device with the wooden frame and beads attached to its rods was invented and this form of abacus can also be seen today. It is still used in some Asian countries and in some Latin American countries. Even today some clerks and small businessmen in those countries prefer to use abacus and do calculations quickly than their counterparts using electronic calculators.

It also helps to teach young children perform their arithmetic calculations especially multiplication as this causes a lot of problem to young children and abacus makes it easy to perform.

Abacus is also used to teach blind children to perform arithmetical calculations while other students learn the same things on paper. Some errors can encounter while calculating on abacus if one is not well trained but this can also happen with paper functions.

Throughout history man has developed too many types of abaci. Many civilizations have contributed to this world’s asset and hence made their mark in the development of mathematics. Babylonians used abacus as early as 2400B.C. Chinese used abacus. Mayan Civilization also used abacus, their abacus is also thought to be the first device with counters that were strung on parallel rods. It is the Aztec Abacus and known as the Nepohualtzitzin in the 10th century.

During the 11th century the Chinese abacus or suan pan was invented The suanpan is generally regarded as the earliest abacus with beads on rods. The Mandarin term suan pan means calculating plate. A suan pan has two heads above a middle divider called a beam and five beads below.

The abacus, also called a counting frame, is a calculating tool used primarily in parts of Asia for performing arithmetic processes. Today, abacuses are often constructed as a bamboo frame with beads sliding on wires, but originally they were beans or stones moved in grooves in sand or on tablets of wood, stone, or metal. The abacus was in use centuries before the adoption of the written modern numeral system and is still widely used by merchants, traders and clerks in Asia, Africa, and elsewhere. The user of an abacus who slides the beads of the abacus by hand is called an abacist.

The period 2700–2300 BC saw the first appearance of the Sumerian abacus, a table of successive columns which delimited the successive orders of magnitude of their sexagesimal number system.

Some scholars point to a character from the Babylonian cuneiform which may have been derived from a representation of the abacus.

It is the belief of Carruccio (and other Old Babalonian scholars) that Old Babylonians “may have used the abacus for the operations of addition and subtraction; however, this primitive device proved difficult to use for more complex calculations”.

It was used in the methods of addition and subtraction, with basic addition and subtraction making use of a complementary number to add or subtract ten in carrying over.

The use of the abacus in Ancient Egypt is mentioned by the Greek historian Herodotus, who writes that the manner of this disk’s usage by the Egyptians was opposite in direction when compared with the Greek method. Archaeologists have found ancient disks of various sizes that are thought to have been used as counters. However, wall depictions of this instrument have not been discovered, casting some doubt over the extent to which this instrument was used.

The earliest archaeological evidence for the use of the Greek abacus dates to the 5th century BC. The Greek abacus was a table of wood or marble, pre-set with small counters in wood or metal for mathematical calculations. This Greek abacus saw use in Achaemenid Persia, the Etruscan civilization, Ancient Rome and, until the French Revolution, the Western Christian world.

A tablet found on the Greek island Salamis in 1846 AD dates back to 300 BC, making it the oldest counting board discovered so far. It is a slab of white marble 149 cm long, 75 cm wide, and 4.5 cm thick, on which are 5 groups of markings. In the center of the tablet is a set of 5 parallel lines equally divided by a vertical line, capped with a semicircle at the intersection of the bottom-most horizontal line and the single vertical line. Below these lines is a wide space with a horizontal crack dividing it. Below this crack is another group of eleven parallel lines, again divided into two sections by a line perpendicular to them, but with the semicircle at the top of the intersection; the third, sixth and ninth of these lines are marked with a cross where they intersect with the vertical line.

The abacus wad made by many countries with different ways but when we talk about the ancient ones then Greek, Egyptian, Roman and Mesopotamian are developed before century.

9. Bow & Arrow:

The bow seems to have been invented by the late Paleolithic or early Mesolithic. The oldest indication for archery in Europe comes from the Stellmoor in the Ahrensburg valley north of Hamburg, Germany and date from the late Paleolithic about 9000-8000 BC. The arrows were made of pine and consisted of a mainshaft and a 15-20 centimetre (6-8 inches) long foreshaft with a flint point. There are no known definite earlier bows, but stone points which have been identified as arrowheads were made in Africa by about 200,000 years ago.

The oldest bows known so far come from the Holmegård swamp in Denmark. In the 1940s, two bows were found there. The Holmegaard bows are made of elm and have flat arms and a D-shaped midsection. The center section is biconvex. The complete bow is 1.50 m (5 ft) long. Bows of Holmegaard-type were in use until the Bronze Age; the convexity of the midsection has decreased with time.

Mesolithic pointed shafts have been found in England, Germany, Denmark, and Sweden. They were often rather long (up to 120 cm 4 ft) and made of European hazel, wayfaring tree and other small woody shoots. Some still have flint arrow-heads preserved; others have blunt wooden ends for hunting birds and small game. The ends show traces of fletching, which was fastened on with birch-tar.

Bows and arrows have been present in Egyptian culture since its predynastic origins. The “Nine Bows” symbolize the various peoples that had been ruled over by the pharaoh since Egypt was united.

Classical civilizations, notably the Persians, Parthians, Indians, Koreans, Chinese, and Japanese fielded large numbers of archers in their armies. Arrows were destructive against massed formations, and the use of archers often proved decisive. The Sanskrit term for archery, dhanurveda, came to refer to martial arts in general.

The ancient Egyptian people took to archery as early as 5000 years ago. Archery was widespread by the time of the earliest pharaohs and was practiced both for hunting and use in warfare. Archers with recurve bows and short spears, detail from the archers’ frieze in Darius’ palace in Susa. Siliceous glazed bricks, c. 510 BC.

Legendary figures from the tombs of Thebes are depicted giving “lessons in archery”; Some Egyptian deities are also connected to archery.

The Assyrians and Babylonians extensively used the bow and arrow; the Old Testament has multiple references to archery as a skill identified with the ancient Hebrews.

The Chariot warriors of the Kassites relied heavily on the bow. The Nuzi texts detail the bows and the number of arrows assigned to the chariot crew. Archery was essential to the role of the light horse drawn chariot as a vehicle of warfare.

The bow and arrow constituted the classical Indian weapon of warfare, from the Vedic period, until the advent of Islam. The Aryans used bows and arrows, often on war chariots. Some Rigvedic hymns lay emphasis on the use of the bow and arrow. Detailed accounts of training methodologies in early India concern archery, considered to be an essential martial skill in early India.

Legendary figures like Drona, are shown to be masters in the art of archery. Mythological figures such as Arjun, Eklavya, Karna, Rama, Lakshmana, Bharat and Shatrughan are also associated with archery.

Chinese use of archery dates back to the Shang dynasty. Shang army officer categories included the ya and shi (commanders), ma (chariot officers), and she (archery officers). The Chinese used war chariots with archers. The following Zhou dynasty saw contests of archery being held in the presence of nobility. By the end of the Zhou period, works on history, music, ritual, archery, and other topics were recorded on bamboo or wood.

In East Asia the ancient Korean civilizations were well-known for their archery skills, and South Korea remains a particularly strong performer at Olympic archery competitions even to this day. Mounted archers were the main military force of most of the equestrian nomads from the Cimmerians to the Mongols.

The people of Crete practiced archery and Cretan mercenary archers were in great demand. Crete was known for its unbroken tradition of archery. The Greek god Apollo is the god of archery, also of plague and the sun, metaphorically perceived as shooting invisible arrows, Artemis the goddess of wild places and hunting. Odysseus and other mythological figures are often depicted with a bow.
Apollo and Artemis. Tondo of an Attic red-figure cup, ca. 470 BC.

During the invasion of India, Alexander the Great personally took command of the shield-bearing guards, foot-companions, archers, Agrianians and horse-javelin-men and led them against the Kamboja clans—the Aspasios of Kunar valleys, the Guraeans of the Guraeus (Panjkora) valley, and the Assakenois of the Swat and Buner valleys.

The early Romans had very few archers, if any. As their empire grew, they recruited auxiliary archers from other nations. Julius Caesar’s armies in Gaul included Cretan archers, and Vercingetorix his enemy ordered “all the archers, of whom there was a very great number in Gaul, to be collected”. By the 300s, archers with powerful composite bows were a regular part of Roman armies throughout the empire. After the fall of the western empire, the Romans came under severe pressure from the highly skilled mounted archers belonging to the Hun invaders, and later Eastern Roman armies relied heavily on mounted archery.