Hunter

The composite bow of mounted archers

The Mongol bow is the composite recurve bow developed by the nomads of Central Asia, the key weapon that upheld the Mongol Empire's conquest of the world. At about 100 to 120 cm it is fairly small, but thanks to its composite build, horn and sinew layered over a wooden core, it delivers a power rivaling the Western longbow. With a maximum range of over 300 m and an effective range of about 150 to 200 m, what was decisive above all was that it could be shot in any direction, front, back, left, or right, from horseback. With the Mongol draw, drawing the string with a ring on the thumb, the rider loosed quickly in succession at the gallop, and with the Parthian shot, turning to shoot behind while feigning flight, he broke a pursuing enemy.

An ancient projectile weapon hurling stones by centrifugal force

The sling is an ancient projectile weapon that hurls a stone or a lead bullet by centrifugal force from a small pouch made of leather or cloth. Two cords are fixed to the sides of the pouch, and as one whirls it overhead or to the side and lets go of one cord, the projectile flies off at a fearsome speed. The structure is utterly simple and costs almost nothing in materials, yet a stone cast by a skilled slinger reached a speed able to shatter a skull. The slingers of the Balearic Islands in particular, today's Spanish Mallorca and Menorca, were the finest elite slinging troops of the ancient world, serving as mercenaries in the armies of Carthage and Rome. It is widely known too as the weapon with which David felled the giant Goliath in the Hebrew Bible, and with lead bullets, the glandes, its range and power greatly increased.

A throwing weapon that entangles legs with weighted cords

The bola is a throwing weapon of two or three heavy stone or metal weights joined by cords, which on being thrown spins through the air and wraps around the legs of its target to bind its movement. Its chief trait is that it is a capturing weapon, made to seize rather than to kill. It is a hunting weapon developed by the indigenous peoples of South American Patagonia, used mainly to hunt fast grassland animals such as the rhea, the South American ostrich, and the guanaco, a wild relative of the llama. It later grew more famous as the gauchos, the South American cowboys, used it to drive cattle. Each weight is about 200 to 500 g and the cords about 60 to 100 cm, and it was used as a weapon of war too, fielded by the army of the Inca Empire.

Two-Headed Serpent of Greek Myth

The Amphisbaena (Greek Amphisbaina, 'going both ways') is a legendary two-headed serpent of Greek and Roman myth, possessing a head at each end of its body and able to travel in either direction. Its name derives from Greek amphis (both ways) and bainein (to go). The Roman poet Lucan's Pharsalia describes the Amphisbaena among the desert serpents born when Perseus carried the head of Medusa over Libya and her blood dripped onto the sand. Pliny the Elder, Natural History VIII.35, notes drily that the Amphisbaena is the only serpent with two heads, 'as if a single mouth were not enough to release its poison'. The motif entered medieval bestiaries and heraldry as a standard charge, and was canonised again in Jorge Luis Borges's Book of Imaginary Beings (1957). Folk medicine credited its skin and living body with talismanic powers, particularly to protect pregnant women.