1884.119.451

Collection type

Object

Description

Unidentified object - possibly a bow-puller.

Geographical reference

Italy

Europe > Southern Europe > Italy

Unknown

Person

Maker Unknown Maker

Field collector Unknown Collector

PRM source Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers founding collection

Date / Period

Archaeological period: Roman

Date collected

By 1884

Acquisition information

Donated: 1884

Materials and processes

Material Bronze Metal, Material Copper Alloy Metal, Process Cast

Dimensions

Length x Width x Height: max 52 x 18 x 24 mm

Object numbers

Accession number: 1884.119.451

Research and responses

These 'bow-pullers' were examined by Dr Zena Kamash as part of the Fell funded project Characterizing the World Archaeology Collections. She advised that such pieces are often found in graves of Greek, Etruscan and Roman date. They excited a lot of interest in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries from scholars who struggled to identify their purpose, to the extent that McDaniel (1918, 42) even refers to them as ‘diabolical puzzles’. Given their date of acquisition it is conceivable that the six objects came into the Pitt Rivers Museum collection because of the on-going, transatlantic debate about these curious objects. In general, the protagonists of this debate agree on two points: 1) that while these objects do have differences, as is demonstrated nicely by those in the Pitt Rivers Museum collection, they appear to form a coherent group and 2) that they were not bow-pullers; beyond these points, there has been little agreement. A multitude of suggestions have been made about their purpose, including screw drivers, wick-holders, spear-throwers, caltrops, horse bits (or some other object involved with horse control), a vicious part of a boxer’s hand covering (caestus), known as the myrmex or amulets where the spikes are the equivalents of animal horns and harness the power of the number three. None of these suggestions is quite satisfactory for all the objects and so, with Morse (1894, 142) before us, it seems we must still, 100 years on, ‘reluctantly yield the solving of the enigma to others’. See: Brinton, D.G. 1897: The so-called ‘bow-puller’ identified as the Greek myrmex, Bulletin of the Museum of Science and Art, University of Pennsylvania 1(1), 614; Charvet, B 1889: Communication sur un object appelé par moi gourmette de répression, Bulletin de la Société d’Anthropologie de Lyon 8, 7–74; Morse, E.S. 1894: The so-called bow-puller of antiquity, Bulletin of the Essex Institute 26, 148; McDaniel, W.B. 1918: The so-called bow-puller of antiquity, American Journal of Archaeology 22 (1), 25–43; Stevenson, C. 1912 So-called bow-pullers, Bulletin of the Pennsylvania Museum 10 (40), 55–9. [AS 14/02/2011]

Search terms: Animal Gear, Archery Weapon, Unidentified Object, Animal Harness, Archery Accessory