Ataelus Mad Scyth Archery: January 2016

Are you familiar with the name Christian G.Cameron? Well if you like reading, are a history geek, and into the genre of Historical Fiction you ought to check him out.
http://christiancameronauthor.com/

I think the man is brilliant, and his novels have been instrumental in my archery development- from Western Style 15th century English Heavy draw Warbow - into a heavy draw allround archer, combining Eastern and Western archery techniques and equipment. Hybrid archers who practice multiple archery styles are rare, moreover when they shoot military draw weights.
I currently might be one of the heaviest shooting Asian style thumb draw archers in the world, and the same goes for the custom Korean and Manchu bows that I wield to that purpose.

It all started in 2008 when I got my hands on Tyrant 1, the first of the now completed Tyrant series that plays out in the Hellenistic era in the eastern part of the Mediterranean and Asia Minor and the Black Sea region. It is about an exiled Athenian and his Greek friends who venture out to the Greek Black Sea colonies, and come into contact with.. The Scythians! I know my Greek classics and is a bit Classical Greeks abroad in a completely alien environment. Christian G.Cameron played that theme out so well and painted it in such vivid detail that i was irrevocably drawn from the French Crecy ridge and mudfields of Azincourt into the steppes and steppe culture. The Athenian has a Scythian guide and interpreter called Ataelus, and he is quite mad and at times completely incomprehensible. I adopted Aetalus as the vessel to embark on my archery quest back in time into the sea of grass, and he has become one of my Classical and Hellenistic reeenactment alter ego´s.

I posted quite a lot on my ventures into the steppe, and on historical military archery in general on the forum of Christian Camerons website, and the discussions between me and Christian have earned me a place in the acknowledgements section of some of his novels. Christian is a superb reenactor and is very driven in this respect. He is a walking library in terms of material culture of the Greek classical era, and he knows his weapons as well, and knows how to wield them. He is a superb swordfighter and spearfighter. I myself am only a one trick pony. I am the archery guy. Engaging in close combat and melee or using ranged weapons and fighting at distance are different animals. I am inclined to believe that in this respect our mutual experience and acquired skills complement eachother, and help us understand how they did it, and give us a better understanding of what it could have been like.

The problem with us was. We live half a globe apart. I live in the south of the Netherlands, and he lives in Toronto, Canada. It took us until 2014 till we finally got to meet eachother, and do some things together. Christian organised a Pen and Sword Tour for his fans to all of the historical sites, museums and battlefields in Greece that feature in his novels. Not only that, there is also the practical component to cheer things up. Christian is doing Sword lessons on the tour, and to complement that, I will bring along some bows and we´ll be doing some archery.
In the bargain we also got Giannis Kadoglou and his wife Smaro from Alexandrouplois Greece to participate on some reenactment features. Giannis is a superb classical era reenactor and truly a walking library on classical material culture.
We all teamed up for a practical component at the historical battlefield of Plataea where in 479 BC the final battle with the Persians took place. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Plataea

Christian doing Sword class on the roof of one of our Hotels, and some Spearfighting demo´s at Plataea battlefield.

Trying out and finding out a combined Spearfighting and Archery routine at Plataea. With Giannis, Smaro and Christian.

Everybody shooting arrows at Thermopylae battlefield. The place where Leonidas fell 480 BC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae

We also did the Pen and Sword Persian Immortal Firepower against Greek Aspis challenge at Plataea.

I have made a paper out of these tests. Which you can read below. We did have time to do some follow/up testing next year at Marathon Archeon Dromena 2015 at Marathon Battlefield with Christian and Giannis but unfortunately due to bad weather we weren´t able to carry out everything we wanted to do. We did manage to do the Hoplite run though/ How many arrows can you shoot at a Hoplite in full gear charging from a 100 meters distance.. I will devote more to this challenge in a future blog.

I must say that it is a treat to work with your favourite Historical Fiction author in recreating and re/imagining the past. You can sit in the lazy chair and think about it and make suppositions or you can go out there, pick up your weapons and actually do that and see what works and what doesn´t.

Here´s the Paper..and it is ongoing work in progress.

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