Busacca Gallery

An amazing metal and wooden crossbow 34-1/2"L x 29-1/2"W. This was made to look like an renaissance Antique Crossbow. We think this is a contemporary recreation crossbow. One side with canon and inlaid wheel, the other side of stock with sickle, the top having a old looking decorative escutcheon around trigger. Very well made looking 18th century, circa 1700 AD Hunting Crossbow. Details: wooden stock, brass and steel furniture, brass strengthening plate. Stock is magnificently ornamented with inlay covering on this great looking bow. The bow itself is etched on all sides and remains in fine to excellent condition (this is an extremely ornate feature. Bow is secured to the stock. Condition is fine to excellent for its age showing some use and attachment slight rubbing to inlay, minor cracking, very small. This would be great to hang on a wall as a work of art. According to Needham, though there is no way of answering the question of whether the crossbow first arose among the cultures neighboring ancient China before the rise of Chinese culture in their midst, or whether it spread outwards from China to all the environing peoples, the former seems the more probable hypothesis given linguistic evidence, which posits that the Chinese word for 'crossbow' came from an Austroasiatic language.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossbow

A crossbow is a weapon consisting of a bow mounted on a stock that shoots projectiles, often called bolts or quarrels. The medieval crossbow was called by many names, most of which derived from the word ballista, a torsion engine resembling a crossbow in appearance. Historically, crossbows played a significant role in the warfare of East Asia, Europe and the Mediterranean. Today, they are used primarily for shooting sports, hunting, and when shooting in silence is an important consideration.



Bronze crossbow bolts dating as early as mid 5th century BC were found at a State of Chu burial site in Yutaishan, Hubei. The earliest handheld crossbow stocks with bronze trigger, dating from the 6th century BC, comes from Tomb 3 and 12 found at Qufu, Shandong, capital of the State of Lu. Other early finds of crossbows were discovered in Tomb 138 at Saobatang, Hunan dated to mid 4th century BC. Repeating crossbows, first mentioned in the Records of the Three Kingdoms, were discovered in 1986 in Tomb 47 at Qinjiazui, Hubei dated to around 4th century BC. The earliest Chinese document mentioning a crossbow is in scripts from the 4th–3rd century BC attributed to the followers of Mozi. This source refers to the use of a giant crossbow in the 6th to 5th century BC, corresponding to the late Spring and Autumn Period.[citation needed] Sun Tzu's influential book The Art of War (first appearance dated in between 500 BC to 300 BC refers in chapter V to the traits and in XII to the use of crossbows. One of the earliest reliable records of this weapon in warfare is from an ambush, the Battle of Ma-Ling in 341 BC. By the 200s BC, the crossbow (Chinese: pinyin: nǔ) was well developed and quite widely used in China.