Historical Artifacts

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Just a community for everyone to share artifacts, reconstructions, or replicas for the historically-inclined to admire!

Generally, an artifact should be 100+ years old, but this is a flexible requirement if you find something rare and suitably linked to an era of history, not a strict rule. Anything over 100 is fair game regardless of rarity.

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PugJesus

Replica of the Skåne lockbow, a crossbow of unique design used by the Norse, 10th-16th centuries AD (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 weeks ago by PugJesus to c/historyartifacts

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[–] PugJesus 14 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Image from here

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find pictures of the original lockbows found in 1941. They’re out there! [X-Files theme]

The lockbow is unusual because of its core mechanism - a peg pushes the bowstring over the ridge when triggered by the lever. Most other European crossbows used a rolling nut, and Chinese crossbows used a complex trigger system. A little historical curiousity!

[–] PugJesus 11 points 2 weeks ago

From what little I’ve read online…

The peg system was appealing because it’s relatively simple to make.

The rolling nut can sustain a string being drawn back for an extended period, as in when aiming or hunting.

The Chinese trigger system allows more powerful draw weights with less force expended on the part of the shooter.

… but don’t quote me on any of this.