# Was there ever an historic foot-braced hand-drawn bow and arrow?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-ever-an-historic-foot-braced-hand-drawn-bow-and-arrow/807830>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 30, 2018, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-ever-an-historic-foot-braced-hand-drawn-bow-and-arrow/807830 "2018-01-30T20:20:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\
**Post date:** [February 1, 2018, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-ever-an-historic-foot-braced-hand-drawn-bow-and-arrow/807830/21 "2018-02-01T03:30:44Z")

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> [@Atomic\_Alex](#):
>
> Thanks Bijou Drains and RedSwinglineOne, I was kind of thinking of a specially designed contraption though, rather than just using a conventional bow and arrow in an unorthodox way. 🙂
> 
> I kind of figured that the inventive medieval mind must have come up with some sort of system!

Medieval ? Not that I can think of. But Ancient ? Yes, kinda. Meet the [Gastraphetes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastraphetes), or “belly bow”. While the wiki page depicts one way to reload it, I remember reading about users who would lie on their backs, brace the bow with their feet and pull the string back with their hands and shoot it that way - only as defenders in a siege though, but then one would think lying down in open battle seems a little bit dangerous :).

Can’t find that cite any more though ☹

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