The tomb of Fu Hao is a significant archaeological find from the Shang Dynasty, dated to about 1200BCE. Among the artifacts recovered was one of the earliest archer's rings, known as the Fu Hao Tomb Ring. Notably though, there are other finds of the same style of ring including from the successor Zhou Dynasty. (ref. Yang et al. 1997, Chinese University of Hong Kong Item 167) Mechanically speaking, it is notable for being relatively tall, having a pronounced asymmetric string groove, and possessing two holes in the rear presumably for a lanyard.

The exact dynamics of this ring are, to the best of our knowledge, still unknown. Thus our interpretation of this ring is an educated guess based on a metrelogical analysis of what information is available. Of note is the large asymmetric string groove. While one could hypothesize bow strings of the day were substantially thicker than our modern strings, the reason for the asymmetry of the groove is unknown. Notably, it is asymmetric, not on the load bearing face of the shelf, but on the non-load-bearing face of the shelf. (this assumes a shallow-hook technique, which seems most logical given the rest of the ring's design) One would hypothesize that, under draw force, the string would not interact substantially with the non-load-bearing face. Nevertheless we've replicated it with the greatest precision possible and offer it in both right and left handed variants. (we presumed the original owner was right handed for this, so pick your ring-handed-ness accordingly)

We size all our rings on a virtually continuous spectrum for a perfect fit. No longer do you have to live with set sizes made for a hypothetical thumb. Measuring your thumb accurately though is still difficult, which is why we strongly recommend our customers use one of our Ring Sizers and order a set of three closely sized rings. More information can be found by clicking the Sizing Information link on the banner at the bottom of the the page.