A single curved stroke and a taut string: the oracle-bone 弓 is a hunter's bow drawn exactly as it looked slung over a shoulder. Bows fed and defended Shang villages long before swords were common, and the shape stayed so recognizable that it still curves the same way, unchanged, three thousand years later.
A piece of culture
Archery as a gentleman's art Confucius listed archery among the Six Arts (六艺) every cultivated gentleman had to master, alongside rites, music, charioteering, calligraphy and mathematics — proof that in ancient China, drawing a bow well was considered as noble as writing a poem. Archery contests were even judged on courtesy and posture as much as on hitting the target.