Turkish Bows

Adam Karpowicz · Post by **Adam Karpowicz** » Wed Apr 27, 2011 10:52 am

Gokmen - I understand the "negative" angle of kasan means the kasans go beyond parallel. I do not believe this is realistic, since at this point the stacking would be unbearable and the draw weight much too high. The old pictures are exagerated for more interest and perhaps to show the prowess of the archers. This applies to the Turkish bows with short tips and flexible kasan/sal transitions (as for the war bows). Bows with these sections completely rigid and much recurved, such as the Indo-Persian bows, have the outer parts of sals beyond parallel at full draw, but this is not the same effect.

Adam

Kyudohund · Post by **Kyudohund** » Wed Apr 27, 2011 11:39 am

G?kmen,

good news: recieved a mail from "Kunsthistorisches Museum", taking fotos is allowed during opening times, without flash and stand! Think in Arsenal will be the same.

Peter

Kyudohund · Post by **Kyudohund** » Wed Apr 27, 2011 4:43 pm

G?kmen,

if you send send me a mail to pm with your email adress, i will send you the mail from "Kunsthistorisches Museum", you can print it out and take with you to Vienna.

jack farrell · Post by **jack farrell** » Sun May 01, 2011 1:43 pm

Pics from same Armory museum, late 15th C. ? I think.

I do not see any interference with people taking amateur type pictures in a museum, through the case, without flash and without a tripod. The museum is still free to make a publication of professional quality photos and publish. I do not see how the two processes interfere.

Many great museums allow photography. There is just no telling which ones will.

jack farrell · Post by **jack farrell** » Sun May 01, 2011 1:46 pm

Close up. Save any of my pics you want. I am always needing to delete some, being at my limit.

Daniel T. · Post by **Daniel T.** » Fri May 06, 2011 6:59 pm

I have been to the Arsenal and the Hofjagd- und R?stkammer. The latter one is part of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, but it is located in the building of the National Library.
Taking pictures was allowed in both museums, as already reported without flash. In the Arsenal, an additional fee of 1,50? has to be paid for permission to take pictures. I will sort through the pictures and post some later. It was difficult because there were few angles for reasonable pictures without excessive reflections from the glass.

I would be interested in measurements of the bows on display in both places. They are fairly thick, I estimate something like 17mm. The belly was deeply rounded, but that is still incredibly thick.
There is also one bow labeled as turkish which I think looks like a crab bow.

Daniel

Dusan · Post by **Dusan** » Fri May 06, 2011 7:19 pm

You mean probably this nice bow (?)

jack farrell · Post by **jack farrell** » Fri May 06, 2011 9:57 pm

Looks like a Persian or one of the bows from Khorezm.

Here are some more arrows/quivers. I had always thought that these wood arrows had self nocks. But Dusan's comment about the nocks being added on makes me now wonder. Anyone handled old Turkish war arrows?

When one sees so many arrows in a quiver, it is understood just what a place archery held in their fighting style.

jack farrell · Post by **jack farrell** » Fri May 06, 2011 10:25 pm

I guess we cannot know if these arrows are original to the quivers or if things have been moved about.

Another. The stitching looks like the one made by Ginni and posted recently.

Daniel T. · Post by **Daniel T.** » Sat May 07, 2011 6:31 am

Dusan · Post by **Dusan** » Sat May 07, 2011 7:57 am

Ouch , Daniel your pics are beatifull ! Many thanks .

jkekoni · Post by **jkekoni** » Sat May 07, 2011 6:27 pm

These nocs look so much like plastic. Ivory?
http://www.bilder-hochladen.net/files/big/hhmf-38.jpg

jack farrell · Post by **jack farrell** » Sat May 07, 2011 10:39 pm

Good pictures, Daniel. Thanks for these.

Looks like the red and blue with gold decorated arrows have ivory nocks added to a tenon on the arrow shaft.

In some of the others, I think I am seeing the grain of the shaft carry over through the paint of the nock.

Maybe white painted nocks are a reference to ivory. But a guy I know prefers white nocks to better see them sticking out of the target.

In the first light blue and white arrows, we once again see coordinating sets within the same quiver.

My "Armory" pic above shows a few points.

Bede · Post by **Bede** » Mon May 09, 2011 12:43 am

Jack,
I have handled two war arrows made in Ottoman Turkey and four in the Crimean Tatar style that may have been made in Istanbul. They are finely balanced and clearly intended for different types of target. Until I saw the Dresden catalogue, I did not have any comparisons to arrows made of several centuries. I think it is important to consider that many of the surviving arrows are in collections because they were in high status quivers that were either gifts, purchases or booty. Obviously rich people had expensive arrows made for them, but the plainer arrows might represent refills from the army supplies during a campaign. If this is the case, the quality of the plain arrows is quite high. While some arrows show different techniques of construction, like the seven part nocks, it seems that in general the arrow shafts are of a uniform standard. The German museums correctly identify practice arrows in the mix. There are also some flight arrows in the collections. The practice arrows, when compared to the descriptions in the Turkish sources, are forms of target arrow. Some of the arrows with target points in the Dresden collection have original surviving fletching. This is larger than typical puta arrows, which might mean they were for shorter range.

The arrows I have seen with armour-piercing styles of arrowheads usually had low fletching of a length appropriate to the length of the arrows.

Eleazar · Post by **Eleazar** » Wed Feb 29, 2012 8:02 pm

Hi,

I tried to do some turkish arrows based from Hofburk museum. It was 7 years ago.

Here there are:
https://picasaweb.google.com/1162369058 ... Arrows1550

I used to information from here:
http://margo.student.utwente.nl/sagi/artikel/turkish/

Spin is so great, I used them only for 70 lbs and more...