Some questions relatng siyah.

[Redhorse]

What about reverse engineering?
Why the handle that way? What it does is, move the limbs far out from the archer. That allows a longer draw. How do horn store energy best, a short much bending area or a long less bending area? If the ears are straight at full draw, should that not give stack? If static, would that not keep pushing the limbs together?
Is reflex necessary? My straight limb horn bows shot hard and fast.

[redhawk]

Bede, there is really no bending in the recurves. The measurements of the findings are to big for to allow any bending.
I agree to call the design reflex-deflex-recurve.
If I?m right the cross- sections of the Subeixi- findings are made of even more than 3-5 pieces of wooden and horn- slats?

Thank you Patrick for your translation of the crossbow- prod, I?ve to think it over.

Jack, do you mean the limbs of tut?s bows are made without a wooden core? I?m just preparing a research of some of the bows found in tut?s grave and haven?t found a proof for such a construction. I don?t exclude this possibility.
I?ve done some Bighorn Mountain Sheep horn- bows and some experimental bows without core, but they are developing tiller- problems and became more and more hard cause of the advancing polymerisation of the proteins within the glue, horn and sinew.
Maybe the Egyptians solved the tiller problems by "puzzling together" hornslats, but I think a core works as a kind of buffer for to limit the effects of the polymerisation and to keep a bow in a straight line?
But still the horn/sinew lamination without a core is charming me, I don?t think there would another material outperforming its capablities to withstand stretch and pressure.


Adam, your bow will turn out to be another step in the research of Scythian bows.
But you know, I don?t believe in the heavily reflexed limbs of this design.
If you?ve worked according to Stephen?s field recordings I can?t believe that the grip will bend, cause it is posted as "a spliced- in handle" with a cross- section of 2.5x3.5cm consisting of 6 glued slats. There can?t be a bend that could contribute something to the whole construction.
Adam, don?t take me wrong, you know that I?m really deeply involved in the reconstruction of Scythian bows, I really would like to know if you?ve done this reconstruction according to Stephen?s field- recordings.

Michael

[Adam Karpowicz]

"If you?ve worked according to Stephen?s field recordings I can?t believe that the grip will bend, cause it is posted as "a spliced- in handle" with a cross- section of 2.5x3.5cm consisting of 6 glued slats. There can?t be a bend that could contribute something to the whole construction.
Adam, don?t take me wrong, you know that I?m really deeply involved in the reconstruction of Scythian bows, I really would like to know if you?ve done this reconstruction according to Stephen?s field- recordings. "

I realize why you ask these questions. It is very difficult, even for an experienced bowyer, to accept that this bow can be made with such reflex, given the thickness of the limbs. It is almost beyond belief the arms of the bow can be bent to such a huge deflex without failure. I took this project on as a challenge to test the methods of construction and I assure you it is possible to have the working limbs bent so much starting from this sections straight (or actually somewhat reflexed as are the ibex horns). Since the limbs are so thick, the 2.5x3.5cm grip does bend a little too, which I could determine by drawing the bow to some 20 inches (the actual arrows were longer, maybe 30in). I have a problem with the deflexed section of the upper limb which developed twist - it maybe that Stephen's dimensions for this particular spot was in error.

The basic construction is this: multiple slats of wood were added onto the inner, vertical core of ibex horn. The core had to be cut from the sides of the whole horns, since only the sides of horn could produce 1/2 to 5/8 inch back-to-belly dimensions (with about 1/4in side-to-side dimensions). The vertically laminated wood pieces, added onto the horn core, were rather small, put together with scarf joints, probably reflecting the difficulty in finding wood of suitable length. The grip section is all wood, again laminated vertically in the similar way. With the inner horn core taken from full length ibex horns, this is the only logical construction for this bow from the practical point of view. It would be a complete waste of time if a bowyer first made the inner horn core deflexed in the arms and then added the wood slats. It is conceivable this could have been done later to imitate the final deflexed shape as it became accepted, but the "first" Subeixi bows had to be made with the full reflex (as the horns are), and then deflexed with heat and pressure to make the bow manageable. Maybe the all wood specimens were the imitations of the original construction with the deflex built-in and maybe these replicas were useable, I do not know.

Adam

[redhawk]

Thank you, Adam, I guess you?ve made my doubts lapsed.

I?ve just opened the topic of the bow-finding of olon kurin gol here, stay in the hardware: the bow- finding of olon kurin gol.

Michael

[Patrick Menzies]

Adam why is it that the horn couldn't have just been reversed so it was deflexed rather than reflexed to begin with?
If horn was scarce and you were building bows with it then perhaps it would make sense to those bowyers to cut the horn into multiple pieces and fit the pieces onto the bow wherever they naturally formed that pleasing shape.

[Adam Karpowicz]

"If horn was scarce and you were building bows with it then perhaps it would make sense to those bowyers to cut the horn into multiple pieces and fit the pieces onto the bow wherever they naturally formed that pleasing shape."

It is possible to do, but no self-respected craftsman would ever go through so much trouble, when one-piece ibex horn instantly makes the bow limb. There is too much work, and adding more wooden pieces onto such horn core would be even more work.

As I said, bending the thick limb into the deflex is not only possible, but may become easy with a bit of practice. All craftmen, then and now, always look for a simple and time-saving solution.

Adam

[Bede]

Redhawk,
One of Tutankhamen's composite bows had a vertical wood/horn laminate wrapped in sinew and covered in birch bark. Most of the others had a flattened "H" wooden core (one central piece and two side pieces). The back side of the H was notionally a channel for sinew and the belly side for horn. The moisture content of the tomb and the long period buried meant that all proteins, horn and sinew, had hydrolysed to black goop. These were all angular bows with deflexed hand grips.

Adam,
Thanks for your explanation. All this requires more thought on my part. I believe that Stephen expressed some doubt that the arrows displayed with the Subeixi bows were necessarily found with them, but the gorytos supports that kind of length. I will have to go over the measurements of the bow again. I must be getting confused about the proportions.

I am also not confident that the area of the grip nearest the string (i.e. the deepest point of the setback) is really the grip. Depictions of archers in Greek and Etruscan art often are shown holding the bows in odd places. It could be that the artists were having difficulties in dealing with an asymmetric bow.

[jack farrell]

Bede is correct about the one Tut bow being strips perpendicular to the back of wood and either sinew or horn. On the Tut bows it is no longer possible to differentiate between horn and sinew. Of all 43 approximately angular composites known, 33 of them Tut's, there are 15 different cross sections, the commonest one is a slat of wood, one of horn and sinew backing. Mc Leod, plate 14.

Back to Scythian. In the Miran bows from Xinjaing there was some deterioration causing the layers and sinew to expand slightly so that exact dimensions could not be guaranteed. This seems expected. So the dimensions are not a critical first step but to make working prototypes is.

Second, Tienshan Ibex is yellow/grey color and at this age it may be difficult to differentiate it from wood.

I would not discourage any avenue of investigation but an Ibex horn has a single arching bend. How this translates to a five bend Scythian bow is not apparent. However the length of these bows is at the maximum size of a SINGLE trophy Ibex horn. Homer does say that the horn was taken to a worker of horns. This does not exclude wood but this is not stated. Nor for that matter is sinew.

I do know that twists in horn can negate eachother when multiple slats are used on each limb.

[Patrick Menzies]

I'm curious as to why only Ibex horn seems to be brought up. Is it so certain that this would be the only available horn?
I have been hearing that the bows were a"mosaic" of horn so why the focus on the shape of the Ibex horn in full?
I would speculate that Saiga Antelope horn would be a much more likely source of horn for the Steppe region. It must have existed in huge numbers in those days and larger samples of the horns would have been available.

Some of the horns seen bear a much more striking resemblance to Scythian bows than any other type.
Would it not make sense that the Scythians would be much more likely to obtain horn from an animal they could almost certainly run down on horseback rather than crawling around the rocks trying to shoot a few thousand ibex for bows?

[redhawk]

Some additional thoughts, cause I don?t think we got it.
Thanks Bede and Jack for to update my knowlegde about tut?s bows.
We haven?t decided which bows of tut we will reconstruct, but for sure a split- limb will be one of the reconstructions. I would prefer also one of the bows with the cross- section we were talking about here.

Adam, your reconstruction makes sense from your point of view. That?s a nowadays bowyer?s point of view.
But according to my experience nowadays bowyers care too much for an only practical sense within a design which is originally meant to come as close as possible to qualities of beauty(or just a unique language of shapes and signs) of a strange culture.
Maybe the Scythian bowyers didn?t live in the same time frames we use to organize our life today?
There is still no evidence of such a great reflex in the Scythian hornbows.
According to Stephen the Scythian bows bellies were made of multiple horn-slats, even your point of view makes sense too.
One of the first Scythian hornbows I did(in the common hornbow- way) for a research- project was done with a great reflex too, the bow turned
out to be a disappointment: a quite lame f/d- curve.
So I?m looking for the tests with your bow.

Patrick, your thoughts about resources for horn make sense.
Jack, it is true, that you can prevent the twisting of horn by using multiple slats of horn.

Michael

[Adam Karpowicz]

I am afraid there is a misunderstanding here.

The bow I am making started as full reflex, but as I said, it is made PERMANENTLY DEFLEXED by heat and pressure to have the exact shape of the original. It means this bow is no longer reflexed (see the pic - the bow will be even more deflexed). It is exactly the same as if made from multiple inner stats of horn for the deflexed shape from the start. The performance of this bow will be NO BETTER than that of a bow made deflexed, as long as the dimensions of the limbs are the same. I did not attempt to make a better bow starting with the full reflex. I wanted to find the most practical way to make the bow. Of ourse "there is no evidence" of bows so reflexed, because the bows (so reflexed at the start) were forced into the permanent deflex in manufacture. I am only talking about the method of manufacture, not about performance.

As to why this shape to begin with - we can debate it as much as we want, everyone can obviously have a different opinion. I believe the bow's arms are so much like the ibex horns (plus the presence of the inner horn strip) that the ibex horns had to be the initial impulse to make this shape. It almost inconceivable for a bowyer to somehow decide to make a bow so oddly shaped. I am convinced the first bowyer saw the ibex horns and made the bow on its base, probably aided by some religious beliefs. I think the first bows of this shape could be made of ibex horn/sinew alone, then the wood was added at the sides as the cost saving measure. Once the shape was accepted, other modifications were made, such as the addition of horn belly slats, splicing the inner horn core to make use of shorter strips etc.

Adam

[jack farrell]

Patrick; Many horns can be used to make a bow, especially those from a cold climate. However Ibex is a huge focus of Scythian artwork and is somehow related to masculinity and virility.

This does not mean that it was used, just an indication.

There is some proof that it was the horn of choice for the Egyptians.

[Redhorse]

Try the reverse engineering, who can shot a bow with that angle in wrist? I can't. So how would the tillering look like if the bow is hold with straight wrist? I t had to be in perfect balance or it breaks the wrist.
Any sense in brutal reflex in wood? But if given to a hornbow maker he will put in the reflex he is used to do.
How do the fd-curve look like?
If I try to make that bow I start with straight handle and work with the limbs till I get the effect that give a nice fd-curve. When I know how to do the limbs so they don't break I would try the angular handle and chase the balance tiller. And I probaly find out what they did aim with that construction.
I would not try to make a look a like copy.

[Adam Karpowicz]

Jack:

"...Ibex is a huge focus of Scythian artwork ..."

It sounds even more interesting. We may put together an article about the bow. Ibex known now as "Persian" has horns identical to the limbs' profile. If one could trace the area where it roamed at the time, the origin of the bow can be found...

Adam

[Rapsod]

There was a short movie on youtube in witch Mongol bow bow builder use adze to cut that little pieces of horn that are not good for bow building and after that he used saw to cut strips of horn. Interesting thing is that he has finished limbs with siyah before he attached them to the grip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJw8ETRFhKo