Gengis Khan Exhibit-Houston

jack farrell · Post by **jack farrell** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 1:44 pm

Bede; To my eye the center horn section was much too long for safety. The splice above the grip was just below the thinnest part of the limb. The overall bow is delicately made, masterful and confident. It appears to have been put in a grave strung. There is some damage to the lower recurve bend splice where the core also moved slightly to reveal the joint. The lower limb twisted slightly and the horn raised slightly in the grip to reveal itself. So the answer is that the bowyer did not make a mistake using these short sections of horn.

The belly faced out in the case where one could get very close and observe all the damaged areas well. So satisfying staring at the ancient horn and joinery, bark work.

Stephen; This bow was in more intact condition with no sign of attached tip. It was a self wood nock and rather classic Mongol look. A skin of bark was mostly complete except for a large scar above the grip on the side not displayed out. Nevertheless, I could see a thick sinew backing and sinew spiral wrapping and what looked like wood.

The overall look was less masterful than the other. If I had wanted to make a Mongol bow without horn this would seem a safe shape. Of course I cannot say for certain that it is not a very shot in hornbow.

Adam Karpowicz · Post by **Adam Karpowicz** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 4:32 pm

I would rather think the top bow is a hornbow. At 3/4 inch mid-limb thickness a wood/sinew bow would be probably overstressed at only around 53" ntn length. Note the limbs in the as-made, relaxed bow had reflex as well as the grip, adding to the stress. Overall reflex in the bow as-made would be, while not as much as in the other bow, still quite substantial.

Adam

Bede · Post by **Bede** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 9:53 pm

Thanks Jack.
I remember a Ming encyclopaedia mentioning the Northern Barbarians used four pieces of sheep horn to make bows. They were probably referring to the Mongols.

Stephen Selby · Post by **Stephen Selby** » Tue Mar 03, 2009 6:40 am

Without getting too off-topic: can you folks suggest the best equipment to use to xray my bow? Can I just walk into a medical xray service, or will the result be wrong?

Bede · Post by **Bede** » Tue Mar 03, 2009 12:44 pm

I took a bow into a regular medical X-Ray centre. I told them to treat it like a child's X-Ray. The result was usuable. It was an Indian bow and there was a lot of of metal in the covering, but the horn and sinew layers stood out.

Andrew Hall · Post by **Andrew Hall** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 7:49 am

Jack,
Thanks for the drawings and notes. The placement of the joints between the horn strips is quite strange, but they obviously got them working. This is not a bow design that requires particularly long strips, so they must have been limited on materials (or skilful enough to know it did not matter). It is interesting that the bow lacks the bone grip plate which is regarded as the identifying characteristic of the Mongolian bow by Russian archaeologists.

That 3" by 4 1/4" arrowhead would need a powerful bow.

Bede,
Am I understanding you correctly in that you have a Turkish bow were horn does not run up the kasan? Or were you referring to a less "ridgy" shape than usual?

The limb siyah angles of my approximation match one end of the original, but the significant twist made judging the angle at the other end rather tricky, it may be slightly greater.

What do you mean by "pounced form" in the artwork?

I have not managed to find much information on how the later "boneless" composites evolved. I have seen a small drawing of three late 12th to 13th century composites which look quite like the more recent Turkish bows, so the origins may well go some way back. Looking at the drawings in "Arms and Armour of the Crusading Era", I got the impression that bows shaped roughly like the recent Turkish bow were in use is western Asia before the Mongolian form was introduced by the invading hordes. Judging bow types from artwork is somewhat tricky though.

Bede · Post by **Bede** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 9:51 pm

Andrew,
I was referring to the cross section being closer to a true triangle. The horn runs up the kasan. On the belly of the sal, the horn has a rounded profile and the sinew on the back is flat.

There are surviving paintings in the Varqa va Gulshah manuscript which clearly show straight ended non-contact siyahs. Much of the published work using redrawing of originals leads to shortcuts based on what the draftsman is expecting to see. Also dating can be problematic. Manny of the smaller Turkish appearing bows appear to be strongly influenced by Classical norms. There were strong Byzantine and hence Classical influences in some types of Middle Eastern art.

By pounces I am referring to the practice tracing an early drawing onto a transparent piece of parchment, pricking small holes along the outlines and then dusting the whole thing with powdered charcoal to put an outline on your painting surface. This was the most common way of repoducing figures in Middle Eastern art. It accounts for many of the archisms that turn up and the frequent reversing of figures. Sometimes the shape was redressed in contemporary clothes. The quality of the output was determined by how the artist could transform the original form.

Stephen Selby · Post by **Stephen Selby** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 1:57 am

I've split this topic. To follow Dusan's thread on interesting bows in Russian collections, go here: http://198.170.107.188/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1256

S

jack farrell · Post by **jack farrell** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 11:17 pm

I printed out the pic of the Mongol hornbow and did some scaling. In the Museum I measured twice and had another person stand back and agree on scale from a tape measure.

The overall bow measures 57 inches over the belly curves. Both recurves are at 10 inches and the right limb to the center of the grip is 19 while the other is 18; You can see a kind of bump, hard corner on the belly of the recurve bend where the horn ends. I measured from this point. The right limb has bark covering the one joint in the horn not visible.

The original is a publicity photo. In the display, the items are rotated to the left with the right side up, quiver up and the arrows which are too large inserted into the quiver. The curved side of the horn bow faces the outside of the display where the horn is visible.

The coloring on the siyah looks like sinew where all was painted but only the sinew retained the paint and the rest sluffing off.

Adam, I can see what you mean about a 3/4 inch limb being rather stout for a backed bow. Guess I am drawn to go and reinvestigate with a flashlight. I hope they understand. -j-

jack farrell · Post by **jack farrell** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 8:58 pm

I went back to the museum with a flashlight. Surprisingly, they were not adverse, in fact we talked at length about the bows and the exhibit. They gave me contact information about the organizer to inquire about provenience. Very strange that nothing in the exhibit indicated the find place of artifacts.

About the straight bow. There is a scar in the birch bark in the lower part of the grip and sinew and wood are definitely visible, not horn and not bone. This was the reason for my belief that this was a backed bow. HOWEVER, with a light is possible to see a tear in the bark below the grip, at three inches below the approximate centerline. Looking into the tear there is a small void indicating that at this point there appears to be a butt joint in the materials. This indicates that this probably is a hornbow by having the horn abutt a shoulder in the grip wood. See below.

Note a somewhat unusual notch in the back of the complete nock. Besides that, the missing nock end is rather smooth which could be possible joinery. This does not really make sense but the incomplete end is high and difficult to see.

The curved bow would appear to be 57 inches in overall length along the belly. What looked like horn on the belly grip turned out to be sinew covering wood. The core has a shoulder let in above and below the grip leaving 3" for the horn sections to press against. Such construction would speak to the spiral wrappings above and below the grip.

THE HORN OF THE BELLY IS FOR SURE PALE YELLOW GREY AND APPEARS TO BE TIEN SHAN IBEX However the nock ends are dark, blackish and are not the same species. Neither are they painted.

The lower recurve is damaged, as I stated earlier but with a light it is possible to see the three layers of the bow. The damage is drawn in too low.

If the organizer of the exhibit responds with more provenience I will post that information. How can an entire exhibit be without provenience? -j-

jack farrell · Post by **jack farrell** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 3:53 pm

Just to let everyone know that at least one of the arrows visible has been refletched. Now I suspect that they might have all been. They are just too good for burial arrows. Scratch any statements about fletch size, nock alignment, shape and etc. Jack

Adam Karpowicz · Post by **Adam Karpowicz** » Thu Apr 23, 2009 9:35 am

This is very useful Jack, thanks. I think you are right about the nock pieces being spliced to the siyah in the straight bow (similar to the curved one). The sinew "step" may come from an attempt to string the bow backwards, thus loosening the joint and cutting into it (the other tips was probably lost in the process altogether).

Adam

jack farrell · Post by **jack farrell** » Thu Apr 23, 2009 8:45 pm

Adam; I meant that it looks like the Xining bow had been strung backwards but this may also apply to the straight HMNS bow. However, since the complete nock on the HMNS straight bow is wood, does it make any sense that a wood nockpiece would have been spliced in? Certainly if it had been the grain would not run diagonally?

I would encourage Stephen to look deeply into the v-splice at the ends of his Yuan bow(the third Mongol bow) for evidence of horn nock remnants. -j-

Adam Karpowicz · Post by **Adam Karpowicz** » Thu Apr 23, 2009 11:46 pm

Yes, I think it makes sense to splice wood to wood if the grain violation is severe. But in this case, since both tips seem to be spliced in, perhaps a harder wood was added on. Fot the relatively longer bows the tips are more exposed to damage and this feature as a precaution could have been present.

Adam

jack farrell · Post by **jack farrell** » Sat May 02, 2009 11:42 pm

I hope I am not beating this to death but I returned to the museum like a fly drawn to nectar. A docent had an LED light and I noticed yet another horn plate at the lower limb. It was a piece about 3" long and seemed to be rising off the core! Wherever it has been for all this time it may not be used to our humidity!

If the limbs are done the same as eachother, then there are 3 pieces of horn in each limb and not 2. Short ones at the grip and ear splice, long in between. There must be some way I can handle these items. -j-