Mongol Bow in Silk Road Museum, Seoul

[Gleb]

Andrew,

There is a kind of confusion in case of bow drawing in Khudyakov?s "Armaments of the Yenisey Kyrgyz VI-XII centuries A.D". He writes:

?Наиболее близкой в типологическом, хронологическом и территориальном отношении аналогией можно считать лук с фронтальными плечевыми накладками из Осинкинского мо?гильника на Алтае (табл. XV, 3).?
"The typological, chronological and territorial analogy (of ES? bow) might be considered the bow with frontal shoulder (limb) plates from Osinkinskiy burial in Altay (Fig. XV, 3)."

On the Fig XV, 3 depicted the bow exactly analogous to Khudyakov?s description of Es? bow (!). The bow tips separately lengthen to the limbs and fasten together with wooden rabbets (wooden nails). Among bow finds at Osinkinskiy burial not even mentioned such features.

Khudyakov?s description of Es? bow:

?Кибить лука состоит из деревянной планки ? спинки, роговых плеч ? накладок, образующих внутреннюю сторону.?
?The bow basis consists of wooden core ? back, and horn shoulders formed the inner side?.

As I understand there is a vaguely usage of terms. It should be read as: ?wooden core with horn strip on the belly side?.


As concerning item 1 in the picture why it could not be used as tip frontal (i.e. tip back) plate?

As for item 3 Savinov gives it as handle side plate.



Bede, could you please give the Omnogov bow photo here?

Regards, Gleb

[Dusan]

Khudyakov bow , Altay, Kam Tytugem river:




This Xining bow is maybe similar to this other bows. Especialy end of tip.



Like this bow from Korean Taklamakan muz. (is this the same from your pics , Jack ?):

[jack farrell]

Dusan; The yellow picture is the same bow, the Silk Road Mongol bow, taken in the earlier display two years ago. -j-

[Dusan]

Thank you Jack. Have you more pics ?

[JJ]

...a detail from the siyah of the SRM Mongol bow.

best regards, JJ

[Dusan]

Thank you JJ. Maybe other Atarn people have some too... All bow pic would be nice .

[jack farrell]

Gleb; I remain confused about the Siberian Mongol bow and how accurate the illustration is. It is a valuable source but more information is needed.

JJ; Thanks for the clear photo. My carera is not a professional model.

Todays post is about the arrows accompanying the bow. My photo is not great so I will describe them. Anyone with a clear photo please post.

I guesstimate the shafts to be 3/8 diameter in the middle, barreled to both ends. The wooden part is not likely to exceed 29 inches. The nocks, about 1inch long take the form of cones expanding back to the 3/8 diameter. with wide semicircular notches.

No fletchings are present but the quill remains, having been stripped from the feather rather than having been cut from the quill, form a typical Mediterranean three fletch. (which is to say that the cock feather lays at 90 degrees to the string). Quill skin remains appear to not exceed 4 1/2 inches in length and end about 2 inches from the nock end of the arrows.

A winding of some fiber, most likely sinew by the unwound coil of that material remaining on one arrow, threaded its way over the entire fletched area closely spaced to approximately 3/16 inch. A spiral "ghost" of this winding is apparant on all the arrows.

Cresting is as follows; all arrows were painted red under the fletch and white for 1" at the nock. Besides this one arrow has a thin black band immediately forward of the red area and another has one separating the white and red. -j-

[JJ]

The arrows were difficult to photpgraph, Jack...

The nocks to me seem not usable for thumbring shooting (they look too short for taking good grip of the string).

The binding of the fletching is strange. Looks very crude seen from today. But I?ve seen the same thing on turkish arrows in Vienna. Maybe an effort to hold the feathers on the shaft during all possible weather conditions? Natural glues could get solved by heavy rain.

It comes to my mind that in Western Europe people used birch pitch for fletching at least until the Viking age, although hide- or bone glues must have been available for a long time then....

JJ

[jsachers]

Not really a better photo, but you can see the marks the binding left and what I consider to be the remains of the fletching.

[jsachers]

And another view of the bow

[jack farrell]

Thanks for posting guys.

JJ; someone posted about birch tar as glue years ago. I have been on the lookout for it in artifacts ever since. I suspect that Egyptians used it for applying birch bark decorations to bows. Have never seen it myself in an artifact. It is also said that Egyptians used bituminum (King's English for tar, also asphaltum). The possibility for a mistake exists. If someone were to post on Birch tar, I would enjoy.

Jan; the second of your pics are my beloved Miran-Hunnic bows, which were displayed next to the Mongol bow.

For all the recognition of the strength of Mongol bows, the one Hunn bow was stouter. Not a trend, just an observation. -j-

[JJ]

Yes the bow in the 2nd picture of Jan is of a hunnic period bow. By the way, Jack, one can see the bone plates very easily;-)

In a region where natural bitumen or asphalt is available, I don?t think people concern about making birch bark pitch. They will use bitumen instead. Real Birch bark tar can easily be recognised by its disinctive aromatic smell when its is warmed up a little (even on material that is thousands of years old).

I would be curious if birch pitch would have been used by american indians. I know it wasn?t used on their arrows, but somebody told me once it was used in making bark canoes in North America (?)...

JJ

[Ashbow]

I would be curious if birch pitch would have been used by american indians. I know it wasn?t used on their arrows, but somebody told me once it was used in making bark canoes in North America (?)...

That's interesting, I haven't heard of that, I only know that coniferous gum mixed up with animal fat have been used for sealing bark canoes.

Sorry, I'm going off-topic here.

[JJ]

Maybe Jack can find out ???

[JJ]

fletching of turkish 17th century war arrows in Vienna. They show a similar binding like the Mongol arrows from SRM. Some of the nocks are also very, very shallow.......

JJ