Archery and Relative Remains in Xinjiang

[serindia]

Saddle, Qing Dynasty, Hami Museum


Saddle, Qing Dynasty, Hami Museum

[serindia]

Arrow Heads, Song & Yuan Dynasty, Barkol Museum


Archery Ware, Song & Yuan Dynasty, Barkol Museum


Bow, Quiver and Arrows, Song & Yuan Dynasty, Barkol Museum


Bow, Quiver and Arrows, Song & Yuan Dynasty, Barkol Museum

[serindia]

Archery Ware of Yanghai Cemetery, the late Spring & Autumn Period/ the Warring States Period, Turfan Museum


Whistling Arrowhead, Structure of Gorytus and Boomerang

[serindia]

Clothes with Archery Design, Gao Chang Uygur Period, Turfan Museum

[serindia]

Archery Ware, Gao Chang Uygur Period, Turfan Museum

[jsachers]

Fantastic pictures, thanks for sharing!

[Andrew Hall]

Serindia,
Thanks for posting the photos - very interesting.

The Song & Yuan Dynasty bow from Barkol Museum is surprisingly crab-like.

The Uigur bow is referenced in Khudyakov's ?Armament of the Turfan Uigurs?, but only with a small illustration. It looks quite similar in shape to the more recurved of the two Shiluustei sum Mongolian bows (and the very much later Omnogov), although with plates on the siyahs.

Andrew

[jack farrell]

Serindia; You are the man! You are so generous to share.

Our first dilemma is the Barkol bow. This is the most developed bow that I have seen labeled as Yuan (Mongol Empire). Those who enjoy MUGHAL/ Crab bows take a close look.

Andrew; Are you suggesting that the Uygur bow has siyah plates? What I see is v-spliced siyah ends to accept nock tips. Look at the left one.

[daryush]

Thanks for sharing all these photos!

[serindia]

It is my pleasure to share my resource with our fans. However, I would also to give some suggestion. According to the law of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, China, all kinds of reconstruction of the cultural heritage in China should ask the formal permission from the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, whatever your purpose is scientific or commercial. Of course, probably, some people don't want to obey the law. Hence, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage and relative institution and individual have the right to protect their intellectual property by law.

Mr. Selby is a fine example to co-operate with Chinese colleague and institution. Because he respected the intellectual property, so, Chinese colleague and bureau were very glad to collaborate with him to conserve the cultural heritage.

If anyone, who interests to collaborate with China, and reconstruct those archery ware, I'd like to recommand him/her to the relative institution.

In addition to the name of different types of the archery ware, my opinion is to seperate the age.

For the prehistorical period, it is better to follow the archaeological way. In Xinjiang, the preshistorical period is before the Han Dynasty. Hence, if we name the archery ware by the historical ethnic name, it will make a big misunderstanding for the archaeology on the other hand. In Yanghai Cemetery, my tutors and colleagues not only discoveried the "Scythian Style", but also "Khotan Style" and "Assyrian style". They distributed in the different age's cemetery. "Assyrian Style" is founded in the No.1 cemetery, which is dated as the Bronze Age. "Scythian Style" is buried in No.2 and No.3 cemeteries, which is from the late Spring Period to Han Dynasty. The piece of "Khotan Style" is only founded in No.3 cemetery,w which is dated as Han Dynasty. Therefore, in my recent book, I identity 3 types of bows in Yanghai cemetery. Moreover, the combination of the archery ware is also interesting. It looks like a soldier has a AK47 with NATO gear.

As for the historical periodic remain, we can use the ethnic name. However, we should also clearly know that, enemies of the same age, their equipment and tactics are quite similar. Sometimes, it is really hard to analysis by archaeological way. Dura-Europos is a classical example.

[Bede]

This is an excellent and very useful post.

Jack,
I thought the Barkol Song/Yuan bow looked very much like the bow you posted from the exhibition in Texas. You examined that very carefully. Do you think it is in the same family?

Andrew,
I agree with you about the Uighur bow. I thought I could seen the lathes clearly on the right hand tip. The quiver is very reminiscent of the quivers shown in the Dietz album from the 1330 copy of the Rashid-ed-Din historical work. A continuity between the Uighurs and the Mongols in some design features would not be unusual. The number of arrows in the quiver makes it look more like a war quiver than a hunting one too.

Serinda,
What do the museum people mean by the "Assyrian" type of bow? In western archaeology, that means an angular composite bow with birds head nocks. Technically, this is referred to as an Elamite bow in the Assyrian texts.

[Bede]

I have just had a closer look at the Uighur quiver and it has less arrows than I first guessed. You know what they say about first impressions. A close look at the mouth is reminiscent of some old Tibetan quivers that also resemble the Dietz album quivers, but they are made from leather.

I had not thought of making the quiver with a metal trim like this one because I thought the paintings depicted a rod structure. The Tibetan ones had moulded leather.

There are excavated Magyar closed quivers with metal framing and decorations so the metal decoration represents a common technique which we can document from both ends of the steppe thanks to this publication here on the Net.

[Andrew Hall]

Jack,
I suspect you may be right and the Uighur bow had nock inserts. It was not clear from the automatic translation of the Russian article.

Serindia, can you confirm?

Andrew

[Bede]

Looking at a 400% view of the right tip and you can see a slot looking into the nock, but it isn't apparent on the very end of the limb. the left end appears to be both broken and missing either an insert or the core extension. If there was a horn insert, insects that would eat the horn would not touch the wood. Some of my Indian bows show this kind of damage. The tip often breaks when the inner reinforcement is eaten away.

However, if what we are seeing is the remnant of bone or hardwood strips, then the core could have been attacked without the side reinforcements being damaged.

In general, horn seems to disappear without a trace, while wood usually is eaten away in a manner that leaves some traces. The similar bow in the Silk Road Museum in Seoul had bifurcated tips too. I could not determine the material of the tips by eye since no grain was apparent. I have added photographs of each end of the bow. The other bow in the pictures seems to have a different tip construction.

[jack farrell]

Bede; What has not transpired is my reassesment of the Miran bows, the ones in your illustrations. I am rather certain that the nock you show in the first pic has HORN laths, Tienshan Ibex or Siberian Ibex. I noted this when I first saw it in the improved lighting of its new setting. Insects have attacked it but ignored the wood core.

In the second pic, the two front laths are wood and the back one is Ibex. So these bows are characteristic of Hunnic bows except that the siyah laths are horn, a first to be noted.

I find the Uygur bow to be somewhat similar to the Shiluustei sum curved bow. Though slightly shorter, both have flat limbs, without kasan, have strongly bent knees becoming somewhat triangular and progressing to nock insert tips. A bare wood siyah is to be seen with the sinew stopping low. This indicates a spliced in siyah and what I would call a Turkic period bow. Possibly 13thC.

If anyone can read the Chinese text please be so kind to translate here.