comparative anatomy

[Uli]

..as discussed earlier :

here is a good example of the similarity between
tatar bows (from turkish museums) and the
korean bow (a hwarang)

[Uli]

next

[scemdonmez]

Uli, is it possible to take cross section photo in broken place?

Cem

[Stephen Selby]

Is the Korean bow used for comparison a hornbow?

[Uli]

Is the Korean bow used for comparison a hornbow?

no its a laminated Hwarang I got from Thomas Duvernay

I never shot a real korean or turk hornbow
nevertheless this laminated bow has a stunning performance

there is a lot of "string follow" that would probably only be seen
in the korean horn-bow directly after unstringing or so

[Uli]

Uli, is it possible to take cross section photo in broken place?

Cem

I wish it would be ! (also for my own bow project)
but the tatar bows you see are only paper copies
scaled to about 48 ntn length

[Dusan]

Uli , why you dont working vith pic real Korean horn bow too ? Than you can see very close similarity between this too tipe of bows. You cant turn vith pics angel .

[Bede]

Having actually laid a Crimean Tatar bow and a Korean horn and sinew bow next to each other, I have to say that the similarities are a bit superficial.

The cross sections and which parts bend are different. The Korean limbs are much narrower and the limbs bend almost as far as the string bridge. The Tatar bows have wider bending sections of the limb and the kasan is ridged and rigid.

In my limited experience of strung Tatar bows (all replicas), I also observed that the set back in the handle is not so pronounced. I have seen quite a few Korean horn/wood/sinew composites strung and strung one myself with help and they keep more of the reflex in the grip.

Tatar bows come in different sizes, but all have more massive limbs than contemporary Korean composite bows. This may be because surviving Tatar bows are often war bows while most Korean composite bows are target bows and are optimised for that function.

But they both take advantage of a long draw to get much more energy into the arrow. I have seen two Korean bows classed as war bows in the Grayson Collection and several in Korean in a museum and they are longer and more massive in the limbs than current target bows. They also had wooden bellies laminated to the core instead of horn. They looked very effective. These are not the Qing style bows and have siyahs that resemble heavy duty versions of the standard Korean target bows.

I am not trying to discourage looking for similarities between different bows, but photographs are two dimensional and so some features seem less important. In profile, there are similarities, but in bending and structure there are dissimilarities.

[Uli]

thanks Bede
that's interesting facts

[Dusan]

This thread start vith -soryUli- vith naive pic colage , but have interesting ground.
Bede i cant agree vith your position. You thinking about todays sporting Korean hornbow. This bow is very modern variation from old war and hunting bow , who is more similar to the "tatar bows." This old war bows have -like tatar bows longer not working kasan vith ridge, another disain but still bash , like tatar bows, wider limbs - like tatar bows. Somtime tatarbows have even greater angel in handle section than tatar bows. Both bows are longer than todays - korean bows - about 130-+ cm.Very similar bows. I mean here is place to more teoretical - historician questions...

(This problem was very interesting for me , because i am now in work in some tatar bows ...And first what i see is very close similarities between this bows and mi Korean hornbow.)

[Bede]

Dusan,
I don't think you have seen the Korean war bows I mentioned. They are very similar to a bigger more robust form of the target bow. They have the same form of kasan to use the Turkish word and the tip is the same as a modern Korean target bow but thicker.

Look at MAC 1991-0873 in the Grayson Collection Database. http://database.coas.missouri.edu/fmi/i ... loadframes

To quote the catalogue:

147.5 cm nock-to-nock around curve; 5.1 cm wide at mid-limb; 1.8 cm thick at mid-limb.

Also MAC 1998-0112, which is described

Length is 164 cm; mid-limb width is 5.2 cm; mid-limb thickness is 1.7 cm.

These bows are bigger and more robust than Korean target bows and conform to Korean subscriptions of war bows. There are other bows that resemble Qing Manchu bows. Due to the relationship between Qing China in the latter part of the dynasty, it is likely the Qing style bows are either gifts, purchases or built to conform with Qing military regulations.

I agree that we were discussing more theoretical historical questions in this thread, but it is best to start one's theory from accurate facts. The problem I saw in the thread was that no one had commented on the difference between the structures of the two types of bows. It seemed to be based on profiles which do look similar. Looking at historical bows in the flesh reveals that the similarities are superficial. This does not invalidate the proposition that there are connections between the two types of bow. I think that the late Yuan and Ming bows were part of a continuum of bow types characterised by set back handles, short working limbs and long kasans. However, there is a native tradition of bow building in Korea that seems to have absorbed these ideas without giving up rectangular-sectioned kasans and a number of other features. On the other hand, Korean bow making tools and approaches are so similar to equipment from China to Turkey that one is forced to assume there was a common technology despite distance and the difference in bow design.

What I think has been missed is that, excluding the Turks, everyone in contact with steppe cultures after the 1600s moved to using bows with longer draws and heavier arrows. At the same time, muzzle loading guns like muskets became common as the long distance weapon of choice. It seems that the bow became the medium range weapon preferred by horsemen because their rate fire was higher than any combination of pistols carried on horseback. Guns had initially resulted in heavier armour being used to counter their penetration so bows had to deliver a more energetic and penetrating arrow to compete. Later armour was discarded because it was ineffective against guns making the arrows more effective. It is interesting that in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, armour was given up fighting on the Western fronts against European foes while it was retained on the Eastern front against the Turks and their Tatar auxiliary cavalry. However, archery never came back as major weapon because its advantage was on horseback and missile cavalry was in decline in general as infantry tactics improved.

[Stephen Selby]

Always at the risk of being yelled at by Korean friends, I am convinced that the Korean model was based on the Turkish (including Crimean) designs brought in by the Turkish mercenaries serving under the Mongols.

Kudos to the Koreans and Chinese of the Ming Dynasty for adopting a really efficient design, and hanging on to it and improving it while and Chinese of the Qing Dynasty together with the rest of Asia became infatuated with the Manchu fashion which, imho, was inferior.

[Dusan]

Well, i made some pics for more understable what i think. here is old Korean Chosean era war and hunting long (156 cm ) bow :



like you can see. He have very good identicate ridge in "kasan" part :



If you open fantasie and "get out front wide wood plate in bash part " - like me - voila- like turkish or tatar bash :



Her is good exmple from France museum Crepy . This is same warbow model, but here show him like"Kirgiz tatarbow "



like you can see - same kasan ridge part






and wide strong limbs- like tatar bos :



in this tatar bows is greater angle in hamdle place than in more todays Korean bows :

URL=http://img.janforman.com/Tatarbows3car.jpg][/URL]

[Adam Karpowicz]

You are making a good point Dusan. These bows are indeed functionally very similar = rigid kasan + set-back grip (the tip shape is a minor issue as to the workings of the bows). Thanks for the pictures. Tatar bows varied quite a bit, mainly in the degree of grip setback and in recurvature of kasans, as well as in the relative lengths/widths of the sections, so Bede may be right, depending on what you look at.

To add to Stephen's comment on Ming: I have seen a couple of bows in the Museum of War in Warsaw - presumably coming from China, but of unknown provenance. One of them had Chinese decoration. I could not tell the difference between these two and the Crim-Tatar bows, although the side ridges in sal were absent. These two bows may be the only known survivors from Ming?

Adam

[Bede]

Dusan,
While I have seen some of those bows in photographs before, I had not seen Korean bows with ridged kasans in the flesh. I had been looking for them because I also see influences in Korean bows from outside. Some of the photos I did see were not as clear as yours and your ones are very useful. It would be even better if you had larger images.

It was not until I saw bows of the Central Asian Turkish style that I saw bows with similar kasan cross sections to Korean bows that I had seen. 10th century bows had kasans of a rectangular cross section which persisted into the early Mongol era. In Korea, this idea survived into modern times though the Koreans used their distinctive belly-ridged tips.

I would dispute with Stephen that the Manchu bows were inferior to Ming bows. The Manchu bows have a number of features that were more important at the time they were used than those of their predecessors. Their primary disadvantages were that they were big, hence unwieldy, and did not have long range. Their advantages were stability, accuracy and force draw curve that made them easier to draw for a given weight at their length.

Once matchlocks took over both the long range missile role and rendered armour obsolete, then heavy arrow shooting accurate bows came into their own. Adam points out in his book that a Turkish bow can shoot a heavy arrow efficiently too. They are not limited to shooting light arrows and this would apply to Ming style bows. Unfortunately, people did not have research labs to test these simple physical claims. Decisions were probably made on "common sense" ideas that heavier arrows needed bigger bows. When the Manchus conquered China, it is unlikely they would have given up their bows to use the weapons of the vanquished, particularly since their bows fulfilled the new military requirement for archery. On the other hand, conservatism could keep an existing bow in use. The Turks did not change their design, but they were not overthrown by another bow using culture either.

I doubt that real history was as neat as this. When you look at wider historical trends, I think it is even harder to develop a clear picture of what happened. It is clear that similar problems led to similar solutions, particularly since the base bow types originated from innovations made by the Turks and/or the Mongols. Judging from wall paintings and the occasional bone lath, the early Korean bows were strongly influenced by steppe fashions. Did the bow type in the Grayson Collection and in some of Dusan's photographs develop the ridged kasan and then lose it or did it have it initially and then go to the rectilinear design to introduce kasan flexibility?

I would also like to add that there is another type of Korean war bow. I will qualify this by saying that I base the classification on historical descriptions related to real bows I have handled. They may not be war bows but cheap military practice bows. These bows are about the size of a Korean target bow, have wooden bellies, are completely sinew wrapped and black lacquered. One other peculiarity is that the tip is more like a triangle in section with the apex on the belly side. The area where the loop rests is not scooped out. I have seen these both in the Grayson Collection (MACs 1995-0658 and 1995-0702) and in the Military Museum in Seoul. I have handled them and can confirm that the bending section had a bamboo core.