Yanghai (Scythian) bow weight tested

[redhawk]

I?ve had the same question: did the Scythians have used a saw or something similiar?
When I had been in Siberia, I asked the Russian archaeologists about saw- findings in Scythian graves. No saws at all.
So I tried to work horn with knives, stone- blades and scrapers, an axe.
It turned out not to be that hard we think of it. If you get confident with the growing principles of a horn, you?ve got it. It?s similiar to work the back of a selfbow, but much harder.

Jack, there is not any finding of a Greek hornbow. There are pics, and a poem of Homer. Homer is telling us that a Greek hornbow is made of a pair of horn of a ram assembled lengthwise by a wooden handle, that?s all.Cut the horn- slats, shape a handle and splice them. Then sinew- back it.
That?s something like a sheephorn- bow without wooden core but with a wooden handle. It works, but not as stable as a hornbow with a wooden core.
Michael

[jack farrell]

Michael; Homer's Iliad describes the sacking of Troy, a bronze age event. Scythian bows are Iron age bows. So his short description is not useful for understanding Scythian-type construction.

(His description is hardly useful for understanding ANY bow's construction.)

[Bede]

Michael,
The majority of scholarly opinion since Balfour is that Homer was describing a standard composite bow, not a bow assembled from a wooden handle and two whole horns. The description in the Odyssey of the attempts to string the bow of Odysseus is clearly based on techniques used for an ordinary composite bow.

Homer was probably written down in the 9th-8th centuries BC, but describing events of several centuries earlier. Some German scholars think that some parts of the archery descriptions reflect a cycle of stories based on the propaganda of the Pharaohs of the New Kingdom. Many legends of the origin of Homer point to Asia Minor. The Kingdom of the Hittites was a close neighbour and the Hittites used composite bows. It would be very easy for the Greeks to have acquired composite bows as early as the Bronze Age, before they even met the Scythians.

[Stephen Selby]

This would only be true if Scythians had a saw available, or a similar tool. If only a chopping tool such as an adz were used, then the same bow would require 4 horns.

This is something I would like to get to the bottom of.

No saws have been excavated at Yanghai. But on the other hand, the range of tools excavated was very narrow, mainly involving tools with a ritual significance. I have a pictorial dictionary of all tools excavated in China and the saw does not feature in it as such, although there are some knives with serrations.

Sawing was widely used as a method of shaping jade from neolithic times. A saw was formed using a cord with coarse or fine sand adhering to it. Could this tool have been used for cutting horn?

[Bede]

Horn is a lot softer than jade (nephrite in those times). Wasn't there also an abrasive mounted on bamboo blades for hard stone work?

[jack farrell]

There are tomb paintings from Egypt in the middle second millennium BCE which shows craftsmen in the royal archery workshops sawing horns for hornbows.

I have seen such an object and it is a bronze knife which had been struck on its edge with a sharp tool (chisel ?) to make a gathered kind of dent.

This would predate Scythian bow making by 1000 years. Of course it also does not indicate that Scythians had these available.

[Dusan]

I think than we dont need a archeological tool finds... You must only go to the old bazars in midle east, Iran , Iraq/ or Yemen / etc. And you can see all oldest traditional tools and "tricks" vithout any 1000 years changes. Some of masters have modern machines , but you can still see "living history " in own eye...
( remember like archeologs find some"machine" in old greece ship in see , and next find same "galvanisation" primitive machine in Arabian bazars...)

[hcspng]

I know one old carpenter in another city who works in traditional way.he just use adze and some primitive tools.but he as never works with horn.
in Isfihan i know an artist which use tools like frame saw and... but he hasn't work with horn too.
unfortunately time gap between u and bowyers is about 200 years here.
and some other people here made their own saw.

[JJ]

There were definitely saws at least in the Middle Bronze Age. I?ve seen Minoan bronze saws from Crete (1600 BC). Saws seem to be invented as soon as swords or knives in the beginning of metal use. The Iron Age (since 800BC) has many finds of iron saws. It seems to me impossible that Scythians or their neighbors did not know or use saws at 600 BC.

JJ

[Dusan]

Boys, you dont believe that people who can make such beatifull things like this :

(greeks- Kaspian sea )



(Pazirik)






(Saka)






cant cut horns ?
Here you can see old pic vith his today use :




(reconstruction- but function machine )







master in midlle east :

[Stephen Selby]

Yes, I suspect Dusan's image -


is the answer to the riddle. This would have been a very familiar sight in bronze age times. Either a hemp cord or bamboo could have been used to hold the abrasive.

[Bede]

Isn't that someone bowing cotton?

I just looked up Needham's Science and Civilisation in China Vol. IV:2 and he suggests saws were a Neolithic invention. I do not have his sources, but I do remember seeing a saw-like device made from antler with microliths embedded in it. How practical this was for something like horn I don't know. I would prefer the abrasive on the string to cut horn. It would be slow.

[Dusan]

I think that todays cutting strings like this :



was only descendetnt of very old technik. I can tell you guys , that this string cut very well , and quickly. Strings was sell especialy for farmers for cow horn cutting !

Archeological found in Georgia vegetable cord fibres was continue vith this question :



Interesting primitive way example :

http://www.primitiveways.com/bone_awl.html

[PjSingh]

I absolutely agree with Dusan,I have seen people working in the remote regions of india with some of the oldest technology,literally like a live meuseum exibit,I have to say this that image # 9 is of Indian artisans as the child pulling the strings to turn the lathe is clearly a brahmin,the shikha(hair on the back of his shaved head) is a clear sign that it is a brahmin child.
This in itself is a very controvercial thing as Brahmins are never associated with craft work but usually with schlorly work and duties.
Regards
P.J.

[JJ]

No need for string with abrasives, here?s Bronze Age saws:













(all from Minoan culture, Crete, between 2000 and 1500 BC)

That?s 1000 years before the Syths.

Dusan what do you want to tell us with the article on paleolithic Flax fibers?

Best regards,

JJ