western Scythian? be afraid...

[Adam Karpowicz]

While cleaning the shop for an important visitor, I came across an old project I forgot about: a "western Scythian" bow I made some 12 years ago. It is not based on a real find, but on the all-wood little bows from the Ukrainian/Russian digs. This bow has a bamboo belly, hardwood(?) core and is heavily backed with sinew - prob. about 1/2 the thickness of the limbs. It is only 32 inches ntn and the limbs mid length are only 19.5mm wide x 11.5mm thick. And only 160 grams total mass. I had to fix one limb which delaminated from overdrawing. Please add the imaginary recurved nocks of your choice, typical of these bows.

The f-d curve looks horrible with all the stacking and energy storage is obviously poor. However, the stats are quite impressive:

draw weight: around 90lb at 20 inches draw (gains some 30lb in the last 2 inches of draw!), SE/PDF is less than 0.5, 310 grain arrow - 204fps, 474 grain arrow - 176fps. Humidity 35-40%RH, 14deg.

Despite the meager performance at such high draw weight, the bow's efficiency, thanks to the very low energy storage is quite impressive in the 70% +/-. So, if one can handle the stacking at the short draw, the bow will perform well enough.

The bow does not represent a real bow: it is a fantasy bow based on the existing finds. As far as I know, no horn has been found yet and the presence of sinew may be debated as well. Anyway, this bow is "underbuild", but if made with thicker limbs (more material to do work) and deliberately deflexed (this one had limbs straight when made), could be quite workable and certainly efficient.

Adam

[Adam Karpowicz]

and strung:

[Pat Menzies]

Even if not wholly authentic a bow like this seems to clearly demonstrate that the early Scythian bows were likely high weight short draw "flight" bows that could send a small arrow a long way with high potential for lethality owing to lightly armored targets and possibly poisoned or at least 'tainted" heads.

[Uli]

interesting data. thank you.

[Zoran Pavlovic]

Adam, what awesome shape and design wheter of unstrung or strung bow. I am impressed by the grip. Since i am not familiar with construction of wooden burial scythians can you tell me how grip is built, are limbs spliced by vertical scarf joint and then riser added or some other construction? Thanx. But i cannot stop observing this bow.

[jack farrell]

Adam; I am convinced from numerous ancient illustrations that there were Scythian bows which looked like this.

Not so different than a Lakota bow, separated by a few thousand plus years.

[Vonegelut]

Little beast! Love it ! Sure Jack reminds the Lakota style

[Adam Karpowicz]

I suppose a horse can be killed with this bow from a close distance of some 20-30m at the arrow energy of about 30+ftlb.

This bow is not a reproduction of a historical bow, but as far as I can recall there were two or three wood laminations all though the limbs with probably an extra piece in the grip and the cross-section was round. In this bow the belly is a bit flatter, but the back is round. I was mostly interested in the mechanics of the design.

Adam

[Pat Menzies]

What kind of bamboo?
I'm intrigued and have some very dense pieces of Tonkin that would go nicely with this design. I think I'll go with some "hooks" in the end.
I like it. Looks like a nice bow to stick in a quiver with a handful of arrows.

[Adam Karpowicz]

I do not remember what it was. I got it from a friend in Taiwan. Thin walled, about 3in diameter. I think he said this bamboo was used for Japanese bows. Worked quite well for Korean style bows and as a backing.

Adam

[jack farrell]

My idea is that horn tips like these were added to bows such as yours. This may be Rafael's pic. Sorry not to have noted.

[Pat Menzies]

Jack this picture from the thread that also contains your pic looks more realistic since it is an actual picture of a tip. It looks like wood.
http://img.janforman.com/Obrazek8m3l6.png
Interestingly an old popular mechanics article on making a flight bow shows a similar method of attaching a siyah/recurve to a more modern laminated bow. It is inserted into the lam stack with a long taper.
Frustrating that these grave finds seem to be in parts that have us speculating.

[jack farrell]

Pat; What you say makes sense. However, my note says this item is from Siberia and in other bow remains there the wood degrades severely. The one(s) above are perfectly preserved.

In this illustration from "Ethnographica" (in Russian, printed in Kazakhstan), the caption reads, "Sakian Armaments. 1+2, Horny and bone ends of bow. Altai, 5-3 C BC. These two are also well preserved.

My linguist has cautioned me in the past that "Horny" also refers to antlers, as in deer horns. There is another term just for antler which is less used.

[Adam Karpowicz]

Yes Jack, I would like to see these tips in the western Scythian bows (which would make them more robust and better bows), but so far all we know such tips were present in the eastern reach of the Scythians (Altai - Vengerovo). They were not found with the super short (60 - 90cm) all-wood laminates of the west, but fit very well with the Yanghai style bows. There were a few bone nock hooks found in the western kurgans, presumably belonging to the short bows.

A scale with the drawings would be useful. A Yanghai bow would not fit 2/3 of the way into a 50-60cm gorytoi...

Adam

[Pat Menzies]

Did Michael not show that the Olon Kurin Gol bow had those horn pieces on the belly of the recurve?.
Interesting how the tips of those pieces look very similar to a Hupa style bent tab nock.
Yet another example of parallel evolution of bow features.