Turkische Cammer in Dresden, Germany

[Kviljo]

I just came back form a road-trip to Germany, visiting lots of museums. Among these were the exhibition the "Turkische Cammer" by the "Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden".

Link to their web page:
http://www.skd.museum/en/museums-instit ... index.html

Searching their online collection I found a bow and a bow quiver, which can also be seen in the exhibition:

http://skd-online-collection.skd.museum ... ?id=289096

http://skd-online-collection.skd.museum ... ?id=281857


Sadly they did not allow photography in the exhibition, but I was allowed to take one picture of some of the bows. It might give an impression of what there is to see. I did not count the number of bows, but it was substantial. Maybe 20?

Most of the bows could be classified as Crimean Tatar. By this I mean that they had the horn slice spliced in at the tip, the extra sinew ridges on the back and small string bridges. I could only find three or four bows which did not have the string bridges and had the standard short turkish shape. What surprised me was that there was so many bows that fell inbetween the categories. Bows that had the normal ottoman turkish shape with no grip reflex but still string bridges and the horn in the tips. In the picture I took, all 4,5 bows that can be seen have string bridges. There was also a number of "thorough" crimean tatar bows, large and with great grip and tip reflex. Such a pleasure to see!

To myself I also noted that most, if not all, had a near flat back (except for the extra edge-buildups on some) and a round belly.

Among them there was also a very small Crimean tatar, probably only 70-80 cm along the limbs, very elegantly made as with most of the other bows shown.

I was really happy to find that they sold a large and heavy book on the exhibition (40?), which I am looking very much forward to going through. Looks like it has a lot of good photos of the archery equipment.



In any case, I can warmly recommend a visit to the museum and exhibition.

[Kviljo]

Okay, the catalogue is fantastic! I think all of the archery gear in the exhibition is in it, with good photos, some measurements and even the weight in grammes. Occasionally it also shows some very good detail photos.


It does seem however, that I was lucky with the timing of visiting the exhibition, because untill the 4th of march, there is also an exhibition there called "Zwischen Orient und Okzident" where a bow quiver and an arrow quiver was also shown. These are the ones with over 100 diamonds and otherwise fully covered with gold and stones.

In the video on this site, they show parts of them towards the end.

http://www.skd.museum/de/sonderausstell ... index.html

[Alessi Francesco]

Great! Is it possible to buy the catalogue online?

[Amarutu]

Yes it is, Francesco. Here is the machine-translated version of the German page:

http://translate.google.de/translate?sl ... g3i1a281p2

[Kviljo]

That's the one

[Alessi Francesco]

Thanks! Do you recommend it?

[Kviljo]

It's quite pricy, and I have only looked through it a couple of times. And it is in german only. But since they did not allow visitors to take their own photographs, I found it pretty valuable. There's also a lot of other items in it. If you give me some days, I can post a few pre-views of it here.

[Uli]

Kviljo,

did you notice the bowstrings ?
all are VERY thick, made from gut (?);
probably none of us would make such a bowstring.. but the arrow nocks fit for that..

and: I think the horns are from european water buffalo and/or ram (black-yellow-white), in any case there are very few bows where one would consider asian water buffalo (all black) or ibex (all grey)

there is one "crab" bow and one very heavy crimean tatar

next time I am at home, I ll make a "catalogue" of the equipment as a basis for discussion..

[Uli]

PS:

on the Tsar's Quiver and Bowcase, there is more gems than leather area..
unbelievable

[Uli]

PSS: also the ottoman bows of the "T?rkenbeute" in Karlsruhe have very convex belly and flat back, sometimes with small lateral ridge

- this is the "real" design to be kept in mind...

[Kviljo]

Yeah, the bowstrings were all fairly thick. I'd say about 3,5-4mm on average. I think most are given as ramie in the catalogue. All that I took notice of were fully wrapped with thread along the whole length. Some were consisting of loose fibres with short wrappings. The ear loops were of about the same thickness as the main part of the string and none (I think) had large knots at the transition between the string parts.

I think those kinds of strings are pretty cool. They're kind of unusual today, but I imagine that they are quite comfortable for the thumb.

The horns surprised me too. I'm sure you are right that many of them are ram horn. I think the most important part I learned was that the cross section of these bows really should be a D-section. At the same time I was pleased to see the variety of shapes. All were a bit different, from no grip reflex to a lot, and from almost straight kasan eye to average reflex there. Some tips which were incredibly recurved - it looked scary - to fairly low tip angle.

There was also a small narrow and thin ottoman-turkish that was simply coloured in plain red. It too had the small white string bridges.

[Uli]

there is at least one bow with the "usual" 3-part bowstring (i.e. knots for loops). The "heavy" crimean tatar if I remember well.

check out what's written in Arab Archery on the bowstring thickness..

[jiao]

so so so beautiful!

[J Menna]

Yes. Looks so nice in deed, but I think it`s sin to keep old historical bow strung. Same happened museums everywhere; for North American bows etc.
Sometimes I have seen even the bow is strung by opposite way. Oh...

But those bows in pictures are really pieces.

[Gokmen]

I have the German version of the book as I speak German. There is also an english version: http://www.amazon.com/The-Turkish-Chamb ... 3422069143

I strongly recommend this book!
You have the measurements and weights of all items. The swords are not always fully shown but often just the grip.
The real interesting thing is the text. It tells the story of the collection and the individual items. ıt will surprise you but a lot of items are not ottoman but European. But it is a Turquerie meaning imitating Turkish style.
you have to know that especially in the 18th century there was a big fashion for everything Turkish, as the Ottoman empire was the 'world power' of that time, with a culture, art, e.g. embroidery which nobody has seen before. So German princes held parties with hundreds of people in Turkish kaftans, turbans, bows, kilic, turkish horse tack etc. They even imported a whole camel herd of which the bells rest today in the museum.

As I research Ottoman horses another thing is interesting. The horse replicas they created for the saddles etc are nice looking Arabian horse replicas. However in the text they mention that the German prince imported horses from Karaman. The Karaman horse (from today's karaman region) is the forefather of the 'English horse' and looks like it as well, so in fact the replicas are wrong.

Regarding the bows, I think we have to rethink again. The classification crimean Tatar vs Ottoman is more blurry than we think. And even the pure Ottoman bow has probably gone through an evolution. So you see hybrids in between too. With the bow which has ottoman length but tatar kasan bash angles I think the typical form what you see in the miniatures can be achieved. I mean the one where the sals become paralel and the kasans point a bit inwards and it all looks like tulip form.

Gokmen