Composite bows of Russia and Scandinavia?

Gvido · Post by **Gvido** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 11:21 am

Does anybody have information on Latvian bows and arrows from 6th till 13th century.

The country is close to Novgorod, the Saami and Scandinavia - one clue has bin that they used "Novgorod style"/"Saami style" bows.

Any ideas?

Wild Russian · Post by **Wild Russian** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 5:22 pm

Gvido,
I've been told that one of the most representative collections of this type bows is in Copenhagen museum

Some pictures from Riga museum (capital of Latvia) that I have seen are exactly the same North Composite bows, maybe slightly longer, but I'm not sure now.

Wild Russian · Post by **Wild Russian** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 1:02 am

http://foto.inbox.lv/dvrednij/RigaBow

Pics from Riga (Latvia) Museum

Kviljo · Post by **Kviljo** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 9:10 pm

That is very interesting to see, Wild Russian! - thanks!

I'm currently writing a paper on these bows as a master thesis in archaeology, and coming across such a complete bow is just amazing! I would love to visit that museum, although that would stretch my budget a bit

Anyway, that bow looks like some of the bows that Sirelius wrote about in 1922. Plus, I think I have seen some pictures of a similar one that was said to be from Siberia.

Gvido, do you know of any museum in Denmark that could have such two-wood-bows? If there is one in Copenhagen, that would be awesome!

If any of you know anything about these two-wood-bows, I would love to hear from you

Bede · Post by **Bede** » Thu Dec 27, 2007 2:47 am

I remember a book, published in Soviet days, called something like The Peoples of Siberia which had similar bows. I think they were of two laminations of wood with thin sinew backing and a complete wrapping of birch bark. The impression I remember is of that style of bow being common across the northern part of the continent.

Wild Russian · Post by **Wild Russian** » Thu Dec 27, 2007 8:05 am

Bede, exactly!
Almost all bows from Baltic sea to Pacific ocean....
the friend of mine have seen some bows in Yakutia that were exactly the same..

Kviljo · Post by **Kviljo** » Sun Dec 30, 2007 4:47 pm

Interesting! - I'll have to try to find that book!

Were these quite long paddle-bows with and without recurves?

Bede · Post by **Bede** » Sun Dec 30, 2007 9:38 pm

The bows I remember had oval cross sections in the bending parts of the limb and short siyahs. The were effectively laminated longbows with rigid recurves.

Kviljo · Post by **Kviljo** » Wed Jan 02, 2008 9:21 pm

Sounds very much like some medieval bows we have here in Norway, except for the recurves.

Bet these were laminated from birch and pine?

Wild Russian · Post by **Wild Russian** » Fri Jan 04, 2008 8:18 pm

Birch and pine, birch and juniper, birch and larch....

Redhorse · Post by **Redhorse** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 1:23 pm

I found this link today,
http://fornvannen.se/pdf/1990talet/1999_073.pdf

Kviljo · Post by **Kviljo** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 6:24 pm

Good one Redhorse!

I've been searching a bit for the museum in Riga, and for the bow that WildRussian showed pictures of earlier in this thread. I came across this website: http://www.history-museum.lv/english/pages/majas.php

From there I found this site, that I think should be the catalogue over the artifacts that the musuem has. But I don't have a clue of what is says there, so I was wondering if any of you understand the language and perhaps could do a quick search for bows there?

http://www.meandrs.lv/viewObjectInstanc ... 1629910136

Wild Russian · Post by **Wild Russian** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 8:01 pm

Kviljo,
I'll ask the guy who made this photo exact name and address of the museum. It seems to me that it's Sea Museum or something like this

Kviljo · Post by **Kviljo** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 9:16 pm

That would be great!

Kviljo · Post by **Kviljo** » Thu Feb 14, 2008 11:06 pm

Any news WR?

By the way, here's a pic of one of my last attempts at making a replica of a norwegian medieval two-wood-bow. It's lenght and width is based on a fragment of an original bow.

http://kviljo.no/bue/toved/d.jpg