ATARNarchive

Archery and Relative Remains in Xinjiang

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jsachers
Fantastic pictures, thanks for sharing!
Andrew Hall
Serindia,
Thanks for posting the photos - very interesting.

The Song & Yuan Dynasty bow from Barkol Museum is surprisingly crab-like.

The Uigur bow is referenced in Khudyakov's ?Armament of the Turfan Uigurs?, but only with a small illustration. It looks quite similar in shape to the more recurved of the two Shiluustei sum Mongolian bows (and the very much later Omnogov), although with plates on the siyahs.

Andrew
jack farrell
Serindia; You are the man! You are so generous to share.

Our first dilemma is the Barkol bow. This is the most developed bow that I have seen labeled as Yuan (Mongol Empire). Those who enjoy MUGHAL/ Crab bows take a close look.

Andrew; Are you suggesting that the Uygur bow has siyah plates? What I see is v-spliced siyah ends to accept nock tips. Look at the left one.
daryush
Thanks for sharing all these photos!
serindia
It is my pleasure to share my resource with our fans. However, I would also to give some suggestion. According to the law of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, China, all kinds of reconstruction of the cultural heritage in China should ask the formal permission from the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, whatever your purpose is scientific or commercial. Of course, probably, some people don't want to obey the law. Hence, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage and relative institution and individual have the right to protect their intellectual property by law.

Mr. Selby is a fine example to co-operate with Chinese colleague and institution. Because he respected the intellectual property, so, Chinese colleague and bureau were very glad to collaborate with him to conserve the cultural heritage.

If anyone, who interests to collaborate with China, and reconstruct those archery ware, I'd like to recommand him/her to the relative institution.

In addition to the name of different types of the archery ware, my opinion is to seperate the age.

For the prehistorical period, it is better to follow the archaeological way. In Xinjiang, the preshistorical period is before the Han Dynasty. Hence, if we name the archery ware by the historical ethnic name, it will make a big misunderstanding for the archaeology on the other hand. In Yanghai Cemetery, my tutors and colleagues not only discoveried the "Scythian Style", but also "Khotan Style" and "Assyrian style". They distributed in the different age's cemetery. "Assyrian Style" is founded in the No.1 cemetery, which is dated as the Bronze Age. "Scythian Style" is buried in No.2 and No.3 cemeteries, which is from the late Spring Period to Han Dynasty. The piece of "Khotan Style" is only founded in No.3 cemetery,w which is dated as Han Dynasty. Therefore, in my recent book, I identity 3 types of bows in Yanghai cemetery. Moreover, the combination of the archery ware is also interesting. It looks like a soldier has a AK47 with NATO gear.

As for the historical periodic remain, we can use the ethnic name. However, we should also clearly know that, enemies of the same age, their equipment and tactics are quite similar. Sometimes, it is really hard to analysis by archaeological way. Dura-Europos is a classical example.
Bede
This is an excellent and very useful post.

Jack,
I thought the Barkol Song/Yuan bow looked very much like the bow you posted from the exhibition in Texas. You examined that very carefully. Do you think it is in the same family?

Andrew,
I agree with you about the Uighur bow. I thought I could seen the lathes clearly on the right hand tip. The quiver is very reminiscent of the quivers shown in the Dietz album from the 1330 copy of the Rashid-ed-Din historical work. A continuity between the Uighurs and the Mongols in some design features would not be unusual. The number of arrows in the quiver makes it look more like a war quiver than a hunting one too.

Serinda,
What do the museum people mean by the "Assyrian" type of bow? In western archaeology, that means an angular composite bow with birds head nocks. Technically, this is referred to as an Elamite bow in the Assyrian texts.
Bede
I have just had a closer look at the Uighur quiver and it has less arrows than I first guessed. You know what they say about first impressions. A close look at the mouth is reminiscent of some old Tibetan quivers that also resemble the Dietz album quivers, but they are made from leather.

I had not thought of making the quiver with a metal trim like this one because I thought the paintings depicted a rod structure. The Tibetan ones had moulded leather.

There are excavated Magyar closed quivers with metal framing and decorations so the metal decoration represents a common technique which we can document from both ends of the steppe thanks to this publication here on the Net.
Andrew Hall
Jack,
I suspect you may be right and the Uighur bow had nock inserts. It was not clear from the automatic translation of the Russian article.

Serindia, can you confirm?

Andrew
Bede
Looking at a 400% view of the right tip and you can see a slot looking into the nock, but it isn't apparent on the very end of the limb. the left end appears to be both broken and missing either an insert or the core extension. If there was a horn insert, insects that would eat the horn would not touch the wood. Some of my Indian bows show this kind of damage. The tip often breaks when the inner reinforcement is eaten away.

However, if what we are seeing is the remnant of bone or hardwood strips, then the core could have been attacked without the side reinforcements being damaged.

In general, horn seems to disappear without a trace, while wood usually is eaten away in a manner that leaves some traces. The similar bow in the Silk Road Museum in Seoul had bifurcated tips too. I could not determine the material of the tips by eye since no grain was apparent. I have added photographs of each end of the bow. The other bow in the pictures seems to have a different tip construction.
jack farrell
Bede; What has not transpired is my reassesment of the Miran bows, the ones in your illustrations. I am rather certain that the nock you show in the first pic has HORN laths, Tienshan Ibex or Siberian Ibex. I noted this when I first saw it in the improved lighting of its new setting. Insects have attacked it but ignored the wood core.

In the second pic, the two front laths are wood and the back one is Ibex. So these bows are characteristic of Hunnic bows except that the siyah laths are horn, a first to be noted.

I find the Uygur bow to be somewhat similar to the Shiluustei sum curved bow. Though slightly shorter, both have flat limbs, without kasan, have strongly bent knees becoming somewhat triangular and progressing to nock insert tips. A bare wood siyah is to be seen with the sinew stopping low. This indicates a spliced in siyah and what I would call a Turkic period bow. Possibly 13thC.

If anyone can read the Chinese text please be so kind to translate here.
jack farrell
A translation is also needed for the Barkol/Yuan bow. This bow is in the perfect stage of disintegration to make a full assessment but the pictures are not close enough.

As only 2/3 of the bow remains, it would appear to be quite a long bow, in the manner of a Hunza bow. Though it has opened up somewhat by the bend of the limbs, it does not appear to have had great reflex originally. The very tip is broken slightly giving the further look of a crab bow. But the step down in the middle siyah is rather unmistakable.

Something is delaminating on the grip where side plates would occur. This would not be a big surprise because of the narrowness of the grip.

The Barkol quiver is displayed from the back showing attachment holes.

The Uygur quiver could be described as a bent wood box. Bede, can you possibly make a reconstruction illustration of the Uygur quiver? This would be in your expertise. I see the points at the base in the manner of a Tibetan quiver, as you said. -j-

Anyone please feel free to comment on my observations. -j-
serindia

Bede wrote:

Serinda,
What do the museum people mean by the "Assyrian" type of bow? In western archaeology, that means an angular composite bow with birds head nocks. Technically, this is referred to as an Elamite bow in the Assyrian texts.

Bede, I understand what you mean. Of course, there aren't birds head nocks. I just make an example, because the shape of the bow only has one curve. Hence, scientifically, I named it as the Yanghai Type No.1, because the date is the earlist.
serindia

Andrew Hall wrote:

Jack,
I suspect you may be right and the Uighur bow had nock inserts. It was not clear from the automatic translation of the Russian article.

Serindia, can you confirm?

Andrew

Sorry, Andrew, I'm not sure. It was my first time to see them. If our fans want to know whether there is a nock insert, I will offer to do a X-ray scanning of it with the relative institution.
serindia

jack farrell wrote:

If anyone can read the Chinese text please be so kind to translate here.

Which Chinese text you wanted to translate? Please let me know.
Andrew Hall
Serindia,
the tips of the Uighur bow appear to be split. You may be able to see in your original photos if this split only appears to be around the nock. If so it is probably from a missing nock insert. X-rays will not be needed.

X-rays would be useful for determining the core construction techniques and whether bone plates are used in the grip.

Jack,
the Uighur bow is labelled as 9-11th century.

According to Khudyakov in ?Armament of the Turfan Uigurs?, there is another fairly intact Uighur bow in a museum in Khami.

Andrew
jack farrell
Serindia; I was refering to the cards next to the Barkol and Uygur bows describing them and the dates. This would be helpful to have the complete description.

Andrew and all; If the Uygur bow dates to the 9-11th C, then your thesis that the Turkic period of bowmaking was interrupted by the Mongol era is finding physical proof.

Does it not seem odd that many Mongol bows represent a slightly more primitive technology than early Turkic? Maybe the key is in WHICH TURKIC?

In GK AND THE MONGOL EMPIRE, p.147, archaeologists were long confused by the ruins of Khar Balgas, thinking them to be the remains of the Mongol capitol. This turned out to be the more ancient remains of the Uygur capitol, smaller but of much more orderly construction than Kara Korum, the Mongol capitol. -j-
jack farrell
Serindia; I was still wondering about the text of the cards identifying the Barkol and Uygur bows.

And what of your book. Is it in English or Italian? Title? I enjoy your bows. -j-
PjSingh
great post but I must say that the picture of the tapestery makes me think that it is Indian(mughal or rajisthan in origin)as the clothing looks like typical mughal clothing. Clothes with Archery Design, Gao Chang Uygur Period, Turfan Museum
Bede
PJ,
I think your observation is accurate. The clothing and the turbans are probably Mogul. No doubt the curators chose the background because of the subject rather than the period of the material.

Jack,
I think that as more material comes to light, many of the bows now referred to as Yuan period will turn out to be related more to the Tangut or Xixia areas and perhaps some other local traditions. As a result you may find that your ideas about the development of bow design might be correct. When you look at the context of the finds, particularly the quivers, we are seeing a lot of hunting equipment. The Uighur closed quiver in this thread is more in the style of the military quivers despite its construction. The more reflexed bow in Texas exhibition looks like it is a further development of the 9th to 11th century Central Asian bows. Material is turning up at such a rate that it would be premature to come to any definitive conclusions, particularly about a multicultural period like the Mongol Empire. If we look at our own time, many different types of bow are in use at the same time and the most advanced types have not driven out the less developed.

We also need to remember that the majority of bows are found in arid areas because of the environmental conditions. In a given place the chances of survival would be influenced by the population densities of the various bow users, their burial customs, and sheer chance in finding an object. This doesn't take into account the fact that different bow constructions may have been used in different climates as mentioned in Arab Archery
serindia
The series discovery of "the Scythian style bow" remind me to rethink the influence of the Hellenistic. Comparing with the iconography, the mediterranean one is much more earlier than Xinjiang's...
Bede
Serinda,
Some of the Scythian-style bows in Xinjiang are dated before Alexander and are thus pre-Hellenistic. Though the dating I have seen in reports and catalogues suggests a wide time span of usage, it does look like these bows were in Xinjiang for a long time. Considering the Pazyryk tombs and other archaeological evidence, it is more likely that the bows represent part of the steppe culture complex rather than a Hellenistic intrusion into Central Asia.

From the Macedonians' point of view, it must have been interesting to see bow types familiar from their northern borders when they reached Transoxiana.
serindia
Bede, in Magna Graecia, there are some images of the Scythian style archery ware are in the Archaic period. However, the No.2 cemetery of Yanghai is between the late of Spring & Autumn Period and the Warring Sates' period. I heard about some data of C14. However, comparing with the work, which we did in Barkol, the date could be late. In Barkol, the date of the C14 between the coffin and bone is 400 years, the former is earlier than the last.

Furthermore, Pazyrk is in the 2nd c. BC. Quite late.
Bede
Serinda,
The latest tombs in Pazyryk were dated to the 2nd century but the earlier tombs were pre 5th century. I admit that I am not certain of the accuracy of some of the Russian dates after the debacle of the Ukrainian horse bones. A several thousand year discrepancy was hard to explain.

However, the cross sections of the Scythian-style bows are archaic (not as in Greek) which tend to suggest connections with other bows of similar internal structure. The dating and even the descriptions of some of the bows in Xinjiang are arguable, but the Spring and Autumn Period is from 770-463 BCE and that predates Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic Era that follows him.

The dating at Barkol sounds problematical to me unless you are referring to the span of the possible dates. It would be very unusual to find a coffin 400 years younger than its occupant unless the site was contaminated. Or alternately, perhaps the locals practised reburial.

The Scythian archers found depicted on pottery in Magna Graecia were often as not produced in Athens as export ware. Their dating is consistent with the Athenians exposure to Scythians whether through trading with the Black Sea or the famous police force of the Athens.
Redbow
Hello,

It seems the bow pictures, Serindia posted are not available here any more, did anyone copy these and would be able to them back ?

Thanks !!