chinese thumb rings between Han and Qing

Justin Ma wrote:

Could we look to the ring designs of contemporary neighboring civilizations (e.g., India, Persia, Turkey) for ideas on what these rings looked like?

I should also mention Korean rings as a potential source of ideas on what the 220--1164 AD Chinese rings might have looked like.

It is true that there is no archaeological evidence for any rings after the Han Dynasty, and only antique rings from the Qing Dynasty.

It is clear that rings were used; but after the Han Dynasty they lost their cosmological/symbolic significance, so they were no long interred with the dead. Hence the lack of archaeological evidence.

Modern Mongolian archers have little interest in thumb-rings, even if many (but not all) do use the thumb draw. Instead, they prefer a thick, soft serving below the nocking point. That may have been the route many people took; together with rings of perishable materials that have not survived.

I must disagree with Stephen about the string thickening idea. The modern Mongols have a live archery culture which is still innovating. A good example of this is the change to shooting on the left side of the bow, which according to Mongol sources was invented in the mid-1960s.

Using a thick string centre adds weight to a critical part of the bowstring. While nowadays people are only shooting at targets, in the past they were using archery to feed themselves or defend themselves. Under these circumstances, it is natural to exploit whatever advantages that are available. Something that would cause an obvious slowing of the arrow would be rapidly discarded.

Taybugha advised shooting without a ring if possible, but most people would find this extremely difficult for a long period. Leather thumb guards were well known in most thumb ring cultures and they can leave no trace in archaeology in most circumstances.

Stephen's comment about the lack of interest in thumb rings as special objects in later Chinese culture might be the reason that they were rarely buried, but wouldn't explain their complete absence from the archaeological record. Lost rings and rings deposited in arsenals or mass burials would be expected to turn up occasionally.

Another explanation is that the rings were made of materials that could be easily recycled like metal or easily degraded naturally like horn or bone. All these materials were used in other cultures that used thumb rings. The rarity of Chinese swords from the Tang through Ming suggests that recycling of metals was a big reason for the disappearance of metal weapons. As well, the Ming-Qing cross over period must have seen many weapons destroyed as the Manchus attempted to eliminate the native Chinese military traditions.

Taking all these reasons for the lack of survival of thumb rings, what can we say about Tang, Song and Ming rings? My guess is that Tang rings would have had some relation to late Avar rings and early Turkish rings. However, these are elusive too. For the Song and Ming, we have the same problem. In one of the Japanese copies of the Ming archery manuals there are drawings of rings with the descriptions, but I am not sure of their origins or accuracy. Korean rings have a superficial similarity to West Asian rings and could represent the other end of their dispersal, but the Koreans show a strong individual streak in their archery practices despite their adoptions of some Chinese cultural habits so it might be hard to date when specific shapes were adopted.

The shape of one type of Korean ring does coincide with the description of one type of Ming ring, though it no longer shares the same functional action.

There is no evidence the Jin used a Manchu style ring though the Manchus saw them as their direct ancestors. The Manchu ring requires an advanced technique and therefore it must have had a long development. It is likely that it was a local development and it is possible the Jurchen were involved, but that is speculation.

I think it would be worthwhile for a thorough reinvestigation of archaeological reports and artefacts from Tang, Song and Ming sites, but on the other hands Chinese archaeologists know what a thumb ring looks like. They are unlikely to have overlooked them.

"Something that would cause an obvious slowing of the arrow would be rapidly discarded. "

I doubt a couple grams of padding on the string would visibly slow the arrows for bows in excess of some 80lb weight. The variability in the arrow weights was likely more than the weight of the padding.

Adam

The addition of the weight of the serving would normally only have been around 2 gm, which is less that the variation on the weights of the different arrows shot from the same bow for different purposes. If there is a disadvantage to thicker serving, it is probably more to do with the additional friction they induce.

This is an interesting exploration. However, there are no surviving strings of this type and no literary descriptions of this technique in general archery. Kepade bows are noted to have padded strings, but it is clearly indicated that this was purely a practice environment. Adam's suggestion is good but ignores the likely exposure of most archers to lighter bows during training and hunting.

A prejudice developed during training would probably survive later experiences. I would also dispute that the difference in performance would not be noticed. We are discussing professional archers, who might lack training in physics, but who would be observant and critical of a bow's performance. As a flight archer, I can assure you you that very small changes in velocity can be very obvious because they can be seen in the distance shot.

The Mamluk tests described in another thread show that with simple equipment it is easy to compare the performance of arrows and bows. Weighing arrows accurately is attested to in most traditions. Archery is a precise art. In battle, the archer made do with whatever was available, but most archery was either practice, hunting or target shooting. In these pursuits, the accurate matching of arrows is normal.

Getting back to the original topic, what is the shape of early Chinese thumb rings between the Han and the Qing: perhaps we should just admit we do not know what they were like and refuse to speculate until some are dug up?

Bede, I am trying to be realistic... 30 grains added to the usual 400 to 600 grain arrow will slow it down only by about 4fps, even for a weak 65-70lb bow. For a 200fps arrow it means a drop in velocity to 196fps - only by some 2%. At the common target/war distances the difference of a few yards (or inches at the target) will be easily compensated for by a very slight change in the shot angle, with the archer not likely to be aware of that anyway.

As you say, it will be noticed in flight shooting or clout, although even then the archer must be absolutely top notch to be sure the wind did not cause some 20-30 yards deviation from the expected.

Adam

Adam,
I take your point, so to speak, but archers by and large are picky about their equipment when they have the chance. When practising and shooting lots of arrows, chance wind effects can be eliminated, at least in the archer's mind.

Reading many old books, pre Archery: The Technical Side, I have the impression that they seized on anything that they thought could give them an advantage. You have no doubt seen the extensive discussions of left and right hand feather performance, which we know caused no measurable difference, but in the past this was a potent source of dispute.

(As an aside, someone else on this site has cited a URL which pointed to what may have been an undergraduate paper on arrow performance. From the context the author wished to show how calculus could be used in the real world. He referred to a feature of rotating cylinders where they could generate aerodynamic lift and concluded that a rotating arrow would generate lift in proportion to its angular velocity and would hence travel farther. The details he missed were that the axis of rotation had to be horizontal and perpendicular to the direction of travel and the angular velocity had to be quite high. The point of this is that we are seeing another archery myth being born, one that might even have a bearing on the right/left fletching discussion. Once something like this starts it can influence the behaviour of archers even though the effect is psychological and not physical.)

It is interesting that there is no reference in old literature to thickened string centres as an alternative to thumb rings. Even Kani's comment refers to drawing the practice bow with the fingers. I agree that this is a simple solution to the pressure problem, but it was not taken up as far as we can see. Perhaps the reason is that it is not as effective with bows over 70 pounds as it is with lighter bows. We already know that outside the later Turkish sport archery area, wide nocks were normal. There was also a belief in several sources that thick strings were more accurate and effective (see Saracen Archery, Chapter 5, p. 25, for the story of Tahir al-Balkhi and the Persian archer). Using your suggestion that the few feet per second lost would not be significant to the performance of the bow (and the knowledge that the mass of the string away from the centre has progressively less effect on the arrow's velocity), it is possible that the increased stiffness of the thicker string might lead to a smoother take off for the arrow and hence less energy lost in correcting the wobble induced by the archer's paradox.

This discussion has veered away from the original query, but I think it is worthwhile in itself. One of the questions it raises is what is the advantage of a thumb ring when ease of shooting could so easily be attained with a string with a thick centre. Archery shops today still sell rubber covers for the mid-string for beginning archers in the Western tradition. Why haven't these supplanted tabs and gloves? This is the same question for thickened strings and thumb rings. I think the answer lies in another of your comments. Archers were starting to use heavier bows. It is much easier to draw a very heavy bow with a good thumb ring than a thickened string. A lipped ring, properly used, spreads the pressure of the string over a greater area of the thumb than any reasonably sized thickened string. The smaller area of the string causes the flesh to bunch up towards the distal tip of the thumb and ultimately results in injury. This is exacerbated by increasing the weight of the bow or decreasing the diameter of the string at the centre.

It would be interesting to build some arrows with replaceable nocks so that a set of nocks could be made for two different diameters of strings. Then three strings could be made, one small diameter throughout, another with a thickened centre serving and a third with a full length thick string. With modern arrows that use inserted nocks, this could be done quite easily and would only require sacrificing one set of nocks which would be adjusted. Depending on the degree of weight loss, if necessary the extra weight could be compensated by removing part of the untouched nocks' tangs.

String 1 could be shot with and without a thumb ring ( the latter after the other tests when blistering would not affect later shooting) and the velocities noted.
String 2 could be shot without a thumb ring since that was the purpose of the centre serving.
String 3 could be shot both ways since it was mentioned in the context of regular shooting and not as an adaptation for use without a thumb ring.

All I need to start is a reasonable diameter for the thickened centre. I am guessing around 5 mm as that is a common size for old nocks in India, China and Korea. Any suggestions?

We need to keep in mind that 99% of what we would like to know we can't know because only a very small proportion of went on was written down and only very little of what was used has been preserved.

I readily admit that I have seen very little of additional servings on strings. But I have also seen very few strings. The Saka and Xiongnu bows are a reasonable sample: they frequently have additional leather serving at the loops but not at the arrow nocking point. I conclude that they didn't use additional serving. But at the same time, nothing has turned up that has been reliably identified as a thumbring (claimed thumb rings were sewing thimbles). So they weren't using thumb rings, either. Indeed, there's little to suggest that the Saka even used a thumb draw.

The Xiongnu thumb rings I have seen are made of bronze and exported from Han China. They don't suggest that thumb rings were indigenous.

I'm happy to relax and say we don't know much, really. 8)

I agree that the Saka were unlikely to be thumb ring users. The presence of bracers in some burials argues against that though they might have only been sleeve restraints like the Korean and Mongol examples from the present.

Excavations among the northern Xiongnu areas have not revealed thumb rings either. I am interested in seeing the bronze rings because early metal rings in China seem to be rare. You are the second person who has mentioned their appearance in burials.

Professor Kubarev told me that he had never found thumb rings in any Kirghiz/Kazak graves he had excavated from the eighth.ninth centuries. This suggests that thumb ring distribution was not complete among all Turkish speaking tribes at that date. On the other hand, they were used by the Turks further south, judging by historical accounts.

It is a peculiar fact that even in areas and times when thumb rings are attested to in art and literature, their survival in the ground can be quite rare.

It's very important to clearly separate speculation from reportage. It is also important to be careful in generalisations from small samples. In some cases we have no choice, but Xinjiang has shown that you never know what someone might dig up tomorrow.

I was not commenting on the presence of absence of the thick serving, only on the relative insignificance of it in relation to performance. We keep forgetting they did not have chronographs.

I think one can learn to use pretty heavy bows with no thumbring, provided the strings are fairly thick and the bows are not shot too many times in sequence. If the myth of "rapid shooting" or "bow as machine gun" (so beloved in the movies or TV shows) is abandoned, this may prove to be an option.

Adam

Here is a bronze Western Han thumbring (length 3.6 cm). I think that the casting is Chinese; but the decoration is clearly aimed at the northern cultural region, where the Xiongnu would have been dominant.

Stephen,
This is a really interesting ring. Thank you for showing us.
Do you know the cross section of the lip?

Adam,
I accept your point, but consider these ideas:

You do not need a chronograph to judge the relative speed of an arrow and that is what would have been of most interest to an archer. Now we can record an absolute figure and share it across the world, but then people would compare what they had. It is clear from the literature that they were sensitive to this even if their conclusions were not always logical.

We were talking about the alternatives to a thumb ring that would explain the absence of thumb rings in the archaeological record, not a theoretical model for occasional shooting. I agree with what you have said and I have tested it myself over the years though only on bows under 90 lbs. Several shots are possible. Drawing without shooting does less damage.

Bede wrote:

Stephen,
This is a really interesting ring. Thank you for showing us.
Do you know the cross section of the lip?

See pic.

Stephen,
Do you mean the ring is only 6 mm deep? Thanks for the information.

Interesting. The opening of that ring would fit my thumb, but the lip is much shorter than the rings I try to make. Makes me want to experiment with short-lip rings.

What?s this? Sewing thimble again??

[external image]

JJ

Jurgen; Is this not the same ring from the Silk Road Museum?

JJ wrote:

What?s this? Sewing thimble again??

The white object in the back looks like Figure 9 of Bede's article on ancient Chinese thumb rings: http://www.atarn.org/chinese/thumbrings ... _rings.htm

Yes Jack, it?s Silk Road Museum. Sorry if we discussed that already...

The thing behind it is a little strange, here?s another view of it (sorry for the bad picture quality).

[external image]

JJ

Yes, these are thimbles: vital kit for people who relied on working with leather for survival. The jingle on the back of the bronze one is typical of the Sino-Korean north-eastern cultural zone. I don't have a thimble like these, but I have knot-picking and thread picking devices with similar designs from the Chifeng and Ningcheng areas, dating to around the 5th-3rdC BCE.

This is probably old news to people, but I ran across a link to the University of Missouri thumb ring collections of Grayson and Browne. http://anthromuseum.missouri.edu/online ... ring.shtml

With respect to this thread, the following cylindrical rings were dated to the 11th century ( http://anthromuseum.missouri.edu/online ... nimal.shtm ) and 13th century ( http://anthromuseum.missouri.edu/online ... signs.shtm ), which is roughly in the Song, Yuan and Ming dynasty time range. It is unclear whether these were actually Jurchen rings.

An interesting ring that might have been from the Ming dynasty (1368--1644) is a quasi-cylindrical design with a bump in the middle: http://anthromuseum.missouri.edu/online ... tehat.shtm . It looks like the same type as one depicted in Bede's 2001 article: http://www.atarn.org/chinese/thumbrings/image09.gif

...the following cylindrical rings were dated to the 11th century ( http://anthromuseum.missouri.edu/online ... nimal.shtm ) and 13th century ( http://anthromuseum.missouri.edu/online ... signs.shtm ), which is roughly in the Song, Yuan and Ming dynasty time range.

I think these may be early Qing rings or pre-Qing Manchu rings. Unfortunately, there are neither archaeological examples or good illustrations to compare them to.

Stephen,
I think the dating on these rings is problematic. I discussed it with Grayson when he was alive and we came to the conclusion that they were likely to be modern (i.e 19th-20th century). There is a tendency to date objects by condition which leads to thinking the most degraded surfaces represent the oldest objects.