Archery artifacts in National Museum, Copenhagen
Hello everyone, I have recently made to the National Museum in Copenhagen, while being in Danmark, and I thought I will share my observations regarding the archery artifacts on dispaly. Although I am most certainly sure it will not a be a novelty to some of the atarnities.
First of all I would warmly recommend the museum to everyone, who have not already been there, not only because of the archery. I myself definitely want to come back there as I missed many exhibitions, my visit would not be that hurried, had not I got stuck in the Viking Ship Museum, Roskilde talking tools and wood with a boat builder there, by the way, if you have anything to do with traditional woodworking, weaving etc. definitely go there too! The work of the craftsmen there had raised my blood pressure.
Now to the point. I?m sorry, the camera didn?t work.
1. Among the Arctic artifacts there is a very good selection of cable backed bows of wood, antler and baleen. As some of the wooden (coniferous wood) bows are really massive and powerful looking, the ingeniously pieced together antler bows are mostly very small. The cable backing is, as usual, mostly braided sinew, but in some cases, apparently, rawhide has been used.
An interesting ?laminated? baleen bow with recurved ?ears?, the ?laminations? of baleen are sewn together. The bow is like the one described and reconstructed by Dr. Charles Grayson few years ago in the Primitive Archer magazine.
The arrows on display mostly allow for a short draw, thought I would suspect a longer draw bows were not that uncommon in the Arctic?
2. There are three Japanese war quivers with self nocked arrows, what caught my attention is the way self nocks in the bamboo shafts have been made. While the ordinary arrows have had the nocks cut in the internode section, with the first node a few inches (2-4 inches?) below the nock, all three quivers contained one special four-fletched arrow that had it's nock cut just above a node, the node itself, unlike all the nodes, has been left proud, that is not filed down. Initially I thought that this arrangement allowed to feel the nock of the arrow that differed from the rest, but didn't the Japanese draw their arrows from the open quivers by the shaft?
Please, can anyone clarify what was the purpose of those different arrows? The arrowheads couldn?t be seen.
The fletchings as usual, glued and bound at the front and rear (silk thread?), a small detail I observed is that the quills of the fletchings were sticking out past the rear whipping a few milimiters.
(One of the Ainu arrow had conventional four fletch, usually they are fletched with one split feather.)
3. The Tibetan archer. The cane? Arrows in the Tibetan quiver are six fletched. The usual looking three substancial long fletchins are glued a few inches below the nock. Three shorter ones are arranged so that they start in between the longer fletchings and terminate below the nock. All six fletchings are high, overall fletching surface is large. Are those some special purpose arrows? The arrows are all ?woven? togethter with a ribbon, starting from the quiver top up to some distance below the fletchings.
4. Not Asian, but still very interesting. I spent most of my attention to the famous Iron Age arrows excavated from the Danish votive bogs like Vimose and Nydam. A few yew longbows are present too, but the arrows are better exhibited and are remarkably very well preserved. The robust shafts are pine and ash.
The shafts about 11 mm at the breast, from my experience the ash ones would rather be effective best with a longbow quite over 100#. The grain runs quite off in some of the (ash) shafts.
One of the shafts still has the ever so slight facets left by the arrow plane?
The shafts are breasted, thickest at the ?breast? , the part in front of the shaftment, then tapering to the head and the bulbous nock, the nock slots about 4? to 5 mm wide.
The shaftment covered in birch tar? that once protected the spiral whipping holding the fletchings down. The whipping traces are very much neat and closely and evenly spaced.
Much has been written on those Iron Age longbows and arrows in the context of the ?development? of the longbow, but when I was pondering at the arrows in front of me, they somehow looked already ?advanced?, more than they do on all the available depictions.
First of all I would warmly recommend the museum to everyone, who have not already been there, not only because of the archery. I myself definitely want to come back there as I missed many exhibitions, my visit would not be that hurried, had not I got stuck in the Viking Ship Museum, Roskilde talking tools and wood with a boat builder there, by the way, if you have anything to do with traditional woodworking, weaving etc. definitely go there too! The work of the craftsmen there had raised my blood pressure.
Now to the point. I?m sorry, the camera didn?t work.
1. Among the Arctic artifacts there is a very good selection of cable backed bows of wood, antler and baleen. As some of the wooden (coniferous wood) bows are really massive and powerful looking, the ingeniously pieced together antler bows are mostly very small. The cable backing is, as usual, mostly braided sinew, but in some cases, apparently, rawhide has been used.
An interesting ?laminated? baleen bow with recurved ?ears?, the ?laminations? of baleen are sewn together. The bow is like the one described and reconstructed by Dr. Charles Grayson few years ago in the Primitive Archer magazine.
The arrows on display mostly allow for a short draw, thought I would suspect a longer draw bows were not that uncommon in the Arctic?
2. There are three Japanese war quivers with self nocked arrows, what caught my attention is the way self nocks in the bamboo shafts have been made. While the ordinary arrows have had the nocks cut in the internode section, with the first node a few inches (2-4 inches?) below the nock, all three quivers contained one special four-fletched arrow that had it's nock cut just above a node, the node itself, unlike all the nodes, has been left proud, that is not filed down. Initially I thought that this arrangement allowed to feel the nock of the arrow that differed from the rest, but didn't the Japanese draw their arrows from the open quivers by the shaft?
Please, can anyone clarify what was the purpose of those different arrows? The arrowheads couldn?t be seen.
The fletchings as usual, glued and bound at the front and rear (silk thread?), a small detail I observed is that the quills of the fletchings were sticking out past the rear whipping a few milimiters.
(One of the Ainu arrow had conventional four fletch, usually they are fletched with one split feather.)
3. The Tibetan archer. The cane? Arrows in the Tibetan quiver are six fletched. The usual looking three substancial long fletchins are glued a few inches below the nock. Three shorter ones are arranged so that they start in between the longer fletchings and terminate below the nock. All six fletchings are high, overall fletching surface is large. Are those some special purpose arrows? The arrows are all ?woven? togethter with a ribbon, starting from the quiver top up to some distance below the fletchings.
4. Not Asian, but still very interesting. I spent most of my attention to the famous Iron Age arrows excavated from the Danish votive bogs like Vimose and Nydam. A few yew longbows are present too, but the arrows are better exhibited and are remarkably very well preserved. The robust shafts are pine and ash.
The shafts about 11 mm at the breast, from my experience the ash ones would rather be effective best with a longbow quite over 100#. The grain runs quite off in some of the (ash) shafts.
One of the shafts still has the ever so slight facets left by the arrow plane?
The shafts are breasted, thickest at the ?breast? , the part in front of the shaftment, then tapering to the head and the bulbous nock, the nock slots about 4? to 5 mm wide.
The shaftment covered in birch tar? that once protected the spiral whipping holding the fletchings down. The whipping traces are very much neat and closely and evenly spaced.
Much has been written on those Iron Age longbows and arrows in the context of the ?development? of the longbow, but when I was pondering at the arrows in front of me, they somehow looked already ?advanced?, more than they do on all the available depictions.