hungarian bow

There is very little evidence on what the ancient hungarian bow really looked like. 'Til today the only sure information can be gathered from the bone plates that were glued onto the sides of the siyahs and onto the grip. So we know the shape of the siyahs and we know the dimensions of the bow from the position of the plates in the graves. We also know the bow had symmetric arms. From quiver and arrow finds we can roughly reconstruct the draw length.... and that's about it.

As almost the entire bows have perished in the ground, the existence or non existence of string bridges made from perishable material may never be proven.

But it has to be pointed out, that the Moscevaja Balka bow from northern Caucasus seems to have shared some features with hungarian bows. It is a superbly preserved bow without any string bridges. But this, of course, is no real proof when it comes to true hungarian bows.

Regards,
Andrew

Andrew has pretty much answered your question.

However, I can add some further details that might clarify the situation. In China, bows similar to the Magyar bows were used for over a thousand years. Many art works have survived showing these bows in use and they never have string bridges. The string comes of the bone reinforced ear at an acute angle. This pattern of ear was popular amongst most composite bow using peoples of the first millenium. There were variations in the shape and length of the ears, but the principle remained the same.

Even on bows with recurved ears (the tips point slightly forward on the braced bow), string bridges were not universal. Two examples are Turkish bows and Indian crab bows, neither of which have string bridges.

Gents,

A friend of mine, Dr. Gabor Sz?ll?sy who has got his PhD degree with a dissertation about Magyar bows of the 10th century. He has been an assitant of famous Prof. Gyula Fabian. This is his comments about the topic as translated from Turkish.

"According to the knowledge of Prof. Dr. Fabian, Grozer Csaba, Kassai Lajos, Paku Sandor, Nemeth Gyula and other bowmakers about both composite and fiberglass bows, siyahs seem to be unnecessary if the angle between the string and the bridge is less than 30-35 degrees. Still, they can be included. Recently I held a lecture about it in an archeological meeting. Our tests showed that the arrow speed is 2-6% lower if shot from bows with a string bridge. Neither Moseyava Balka nor Gogops bows had string bridge. Most of the bowyers and archeologists in Hungary believe that Magyar bow had no string bridge."

I hope this helps.

thanks for your comments guys,
:shock: you are real experts
;-) Uli

Murat,

Small world! Do you have contact information for Szollosy Gabor? Last I knew he was working for the Mezogazdasagi Museum, but I couldn't get a phone or fax number, and I did research on archery vs. mail armor that should be shared with him. If so, thank you in advance...

(Off-forum would be fine: [email protected])

I am convinced personally that the Hungarian bow had no contact between the string and the siyah, and did not require string bridges. As Bede pointed out, the Hungarian design was a continuation of a design that was popular from East Asia to Central Europe for many hundreds of years.

I conducted a little experiment with a couple of Grozers bows, back when I was very confused by the The Complete Bowyer's Bible's assertion that the Hungarian bows were high-strung... made up strings that were looped sufficiently for contact.

Which was spiffy, and drew a touch sweeter -- and promptly fell off the bow at the release. :oops: :shock: So, I'm no bowyer, just an experimental archaeology guy, but I'm convinced.

Russ,

Dr. Gabor Sz?ll?sy is also a member of a Hungarian archers' Webforum, called SZIP (Szabad ?j?sz Port?l = Free Archers' Portal) under the nick ?z?mbeg.

If you click the SZIP Homepage for Tagok (= Members) you can find the item No. 1132 Uzumbeg with a link to his email postbox here:

http://www.szip.hu/modules.php?name=Mem ... start=1100

I continue to be struck by the similarities in construction and design between the Hungarian/Avar bows and the Khotan bow. So please look at this piece of 3rd Century Khotan tapestry, which I find very instructive.

hi,the siyahs are a thing I?m really thinking about very often,cause they influence arrow-speed and draw.
I?ve done scythian bows with the almost semi-circled recurves with a groove for the string and mongolian bows with angled long siyahs with a "bridge" made of a hexagonal shaped thick piece of grooved leather or rawhide(5cm in diameter).
The brigdes made of bone(maybe sometimes wood) I don?t like for aesthical reasons and for the daily use of such a bow I found them a kind of bulky.It is clear that such a bridge reduces arrow-speed due to the additional weigth.
But there is one interesting thing a man who is making guitars commented on the string-brigdes:he compared them with the bridges on his guitars and concluded that the smaller(maybe I should say shorter) the contact of string and bow is,the lesser will be the vibration of the bow-limbs and the loss of energy is reduced.
This comment makes sense to me and I hope my english is enough so that you could understand what I want to contribute to this topic.