What did the Dacian/Transylvanian bows look like?

This is just a guess, because I've seen no specific material: they may have used a Hunnish type like the Avars until the time of conflict with the Turks, in which case Turkish designs might have come onto the scene. This pattern is roughly that of East Europe/Balkans in general.

But with Moldova - and Iasi in particular - having been a sophisticated cultural centre for so long, I doubt whether bows have been common for many centuries. Crossbows, more likely.

S.

During the period of the Dacian kingdom, the Sarmatians were allies of the Dacians in their fight against Rome.

The whole area was probably affected by the movements of the tribes during the Migration Period with the effect Stephen mentioned.

For my knowledge very good presentation of the composite bows from the territory of Romania is an image of the bow used by the soldiers of Basarab the Ist against Magyar(Hungarian) calvary in the scene of the Battle of Posada in 1330. Image is part of ``Vienna Painted Chronicle``.I have no this image.
Warmest regards,
Zoran Alexandar

Yes, i have this picture. You can see Wallachian archers at the first picture. Second one represents battle between Dacians and Romans. My opinion is that the bows which appears are similar to the scythian bows regarding their size.
Warmest regards,
Zoran Alexandar

Sorry for the mistake. Wallachian archers from the Battle of Posada are at second picture.
Zoran

Complicated. Much more complicated than the official Daco-Roman continuity ideology professed by the Romanian state would like to acknowledge.

In the region, you will see extensive numbers of:
Byzantines/ east Romans
Sarmatians
Bulgars
Avars
Alans (Iranian peoples)
Pechenegs
Hungarians and Szekely
Cumans
Tatars

Every one of whom had an archery tradition involving the kind of bows we talk about here...

And, of course, Vlachs as depicted above. The Ottoman Turks are very late arrivals on this scene, but, of course, quite influential once the Tatars are finally pushed off the stage.

There are depictions of the "crab-footed" bow similar to Turkish or Crimean bows (look at the siyah angle at full draw on that bow!), which seem to be fairly common to the region, and particularly to the areas traditionally inhabited by Vlachs. This would be your best bet for a purely "Romanian" bow. Unfortunately, I'm not a bowyer, or else I'd try to make one.

Stephen: Moldovans were known as archers in the medieval period, not crossbowmen. The crossbow was around, but in this region much more rare than the bow.

Zoran-

Thank you for the pictures.

Russ-

I would not have guessed the influence of the early Iranians. I can see where all of the others come in to play. Where were the Cumans from? I'm not familiar with them.

Thanks,

Derek

The Cumans are sort of the "elephant in the room" of medieval history that don't get talked about unless you're discussing Hungarian or Russian stuff. They're also known as Falben in German, Polovtsy in Russian, and are a, maybe THE major branch of the Kipqak Turks west of the Urals. Means "pale people," ... because they were very, very pale. Pretty good chance if you're Romanian that you've got some in your family tree somewhere. The Cumans were the dominant military group in the Balkans (and the absolute undisputed prime movers of Wallachia and Moldova until the rise of Tatar suzerainty) for most of the medieval period after the Pechenegs were done down and dirty -- and, contrary to Byzantine rhetoric, guess who did the job?... their interest was purely as military service to supplement their economy when its underlying animal husbandry base didn't require extensive labor (unlike most medieval armies, they actually preferred to campaign in winter). They can be found on campaign along with the Hungarians as far west as 14th-century Italy (when they were all over the place during the Neopolitan Succession Wars and employed occasionally with the Magna Societas Hungariae, a major merc company), and literally altered the course of history by single-handedly smashing the Fourth Crusade into oblivion at Adrianople in 1205, without which it is unlikely that the Byzantines could ever have recovered from the fall of Constantinople and the partition of the Empire.

In other words, their importance in medieval history is wildly underappreciated.

In terms of archery, you can see examples all over the Illuminated Chronicle, and their bows appear to be either the crab-foot or something like the Crimean Tatar job (which makes sense, since the Tatars were the amalgamation of the remaining Mongols with the Kipqak/Cuman locals). An associate of mine in Budapest has done extensive image analysis that shows, assuming all the standard artistic caveats, that they actually do not seem to have preferred to use the thumb-ring, but rather an adaptation on the "primary draw" with supporting fingers underneath the nock, though variations occur, and the article is not yet published.

(btw, if anybody knows a venue, we're working up an article that will not be solely archery-based, but will include it in some detail)

btw, if anybody knows a venue, we're working up an article that will not be solely archery-based, but will include it in some detail)

I'd be delighted to host your article here. ATARNites have wide interests, and all traditional archery is best understood against a historical back-cloth.

Russ-

That is fascinating history. Not knowing much about that time period or that region, you've sparked my interest in digging a little deeper into that whole dynamic. Thanks.

Derek

Hi!

In the Vienna Painted Chronicleare are bows painted in kitaj stile, ; there's just one bone plate on each siyahs, wich is laminated on the front side (not like on hungarian or other turk bows, there are two bone plates on the left and right side), after the wood part of the siyah ends, the wide bone goes some inches longer.

(and: in Moldva were living some decides long the Jazigh (in Hung. and in Rus.: j?sz; they and hungarian border soldiers builded the middle age paret of the town J?szv?s?r (Iasi))people, in the 1340's they moved to the Balkan and to Hungary; when the walachs of Radul occupied the whole Moldav. territory.)

so in the region lived Skita, sarmata, alan, hun, old bulgarian, (utrigurs, kutrigusr, saraugurs), avar, bulgarian, hungarian, sz?kely, pheceneg, okuz, uz, kipchak and mongolian mounted archer people.

TZH

Russ,
I know what you are talking about in regarding to the "crab footed bows", but it is an unhappy description.

A crab bow is an Indian style of bow with no pronounced angle between the recurved tip of the ear and the triangular-sectioned bass of the ear, which does have a pronounced angle between the bending part of the limb and the base of the ear.

The bows in the Balkan and other paintings are actually closer in shape to what is called a Sind bow. By that I mean that they have a setback handle, pronounced angles between the tip of the ear and the rest of the ear, and the base of the ear is at an angle to the bending part of the limb.

Two things affect that description. I am not saying that the unstrung profile is the same nor the underlying construction is similar.

There are more types of bow than just one in paintings in churches in Eastern and Southern Europe. The large number of different peoples that lived in and moved through Romania and the Balkans make sure that lots of different equipment was being used.

If you want diagrams to explain what I meant, I can do them in a few days.

Mungeni, reformed church, sec. XIV, King Ladislau and the cumans

Bede wrote:

There are more types of bow than just one in paintings in churches in Eastern and Southern Europe. The large number of different peoples that lived in and moved through Romania and the Balkans make sure that lots of different equipment was being used.

If you want diagrams to explain what I meant, I can do them in a few days.

Happy to see anything you can provide...

moldavian archer, sec XVI church

some pics from Traian columna

For the 'Moldavian Archer', I wonder whether there's some effort gone into showing a tri-lobe arrow, or perhaps it's just a mark on the painting...

On that colored combat painting, is that an attempt to depict a thumb draw?

Are those representations on the Column of Trajan to be taken as accurate as regards bows?

If you want to see a discussion of Roman archery equipment see J C N Coulston's work. Coulston and Bishop discuss the reliability of Roman artistic depictions of weapons in some details and explain some of the conventions like making them smaller in proportion to the soldiers than in real life.

Again, painting sources can only give some idea as to weaponry because artists of all ages apply their artistic licence. As an artist myself, I could paint a battle scene but I could not claim accuracy, especially if I had never seen my subject and/or was working from second hand knowledge as was often the case and very often, many years after the event. Further to this I would suspect there were variations of design amongst tribes let alone different cultures and of course we also have natural evolution over a large time frame.

You are correct... but we shouldn't take this too far. My wife did her dissertation on 14th-century Italian wallpaintings, which are supposedly an example of "Orientalism...." and lo and behold, many of them show what are in fact very accurate portrayals of Cumans, down to the mulitple braids and the suggestions of excessive lust.

And did she find the pics about the paintings in Castello di Avio? (Ifound just infantry bowyers (cumans), not the mounted archers, I saw them just on TV. But I got a Lorenzetti fresco about franciscans (I'm sure that the nobleman on the throne is I. Louis of Hungary, and the other soldiers are hungarians and kumans.

TZH

I don't remember all of the works, but if you can give me a reference, I can certainly check on it...

Thus, Tucidide and Ovidius, observing that "riding they came", considered that, due to the fact that "the Getae used to ride" and they were "neighbors with the Scythians, have the same costumes and they both are riding archers" .
The bow as a weapon used in long-distance battles was handled with the same skill by the pedestrians as well as the horsemen, thus, Horatio's statement that the Getae "are more skilled than anyone in throwing arrows" was very real. The most numerous force used in the battle, was, for all that, the pedestrians: a fact proved by the report of 2,5/1 for the Getae pedestrians that oposed Alexander the Great in 335 B.C. The shock effect in a Dacian army was the heavy infantry of professional warriors where, according to Dio Chrysostomos only "those who will prove to be skilled archers", soldiers with heavy weapons "spear or stone throwers" could be accepted.


The riders of the treaty between Burebista and Pompeius are unknown to us, but what we do know is how, over 120 years before, the Macedonian king Perseus (179-168 B.C) bought for the final confrontation with the Romans, the Getae alliance: 1000 golden "stater"s offered to the king- 10 "stater" for each horseman and 5 for each pedestrian. In the harsh times, when an army was threatened to be outnumbered or surpassed in battle techniques, the "soldiers" would be joined in battle, by what will be called after a millennia "the great army" of the land. This is the army formed by all men capable of fighting of all communities, appointed by Tacit with a term that, as prove of continuity in the military native field , will appear with the same meaning in the official acts or the Romanian medieval chronicles : "the many".

From this I believe that shape of the bow (schytian style) and craftmanship was preserved in Dacia and not in any case was bring here by cumans, hungarians and other nomads riders that past here.

It would be very odd if the Dacians/Moldavians/Vlachs stuck to a single design throughout hundreds of years of history, rather than adapting and learning from new designs as time went on as did everyone else.

I was curious about this page, and when I saw the first picture on this page, the picture of the Wallachian soldier inspecting an arrow, his bow is made in a very Crimean-looking double curve. The artist's detail is outstanding.

I should like to think that the latest historical style that we have available of Eastern European horse archery culture (and perhaps even Central Asian as well) might be the Crimean tatar bow that we like to imitate today. (Perhaps sometimes with string bridges, and sometimes without).
This design being the only other style still used until the time of guns, aside from the Ottoman bow, in this large tract of area. And it is even more ironic that this kind of bow outlasted the Ottoman bow's use in warfare.

I have a book suggestion

Spinei, Victor, 1943?

The Romanians and the Turkic nomads north of the Danube Delta from the tenth to the mid-thirteenth century
(East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450?1450 ; v. 6)

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
ISBN 978-90-04-17536-5

Thanks I shall give it a peek.