drawlength of scythian bows?

Arrows from the Ukraine are often in the range of 50 to 60 cm. This matches the representations of Scythian archers and the surviving gorytos plates from the west (about 45 cm). Some fragmentary gorytoi were about 55 cm long.

Judging from the art and literary descriptions, the Scythians drew to between the left armpit and left nipple, pressing the right forearm against the chest as a form of anchor. That's why the Amazons had the right breast cauterised, not the left.

Agreed with Bede: not a very long draw.

Looking forward to seeing photos of your bows. What did you base the design on?

Bede wrote:

the Scythians drew to between the left armpit and left nipple, pressing the right forearm against the chest as a form of anchor. That's why the Amazons had the right breast cauterised, not the left.

Bede,
Ow! :shock:
I tried this style to see what you meant by anchoring and the need to make such drastic and painful body modifications. It only makes sense if they used something like Flemish or Mediterranean draw. Even then one would have to be pressing one's forearm HARD against the chest for this to be necessary. To me at least, this felt very awkward. No doubt it was done for what seemed very good reasons to the Amazons. Perhaps they anchored lower, closer to the nipple
I did rather better anchoring with the side of the heel of my drawing hand pressed firmly against the area between the top of my breast (on the bow hand side) and my armpit. This gave a fairly stable and repeatable anchor.
Just my experience.
Diana

Thank you for your replies.This forum is a good place to be.
I?m insanely busy,cause tomorrow I will have to deliver 3 of the scythian bows and therefore I will have to drive 1200km in 2 days.I don?t like to drive such a distance in such a short time.But anyway we will have some tests with the bows and I really want to know how speedy they are.
Next week I?ll post some pics and some results of the tests.

Diana,
All indications are that they did anchor low and probably did use a Flemish or Mediterranean release. The Alexander Sarcophagous shows clear two-fingered releases being used with Scythian style bows even though the sculptor wasn't sure of the string position. (This is a problem with many artistic representations of archery by non-archer artists. The string turns up in all sorts of positions.)

However, your style is probably just as valid as what I described. The Amazon discussion in Herodotus has always been a matter of dispute. The type of shooting that I have been able to accomplish in their style was basically snap-shooting with a whole body method of aiming. It seemed to work at close range (up to hunting distances). The Greek historians were possibly only interested in the military application of archery. Greek vases show much greater variations in bow size and draw length when depicting Scythians than the short draws and short bows we have been discussing here. It is possible that the longer version of the Scythian bow excavated in Xinjiang was also well-known and used in the West.

Hi All,
I'm not a bowmaker but I've tried a couple of type of bows. My body structure is general Hungarian with the height of 172 cm, which is general in Hungary. I have 30 - 32" of drawing.
I think the Scytians were quite similar with the above characteristic, so the 25" drawn seems to me too short!
Just an additionla information, as one of a Hungarian bowmakers (Csaba Gr?zer) making a Scytian bows, which can reach the draw of 32".

hi Jurta,the drawlength depends on different things:style of bow,the situation,the archer.I prefer short bows,cause I feel much more a kind of mobility.Even if a bow allows a drawlength of 25",I draw it very seldom the whole length,it depends on the shooting-situation.I guess my anchor is nothing but to repeat always the same movements and my experience.

The 32"-drawlength of Grozer?s scythian bow is possible,because the bow is longer and I guess that the bow is a laminated glassfibre-bow.
I make my bows the old way.They have only 115cm in length.The same bow for a drawlength of 32" needs to be around 130cm.

Bede,
Yes that is very much a snap shooting style for me, it can be terribly fast and accurate at close range. I also use it with bows that are too heavy for me to use in my normal, full-draw style.
I have often wondered why the Amazon had issues with breasts. They've not been a problem for me in any of my short draw styles. They were not an issue even when I tried Kyudo. In that case my being left handed was far more troublesome. As you know in that style you are literally framed inside the bow and string at full draw, a clean release using the thumb kicks the string out and around one. I imagine if I tried that great a draw using the Flemish or Mediterranean draw it would be a different matter.
Redhawk,
Are your bows horn bows?

Diana

hi Diana,Stephen,Bede......

I do all my bows the old way.These scythian bows are made of a wooden core(mulberry,black locust,yew),on the belly side you see the hornstrips(sheephorn,waterbuffalo);the bows are heavily backed with leg-sinew from deer. The strong curves beside the grip and the recurves are secured with sinew-bindings.I use fish-and hideglue.The wrappings are made of deerhide,around the grip I wrapped strips from a woolen blanket like the northamerican Indians did(since they could get woolen blankets from the white men).The string for the test-shootings is dacron.cause I couldn?t get a real strong linen.Maybe I?ll do the strings out of the leg-sinew of a deer, but I really don?t know what the scythian bowmakers used for their strings.
The design is based on my studies of all the material I could get on scythian archery,greek paintings and thank you Stephen and Bede for your report on a scythian bow found in Urumqui.
And I?m used to the double-bow-design of the North-American Indians,I?ve done very often.

I am afraid Hungarians are much taller than they used to be. The preferred height for hussars during the Empire was about 165 cm. At least one of the closed quivers from the Migration Period was only 80 cm long, so the arrows had to be shorter.

When the Magyar tribes crossed the Carpathians, they were using much longer bows than the Scythians and they were better adapted for shooting long and heavy arrows. The Hungarians had stirrups and good saddles that gave them a firm position from which to shoot and I think they could concentrate more on their shooting form. The Scythians rode on paired, reinforced cushions with no stirrups and may have favoured a quick method of shooting. They also wore their gorytoi on the left side which meant they had to draw the arrows across their bodies with their right hands. Shorter arrows are quicker. The North American Plains Indians followed the same trategy when they took up horse archery.

Gr?ser makes his bows for all comers, short and tall, and is using different materials and cross sections than the original bows. He is constrained to make them in a certain way to get the best out of them while still looking good. I saw one of his recent Scythian bows on Saturday night and it looked good and drew smoothly. I was shooting one of his Magyar bows on that afternoon and I find very pleasant to shoot and accurate as well.

Bede

1.Has anybody any idea as to the range and penetration effect of Scythian archery?

We should recall that there was a reason for the long draw used in Asian and English archery: using the materials then available, the bow had to keep the arrow under impetus (that is, on the string) for a comparatively long distance to develop speed sufficient to throw the arrow far, and through hard materials.

The Scythian bows seem high strung, so a short draw keeps the arrow on the string only a short distance. It's hard to imagine that the tension given to a high-strung bow can overcome that. So, deductively, we must conclude that the Scythians probably could not penetrate metal armor; probably could not go through hardened non-metallic armor (e.g. hardened leather) except at comparatively close distances; and might have have been unable to go through even soft armor except at medium distance. But, I don't know if historical accunts will support that.

2. About the Amazons: weren't there some pictures posted on this site some months ago showing Korean women of the present day drawing long? Also, note the advertising poster for last year's KING ARTHUR, Keira Knightly drawing to the corner of her mouth [with some length of arrow still available for draw] the string touching her near breast.

3. About the Amazons: that conjecture about the removal of a breast is comparatively late in the writings about the Amazons; and is an attempt to explain the name. No one seems to have represented them, either verbally or graphically, as lacking a breast before that, and noone after the specific writer (I'll try to look him up);

4. Further to the Amazons: are the posters accepting the existence of the Classical Amazons, or simply postulating Scythian and Sarmation women who seem to have participated in battle?

To answer your questions in order:

1. A friend of mine did a computer analysis based on some published fragments of Scythian bows from Russian excavations. Taking into account the short draw length and low arrow mass, he suggested a range of between 200 and 250 metres. However, there is a report of a shot of twice that distance by a Greek archer in the area. This was specifically a flight shot and the archer was almost certainly using a Scythian bow.

Scythian bows had a pronounced set back grip which reduced the brace height. The arrows probably were in contact with the string for between 40 and 45 cm. The arrows were light weight, but because of the small points, they would have good penetration. For most of the existence of the Scythians, the arrow heads were bronze and so was the armour. The Scythians probably concentrated on masssed volleys of arrows rather than sharp shooting. Large numbers of arrows heads are found in association with their gorytoi. With the imperfect coverage of ancient armour they probably hit lots of thighs, throats and arms. Their enemies were definitely worried by their archery.

2. The Scythian style of draw was adopted by the Greeks, but was not the only style of draw in use at the time, even by the Scythians themselves. This short draw was used by men and by association by women too. No one is suggesting it was invented for women. Where the string touches on the breast depends on the length of the bow, the length of the draw, the stance, and the physiology of the archer.

3. The breast story is one of those Ancient Greek etymological fantasies. They loved to invent origins for names based on what they sounded like in Greek, even when the word came from another language. Amazon sounds like "without a breast". The point I was making was that the Greeks assumed that it would have to be the right breast because they compared the position of the archers with what they knew of shooting and realised that the right side of the chest is compressed when a man shot.

4. In my case, I am only using the Greek stories of the Amazons as sources for what they thought about archery. While the Scythian and Sarmatian women may have participated in battles and the hunt, the Greek stories about them were fantasies with bits of facts embedded in them.

hi you all,
next Friday we will do some tests with the bows:arrow-speed(arrows from different materials and types),range,and we will even have some shields at the end of April.I?ll do these shields out of rawhide and cane like the Persians did.The whole project is done for testing the efficiency of scythian bows.
So,when the tests are done I?ll post the results.
2 questions:I?m hardly looking for a vegetable fibre called "ramie",I heard that this fibre is even better than linen for building bow-strings.

And I want to build a scythian gorytos as original as possible.what materials where used,is there a plan.........

In my opinion, there is no historical relation between the height of archer and the length of draw. What follows from that is, for example, that the western Scythian archers were very short, since the arrows were so short too. The same goes for American natives with the draw around 23-24". And that the Far Eastern archers had to be very tall with their long arrows.

The length of draw was related entirely to the style of bows and the draw used, not to the stature of the archer. And the style of bow is related to the type of use of course.

I have a question to Redhawk: Have you found any evidence of the western Scythian bows having horn for the belly? From my search a while back, all excavated bows were made of wood, maybe wood and sinew. Has there been any material research done on other Scythian bows recently?

Another question: what were the draw weigths of Scythian bows? I would think credible research on penetration should be based on that.

Adam

Gorytoi have been found where the arrow was inserted into a closed compartment through a side opening or where the quiver compartment had a fold-over cover. These quiver compartments are less than 50 cm which would seem to limit the arrow length and therefore the draw length. A full 20% of Scythian burials have been demonstrated to be of women, often with armor and weapons. Some sported old wounds consistant with battle injuries and some still carried arrow points in their bodies to the grave. Don't look for Scythian historical accounts as they could neighter read or write their language. All literal accounts, therefore. will be by their neighbors (their enemies?) Their artwork is very illustrative of cultural and mythological themes which are interpreted by those with long experience with those themes.

Scythian elite had extremely sophisticated armor which covered the vital parts well. Horses, however, were rather vunerable. If the horse may be viewed as a prize of battle, then an arrow with a small point and large range would be more effective for the purpose.

Rolle and Reeder are good sources. -j-

hi Adam,

What you say on the drawlength is right,we are talking of horse-archey,most of the bows I did the last 10 years were North American Indian Horse bows and there is the double-bow as the most similar bow to the scythian bows,these double-bows were very rarely made with horn.Most of them were made of osage-orange in the best case,backed with sinew.We really don?t have any evidence of the scythian bows backed with horn on their bellies,but what Homer described in the Odyssee is 100% a hornbow,and this bow is a scythian bow and not a greek one.And the nomads of Central Asia usually used hornbows.and as a well-experienced bowyer I could not believe that this bowdesign makes sense without horn,maybe it doesn?t work without horn.The setback in the grip is much more than the North American Indians did it.
Everytime when I?ve finished such a reconstruction successfully I?m proud of my work but at the same time I feel that the past bowyers could have done their job in another way we really couldn?t imagine.
The bows have drawweigths from 45-58lbs,the drawlength is 25" that?s a little bit more as Bede mentioned.
To work on such a reconstruction is to honour our past.

Bede: thank you.

Adam: I think you're right.

Hope the tests help. Are any bronze points to be used?

[quote="MJuingong"]
About the Amazons: weren't there some pictures posted on this site some months ago showing Korean women of the present day drawing long? Also, note the advertising poster for last year's KING ARTHUR, Keira Knightly drawing to the corner of her mouth [with some length of arrow still available for draw] the string touching her near breast.

MJuingong,
I can attest to the interference or lack thereof, from even well-endowed breasts in several archery forms.
I used to shoot recurves in the FITA/Olympic style.
It does not matter if the bowstring touches or even presses fairly hard against the side of the bow arm breast, as long as it does not drag over it at release.
For my longer, Asiatic style using a thumb ring and drawing till my knuckle just touches my earlobe, which is a higher anchor than the under-the-chin-anchor I used in FITA, the bowstring of my fairly long Grozer TRH Hungarian bow just brushes the top of my breast. Again there is no dragging of the string on release.
When I awkwardly tried Kyudo, the big problem was in using my right hand to draw. I was terrified that being literally framed inside the very long bow and string at full draw, I was going to be hit painfully, even while using a cloth band, a muneate, to minimize them.
I was not, was long as my release was fairly clean and my grip on the bow was close to being correct.
However the learning curve still hurt just a bit, the muneate providing some protection.

Diana

Hi Bede,

I do not want to discuss a lot about Hungarians since this site is about archery, but this information also could help to understand things.

>I am afraid Hungarians are much taller than they used to be.
- Some of them could be, but the Hungarians arrived with the seven Magyar tribes. Between these tribes were also different size of peoples, e.g. the Royal family of Arpads. Based on the archeology they were cca. 180 - 190 cm tall.

>The Scythians rode on paired, reinforced cushions with no stirrups and may have favoured a quick method of shooting.
- The good horsback archer can use the bow, with or without saddle, on the same way! One of my friend, called Zsolt Kelemen a Hungarian horsback archer, can use the bow from the back of the horse without saddle, just to drive the horse with his legs.

Norbert,
You are right. This is not the forum to discuss Hungarian history, but they did many interesting things with bows so it will come up from time to time.

The average height is not necessarily the same as the tallest people among a group. Usually the aristocracy were better fed than the general population and this often showed up as greater height. In general, nomads had a higher proportion of animal protein in their diet when they were well fed. There is an archaeological link between a change in stature among hunter-gatherers who took up farming in the Neolithic. The population as a whole became shorter.

The change in technology that better saddles and stirrups represent was unarguably an improvement. If it wasn't, why was it universally adopted? On the Eurasian steppes, stirrups and the wood-framed saddle swept all before them.

Many individual archers can do wonderful things, but it is the effect on a whole culture that makes history. The Scythian saddle was an improvement on just using a blanket or riding completely bareback as the Greeks did. Xenophon makes fun of the Persians and their luxurious horse furniture. However, if you were riding all day as the Scythians and some of the Persians were, you needed some padding between you and the horse to protect the both of you from sores caused by sweat and the rubbing together of the two bodies. The area of the horse's backbone was particularly vulnerable. The wooden saddle-tree was a greater improvement than just the cushions of the Scythian saddle because it lifted the rider's seat off the horse's backbone and distributed the weight along the muscles either side of the spine. Stirrups made it easier to centrally distribute the weight through the saddle to the horse's back as well as being an aid in mounting and giving lateral stability to the rider.

What all this meant to the mounted archer was that he or she could ride for a longer time on the same horse before changing to a remount. The archer could shoot from a more secure platform than before. Sudden sideways movements of the horse were less likely to unseat the rider. In battle, this kind of security was important. Of course, a saddle and stirrups made using other weapons easier too.

Zsolt's last name reminds me of the Kuman khan who fled the Mongols to join King Bela IV. In English books, his name is sometimes spelled Koloman. I know there is probably no connection.

I would be interested in any references you have to burials of members of the Arpad family. I don't get to see much recent Hungarian archaeology and I am sure there is much material for the archer. Were the burials from the Migration Period or later?

Hi MJuingong.

we use bronze-points for the tests,on scythian arrows you have much more material on which you can base a reconstruction.

Thank you for the info redhawk.

What material is to be penetrated?

hi,MJuingong,

we will have reconstructed persian shields made of rawhide and wood/cane and some other historically based materials.

Here's a Scythian. You can ask him how far he draws :)

:idea:
To make things easier to follow, I have sent the rest of this interesting thread to 'Horseback Archery'. You can now choose to follow either topic (Scythian bow draw-length or Asian horseback archery technique.)

hi you all,

first of all:I?m very fascinated by the picture Stephen posts in this topic,I like the expression in this sakas face and the movement in his body.
I guess he draws his western scythian bow around 30".
But when I see his body,I propose we have to start a new topic on the diet of these sakas?

Our first tests with the reconstructed scythian bows have been finished and we see an arrowspeed of 170f/sec as the maximum.We were using 500grs(30gramms) arrows,made of larch,modern arrowheads and traditional fletching with turkey feathers.We shot the bows by ourselves.

I expected a higher arrowspeed,but this is a project and so I have the chance to go on:on one of the bows I will remove the sinew-backing and make the wooden core a bit thinner and back it again with sinew This will make more speed wtih the same drawweight.

The penetration tests will be in the end of April.

Our first tests with the reconstructed scythian bows have been finished

I am still hoping to see what the reconstructed bow looks like. Have you got a pic?

S.

hi Stephen,I?ve tried 5 times to mail the pictures,but I wasn?t successful.I?m a native tech man,I really try to do my best with the high techs.Tomorrow I?ll have an expert here and we will post the pictures.

redhawk wrote:

hi Stephen,I?ve tried 5 times to mail the pictures,but I wasn?t successful.

Make sure that you reduce them to less than 250Kb (.jpg), and try to resize them to no more than 600 pixels horizontal. That will allow them to upload and make sure that they display nicely here.

S.

hi,here are 2 pictures:scythian bow strung and at 23" draw

Redhawk!!!DAS IST FANTASTISCHEN :D !!! This is beautiful scythian, but i am sure that i saw similar bow style in Etruscan art, i have no scanned picture, i`ll try to insert it soon and i think it could be good stuff for discussion. All the best!!!!
Zoran Alexandar Pavlovic

This material on Csaba Grozer's website may be of interest to you:

http://www.grozerarchery.com/index_b.htm

Hello,
last Sunday, I tested one of Redhawk's Scythian bows together with a sinew-backed wooden bow made by Wolfgang Schwerk. The former composite bow had the characteristic "sigma" shape which has been reported quite often. The latter is smoother in its curvature and has tips with a larger radius than redhawk's one. For both I used a draw length of approx. 23-24 inches, and anchored with the thumb on my lip corner (the two fingers with the string in it about 4 inches before, mediterranean style). Both bows showed good performance with arrows of 27 inches length. The problem for arrows with bronze tips was that the tipps immediately bent when they hit a stone or similar hard material.
The presentation was during a conference on Hellenistic warfare in Torun, Poland. The discussion whether the reconstructions met the vase paintings and bas-reliefs on Scythian bowls was very positive for the reconstructed bows. We (that means the man behind redhawk, Mr. Schwerk and I) first tried to make bows based on a finding in Arzhan, however, this bow in the kurgan had too thick limbs (1.5 inches, composed of three layers of wood). This bow seemed to be for the grave only, and not for daily use. I feared therefore, that the historians in Torun rejected our idea to base reconstructions on the pictorial findings and the Subeixi (Subeshi) bow only which looks like the bows on the Greek pictures. However, all participants were convinced that these our reconstructions could be rather close to the "true" Scythian bows.

Redhawk, I am sorry that my computer will not download your pictures.

This is just a note to clarify a historic point. The battle of Troy occured approximately 1200BC. Homer wrote about it approximately 800 BC. As the Scythian bow was probably not invented till 800-900 BC and was not known in the Agean till 500-400 BC, it is most likely that Homer was refering to the Angular Composite bow in the Illiad. His bow reference is to a goat hunt in Crete where archeological material reenforces the Angular design.

I, for one, was also disappointed with this idea because of the supposed difficulty in stringing Bronze age bows. Scythian bows (Iron Age) would appear more difficult than Angular. -j-

Jack, my idea that Odysseus had a "Scythian" bow was based on several ideas. First, his father Laertes was a member of the Argonauts. They came to the Georgian coast of the Black Sea (probably). And then it might be quite possible that Laertes got one of the early short reflexed and recurved composite bows. Second, Laertes' bow had a horn belly as is reported in the Odyssey. Thitd, the noblemen waiting for Penelope were not able to string the bow. Why? They must have been good hunters and familiar with the "Greek" bow of that time! So for me Odysseus' bow seems to have been of a design which no Greek person has known until then. All Greek bows were rather weak as we read in the Iliad, with the exception of Odysseus' bow, Philoktetes' bow, and Herakles' bow. All three have been connected to the Argonauts. The bow of Herakles was given to his son Skythos, who is the origin of the Scythians. So there seems to be some grain of truth in these old stories, explaining that a new generation of bows was intrduced to Greece circa 1200 BC.

Godehardt; I follow your argument perfectly. This is a logical conclusion. However the evidence does not support this conclusion, YET. There is simply no evidence for the Greeks using Scythian bows 1200 BC. There is , however considerable evidence showing them using Angular composites.

But there are plenty of unsolved mysteries surrounding bow development. Like what were the Scythians using before their famous double curves? Where did the Angular bow come from? Was there a hornbow predecessor to the Angular?

Do you think that it is reasonable that all prehistoric bows were weak? It is easy to accept that the cast of composites were noticably superior to self bows but stronger? Hunting of large game with bows predated composites. -j-

Jack, my idea is that the Greek before circa 600 BC did NOT use the Scythian bow commonly, only some people travelling as far as the Argonauts did so (and their relatives and friends of course). This is the reason why most of them could not handle this bow in the old tales. Whether the Greek used a wooden bow, a sinew-backed wooden bow or the angular composite bow is not quite clear. Why should they not have used several types of bows? And there is no need to make the Scythian bow as a composite bow. It is enough to make a sinew-backed version as we have proved. The cast is not different from that composite version made by Redhawk. There is an argument given in Toelle-Kastenbein's book on the bows of ancient Greeks that before 600 BC the Scythian bow or the recurved bow was not common in Greece, however, thereafter it was the bow of choice. The reason for that might be that, seeing the Scythians using it to such good efford, the Greek believed that it was superior to the other ones. I add a picture of the wood-sinew version of the Scythian bow made by Wolfgang Schwerk.

Redhawk:

I looked at the pictures of your Scythian replica. It seems you made it with a deliberate bend (deflex) in the limbs. Could you post a picture of the bow without the string?

If so, then I do not believe the replica is correct. Composite bows do not require such deflex. The bow should have a shape similar to the Korean bow when unstrung, so that the full power of the composite can be utilized. The deflex will be shown only as string follow after use.

This may explain the poor perforance of the bow. Please disregard my post if the bow does not have the deflex.

Adam

Adam,
I believe that you are asking for Schwerk's "replica" of a Scythian bow, not Redhawk's (the other bowyer making the true composite bow). Schwerk's "nicely rounded bow" from my previous mail is made of Osage orange, and only backed with sinew. Therefore it is more round. Redhawk's bow is a composite with this sharp deflex close to the handle. We all three discussed all the bows since every pictorial representation of a Scythian bow, whether from Greek paintings or Scythian bowls and coins show this deflex. Many pictures exist showing the archers in the process of stringing the bow. And the way of stringing excludes in our opinion that the Scythian bows have the same "crab-shape" when unstrung as the Korean bows. The performance - for me - was not so bad when I demonstrated both bows last Sunday. With reflex over the whole area of limbs, Redhawk's bow should be superior to the sinew-bacjed one. I really believe that the Scythians not only used true composite bows but also had sinew-backed ones. And it is possible to have both types in the same shape. Additionally, this construction is much more reliable than that of the Korean bows, especially when using them from horseback. The Mongolian bows also are not so strongly reflexed in the limbs. And I believe that only few other events are so bad for a horse-archer as to see when the limbs twist and the string is faster than the arrow. Unfortunately, at the very moment we do not have photographs of the unstrung bows. However, for the sinew-backed bow, the tips are lying about 5 cm before the riser if you connect both with a line (they are showing away from the archer). A first bow of this type is already known to you since I sent you photos of it some time ago. For the composite bows this is not the case at the moment.
Erhard Godehardt

Erhard:

I was asking Redhawk about the picture of bow he posted on March 20 (the first post on this page). I understand this bow is a composite. It has a reflexed grip and sharp deflex in the limbs close to the grip.

To compare bows, you need to look at the dimensions in relations to the length of draw. The Mongolian bows were drawn much further than Scythian.

Adam

Adam:
For the issue of "deflex",I have been disscussed with many and came out of some different point of views. Like you have said,some think it shouldn't have "deflex" and looks similar with Korean bows when unstrung. Of course,the bow is built from a "deflexed"(pre set) core is the second point of view. Finally, the "deflex" was performed when the bow finished then strung and heated till taking the set on purpose.
Remember the ATARN's letter in 2001/01, thre are some pictures posted and shown the bow taking the set (deflex). Of course,my point of view is 100% the same as yours and believe that the "deflex" was caused by stringing for a long period. :?

This bow, excavated from Subexi in Xinjiang, might be a useful reference. It would have been made by the Saka people around 400BCE (much later, of course, than the Scythians of the time of Herodotus.) The indications of the cross-sections are from my own observations.

hi,

Stephen,you?ve posted a part of my answer for Adam.

In the bisonhorn-bow discussion I?ve come to the conclusion:cause there are bisonhorn-bows, bisons must have horns(Jack,I?m joking).

Adam,you are exactly meeting my own doubts when I was thinking about the reconstructions.First I wanted to make the bows with the limbs bending forward(like the Koreans),this would have even been easier for me to do.We discussed my point of view and we decided to do it the other way.My reconstructions are looking unstrung like the Subexi-Bow,Stephen has posted.I have no pictures from the unstrung bows,on one of the bows I?ve removed the sinew-backing and I?ve thinned the wooden core and put much more sinew on it then before, for to rise arrowspeed.Two others
will be more tested by Mr.Godehardt,the fourth I?ve delivered.This last one is interesting,cause it is shorter,108cm,measured over all the curves.With its 23"drawlength and 60lbs it shots a rivercane-arrow 201m.
That?s within the range a friend of Bede has computer-simulated for these scythian bows

The reasons for our decision:
We really have no picture of an unstrung scythian bow,we only have the Subexi-bow.
We think that the scythian bow was a bow for the common daily use on a horse,not a flight or target bow.
The highly reflexed bows appeared later in the evolution of bows.
The old paintings show the limbs to be to thick for to be able to bent much forward when the bow is unstrung.The reconstitution-power of the horn depends on the thickness of the wooden core,the sinew-backing enforces it.As I?ve yet posted I?m working on it.

Anyway I?m just on the way to do the "Korean Scythian bow" for my own research.I guess in 4-6 month it will be ready and I will post pics and shooting results.
Bede or Stephen:can you tell us something about the reconstrution of David Betteridges?Subexi bow?

Bede or Stephen:can you tell us something about the reconstrution of David Betteridges?Subexi bow?

I can't answer your question: Bede probably can. But I want to mention that I have examined three or four Subexi bows (through glass close-up: not in my hands), and I am left with a real problem about how they were gripped.

Where you would expect a grip (at or near the centre), there is no sign of any particular element to make the thing comfortable to hold in the hand. The whole central part of the bow has a near-triangular cross-section which would have been most uncomfortable when the bow was drawn.

If there had been some additional device (like the wooden or rubber build-out in modern Korean hornbows or a special bow-hand clove) it should have been preserved because the whole burial was mummified.

Another point was that all the bows were sheathed in thin leather. Where the leather had rubbed away, we could clearly see either (1) sinew or (2) silk. But there was nothing to give us any clue about the structure of the bows inside.

S.

The photograph of David Betteridge's Scythian bow is of a reconstruction based on Western examples. We found a number of sites with bow fragments in the excavations. David did some stress analyses of the cross sections and based his shape on extensive research into depictions of Scythian bows in Greek and Etruscan art.

The bow fragments were described as all wood laminations, but from the performance described in the histories, we assumed that true composites were probably used.

The cross sections were almost circular and David deduced that the bows could not have had very much reflex. We also noticed that the depictions of stringing bows presupposed a bow with little reflex. David started his replica before we knew about the Subeixi bows. He had previously made an Egyptian composite and had experience with deep-sectioned bows.

The Subeixi bow introduced the idea that the bows bent more in the recurved tips than we imagined because we had no information from Western sites about tips. Most of the supposed bow tips have turned out to be bridle ornaments.

What is becoming apparent is that there is a large number of asymmetric Scythian bows in the artistic depictions and in Subeixi. This must influence future reconstructions.

I am particularly interested to know what the effect would be from a spiral siyah...

The Subeixi bow has a rather thick section. Only at such thickness the materials would be stressed enough for the deflex to make sense. This bow must be in excess of 80lb.

I would suggest someone makes an exact replica of the Subeixi bow, perhaps with and without horn to have a better sense about the performance of Scythian bows. Such replicas should take into account the acquired deflex during stringing and use. The acquired deflex can be quite large, I usually keep some of my bows strung for months which makes them easy to string with the step-through method.

The deflexed replicas at low draw weight are not stressed enough to justify the deflex. This was also my conclusions about the bow made by David, mentioned by Bede. These lightweight bows do not even require horn for good performance. For the ancients the bow was the promary weapon and its use was practiced from early childhood. A 50-60lb bow would be a toy for these people.

Adam

I would suggest someone makes an exact replica of the Subeixi bow, perhaps with and without horn to have a better sense about the performance of Scythian bows.

We really need more information, Adam. No-one knows what's inside those bows. I shall have to go back up and try to get them to allow me to photograph and x-ray them.

Now I have Grozer's reproduction of the Khotan bow, I might be able to persuade them of the value of the exercise 8)

S.

hi Stephen,

maybe we should call this kind of semi-circle-recurve a pre-siyah.

Mr.Godehardt presumed that this recurve will force the string to stay on its place.When my reconstructions were stringed and shot this turned out to be right.If you do such a recurve allright I guess you wouldn?t even need a groove for the string,anyway I?ve done it.I don?t really understand why these recurves have disappeared.With a length of about 15cm they are as long as the later more straight siyahs.
And they look beautiful.

While test-shooting the bows I found that even those hard to handle short bows have a kind of smooth draw.Maybe that?s due to the round recurves.

Another thing I?ve to mention is,that these scythian bows are double-bows.The Native Americans of the Plains shot there double-bows by using the pull and draw-method.I tested this kind of shooting with the scythian bows too,it works better.The best results I do when I shoot the arrows out of the middle of the bow,here you have the longest possible string-arrow-contact.I hit my marks as usual with other short bows within the 40m-range.

Another thing I?ve to mention is,that these scythian bows are double-bows.The Native Americans of the Plains shot there double-bows by using the pull and draw-method.I tested this kind of shooting with the scythian bows too,it works better.The best results I do when I shoot the arrows out of the middle of the bow,here

What are "double-bows ... and draw-method"? I've not heard of that.

S.

I'm guessing he's probably referring to a Penobscot bow.


http://www.bowsite.com/bowsite/tf/lw/th ... CATEGORY=4


T

hi Stephen,hi Thomas,

I don?t mean the Penobscot Bow.Hamilton wrote in his book:"the term "double-curved" was also first applied by anthropologists.I would have said it was "triple-curved".........the sophisticated design of the double-curved bow is the Cupid?s bow....."

Maybe I should do some English lessons again......

I mean the "push and draw"-method:I push the bow forward and draw at the same time the string with the arrow backwards.

O.K., Redhawk, I understand what you mean.

A little bit like Korean bows and shooting--the bows are like you just described, and they shoot in the manner of "push the great mountain while pulling the tiger's tail."


T

Have recently been directed to a University professor who is in contact with archeologists in the Ukraine. They told him that in the museum in Kiev are HUNDREDS of Scythian bows from burials. -j-

Jack,
It would be really good if some of these nice archaeologists published details of these bows.

Aside from some National Geographic references to an intact bow being found, very little information is available in the West on recent archery discoveries in the Ukraine.

I think we would all like to see what they have found and read about their thoughts on the burials and objects.

Are there any Ukranian journals with this material in them?

Do we have any Ukrainian correspondents who can help us?

Bede; As of a week ago the archeologists have already gone to their summer digs. The attitude is that no one knows that people are interested in Scythian archery. It was said that the biblios are in Russian. I was referred to that of Rolle which I would assume is old. I think that Stephen would agree to posting a biblio of 5 items would be ok, if that would be helpful. (from Rolle) -j-

Bede and all; Here is a website with an extensive, relevant bibliography but mostly in German and Russian. http://www.orientarch.uni-halle.de/sfb5 ... vey/03.htm

Here is a biblio just on composites: http://www.extra.hu/opos/nyilazirod.htm

In my opinion, the lack of economic opportunity in the archery sphere is limiting our access to ethnographic material. It is just not worth a professional's time to do extensive research into archery because it is the "world's smallest club." The pay is frightening for writers. As for myself, I cannot command a language other than English and cannot self navigate Russian sources. With babelfish program and a short list of archery related terms it is possible to make sense of Russian text on line, but how to do real research in Russian? -j-

hi you all,

I really would like to see more old scythian bows or fragments of them,but I guess there is no more to be seen than thousands of broken arrows and arrowheads.
We are in contact with the heremitage in St.Petersburg.2 years ago we asked for the bow-fragments found in the grave of Arschan(Tuva),we had to wait almost 18 months for an reply.What they have found there is one limb of a laminated all-wood double-bow,much to thick to be a shotable bow,this is definitely a burial gift.
The 2 books of Renate Rolle:one is describing the burials of the scythians,the other one is called:The Gold of the Scythians and is containing one chapter about scythian archery written by Holger Eckhardt:again hundreds of arrowheads,broken arrows and he stated that the scythian bow has to be a composite made of wood,bone,maybe sinew,maybe horn.......thats it.
We were and we are still in contact with archeologists in Germany,Poland and Ukraine working on the subject but they seemed to be more interested in the gold of the scythians than in their archery or there is really no more to be seen.

Recently a compound-bowyer saw one of my "scythian bow-reconstructions",he shots with it and he stated that this bow is of all "primitive bows" the one coming very close to a compound bow.He found leverage-,pulley-and eccentric-action in this design.

Bede,
you have posted that a friend of yours computer-simulated scythian bows:what drawweights did you presume?
Whats the drawweight of David Betterrigde?s reconstruction.

Redhawk; Now, if you want, try to the Kiev museum. Different place, different politics. Ukraine might be happy to accomodate. -j-

I agree with the above comments about the paucity of informed analysis of Scythian bows. But if we can reach a consensus that the bows excavated in Xinjiang, China, are either Scythian or closely related to them, then there is a good chance I can get support for a study mission in China.

Incidentally, one of my archery students here is a Russian. But he is likely to remain in the Far East for some time as he works in a diplomatic mission. However, I could ask him what opportunities there could be to study Scythian bows in Russia.

hi Jack,hi Steven,

I would really be happy if we follow every of these tracks and we could come closer to the "Scythian Bow".The bow excavated in Xinjiang is for sure very close to the Scythian Bow,I can?t imagine that its construction is different from the scythian bows to be seen in greek drawings.

I don?t hope the statement:"The scythian bow is made out of the ribbons of the mystic bird griffon" to become true.I really have found this statement while "googling" on the subject.

Hello Stephen,
as redhawk said, we were waiting for more than 18 months and did not succeed to get an official visum to go to St. Petersburg and to visit the Hermitage for taking fotos and getting more information on the bow found by Parzinger and Griasnov during their 2001 excavations in Tuva (Arzhan, Siberia). We however got two drawings of the bow found below a gorytos. One drawing shows the bow as it was found, the other drawing gave an impression how the people from the Hermitage thought it could have been. It was not only one limb but a whole bow, one meter long over the back. No horn or sinew was found also no signs of glue as I was told. The bow consisted of three pieces of wood, each one cm thick (I do not have any information about the width). In the grip section, there were two additional pieces of wood, giving a 5 cm thick handle. The shape was that of bows as the Red Indians used in the plains: two deflexed limbs joined by a reflex riser, no recurves at the tips (this is how the reconstruction looks like, it cannot be seen directly from the bow as it was in situ, so the shape is only a guess). The thickness of the bow lets us believe that it was made for the burial only. The wooden laminates were wrapped in something covered with gold. This would have been broken away when someone would have used the bow. Additionally, all the other weapons semm to be not for real use. The shape of the bow was not (really NOT) similar to all the pictorial information which we have from Scythian bowls and Greek vase paintings. Therefore, all the "reconstructions" which we made u ntil now of Scythian bows are based on the pictorial information and on the Subeixi bow. I shall ask Prof. Parzinger and Dr. Nagler, whether I can submit the drawings of the Tuva bow to the ATARN community. Besides this bow, to my information there is only one other bow found in a Scythian kurgan, which is now in a museum in Kiev. I have this information from a book of Holger Eckhardt (his doctorial dissertation from 1996) and one of his papers in the book edited by Renate Rolle (the catalogue of the exposition "The Gold of the Steppe").
We are really interested in getting more information on bow fragments which may be somewhere in some museums or private collections in states of the former Soviet Union.
One remark on the draw weight of bows used by horse archers. I have seen recently some photographs of English archers drawing bows with draw weights between 100 lbs and 160 lbs at draw lengths of 31 inches. They do not look as if they were feeling comfortable. I cannot believe that a horse archer is able to use such heavy bows on horses if he wants to give a series of shots (8-12 per minute). Have horse archers in Eurasia really used such heavy bows? Redhawk told me that all he has heard about the bows of the horse archers of the plains of North America was that they never had draw weights exceeding 65 lbs. And from these Indian tribes, we have bows as opposite to the people from the Eurasian steppe. I think that it is legal to conclude that the horse archerswho used short bows like the Scythians and the Red Indians, used bows of similar weights all over the world. The argument that in Eurasia, the enemies of the horse archers wore body armour does not count. The body armour was not so sophisticated as that of the knights in the late middle ages. And the Red Indians had shields which were not bad.
I made some experiments together with afriend from Poland. We shot arrows with different types of heads onto a replica of a Roman shield. This shield was made of six layers of thin wooden planks (altogether 1.2 cm thick), covered on both sides with hide. One type of arrow head penetrated this scutum already in the first round. For shooting, we used a bow of 45 lbs at 25 inches of draw length. After some rounds of arrows, the shield structure was broken, and then the most dangerous arrow tips were those similar to a bodkin. See the picture.
Erhard Godehardt

Godehardt,
what is wood you used for shaft of this arrows? I agree with you for the bow weight. Why to use very heavy bows when you are on "fast machine"? You use heavy bow when you are static, to reach long shot distances. On the horse you are not still so precision must be achieved using light bow.

The Plains Indian bows, despite their short drawlengths and light draw weights (by English Warbow standards) were very capable weapons, There are record of arrows shooting clean through Buffalo. This was likely at very close range, typical of the Buffalo Hunt.
However, there was at least one US Army Surgeons report, describing arrow wounds in which it was mentiond that the arrows perforated major bones resulting in wounds not unlike those from a pistol ball.
Mobility and Firepower could make life very uncomfortable for even heavily armored infantry.
Diana

In the Ming Dynasty, Li Chengfen discussed in some detail the principle of using a bow in war - especially on horseback.

The main thrust of his argument is that you should have the power of a strong bow available, and you should have the strength to use it; but you don't have to use it. He talked about pulling a bow 80-90% of its full draw length when on horseback. That could mean only 60-70% of its maximum draw weight.

I've translated Li's exaplanation and it's on ATARN.

In the Qing Dynasty, people were examined drawing bows of 160-200#. But there was no expectation that they should draw that weight regularly.

I am going to start a new topic to carry this one on because the wide photographs are making this one hard to read on the screen.

Note that in the video of the Mongolian horse archers (1998) neither seems to draw much past his chin. I can't see if there is any arrow length past the bow hand.

On foot, Mongolian archers seem to draw as far back, or farther, than the English Longbow archer reenactors. So too do some Mongolians on horseback in still photos we have seen.

Apropos of the extent to which heavy draw weights are manageable on horseback: First, I recall nothing in SARACEN ARCHERY or some translations of Muslim works on archery that I have read which indicate a lighter weight pull for a horseback archer; Second, why not ask Kassai?

During the Crusades, from 1099 on, the mail of the Crusaders was quite useful against Turkish and Arab archery. However, the archery of the Mamluks appears to have been quite formidable to the Crusaders.

I remember something in ATARNET posts about incomplete drawing of the bow in horse archery; I cannot find Li Chengfen's comments in the CHINA section.

Incomplete drawing seems to me to seriously compromise the effectiveness of the archer. I strongly suspect that any competent leader would take steps to instill complete drawing of the bow. I read SARACEN ARCHERY almost 20 years ago, I remember nothing referring to incomplete drawing while engaged in horseback archery.

The Scythians might well have had to contend with mainly unarmored opponents, cf. the Persians. But remember that last year (I think) the ATARNET carried a post showing intaglios and other artwork from the Ancient world showing long draw and short draw. If I remember correctly, the thrust of the thread was that the Western Scythians had a short draw, the Eastern Scythians a long draw.

Were the experiments against the scuta extended to Roman mail, scale, and lorica segmentata? Note that the material would probably be soft iron; and [hardened] bronze. Experimenting against thin bronze scales and maybe replica bronze cuirasses might be informative.

By the way, experimenting against hardened leather and thick, soft material, and multilayered linen, both stiff and non-stiff, would further inform us of the effectiveness of ancient bows, arrows, and techniques.

Hello to all answering my last letter.
there semm to be long arrows used by the eastern Scythians. The kurgan in Tuva had a gorytos with arrows approx. 70cm long. The western Scythians used gorytoi which were much shorter. Probably the arrows were only 60cm or so long. However, both Stythian "tribes" used very short bows, as the bow from Tuva shows (if it was not only a version scaled down in size for a dead hero).
For the arrows in my experiment, I used northern pine for the shafts.
There have been experiments by Holger Riesch and Unli Stehli using several types of armour: mail and scale. The results have been published, and I got reprints. The results were as follows: using a bow with draw weight less than 65 lbs and bodkin type arrow heads (longer than those which I used), the bodkins penetrated into the mail and then really could not be removed by hand. A lot of rings had to be cut to be able to remove such an arrow (with probably deadly results for the person hit by such an arrow). On bronze scale armour, it looked a little bit better to the wearer of the armour. First rounds of arrows had to destroy the leather bindings of the scales then following arrows could penetrate through the holes between the scales. So not the scales were penetrated. There is a quite new report in "The Glade" an English journal, where it is shown that a brigantine gives quite good protection. The reason may be that the scales are covered from both sides by fabric. Thus the scales are kept in place better than by earlier scale cuirasses.
Together with archeologists from Poland and France and with the department of Forensic Medicine in Duesseldorf, I shall start a series of tests to get an impression of the quality of linen cuirasses as used by hoplites and of cuirasses made of boiled leather or hide.
Erhard Godehardt

Mr. Godehardt:

Thank you for reference to Riesch and Stehli's work.

Are their results published in English? If so, is the work on-line, or print only? What is the title and where is it published?

Just as a possibility, are all Scythian Gorytoi full-length of the arrows?

Vty,
MJuingong

The papers of Riesch and Stehli are in German. They have not been published on-line. I will send the references to atarn when I will be back at work.

here we are again,
the picture shows one of the scythian bows I?ve thinned the wooden core and backed again with sinew for to rise arrowspeed.The limbs of the bow show a bit more of reflex,arrowspeed is higher,drawweigth is almost the same.

With the arrow you see on the pic I shot the persian shield.If the arrowhead hits the shield horizontally there is almost no chance to penetrate it.If the arrowhead hits the shield vertically there is penetration but not so much,cause the arrow is clamped between two of the bamboos or between the two halves of a splitted bamboo.If you shoot angular against the shield almost no chance to penetrate such a shield.
But I?m sure that the bronze arrowhead I used for this personal test is to long,I tried it again with modern bulletheads,much more penetration.The scythians must have used very short arrowheads for to crash these shields.
Shooting distance was from 10-30m,drawweigth was 45lbs with a 26" drawlength.
Much more tests will be done with the other scythian bows with higher drawweights and with exact measurements.

Such a shield is a hard job to do:I could buy the hide and the bamboos,but our persian ancestors had to cut the bamboo(maybe they used a harder kind of cane than we have here in the middle of Europe).But to drill 560 holes and to press the bamboos through the hides is really a hard job,I love my little daughter for having the idea with the soap.

What is hard to do for the shieldmaker and what is hard to penetrate for an archer,one of our world famous delivery services succeded within one second to crash 9 shields by driving with a delivery-car over the package I want to be delivered to Mr.Godehardt.The scythian bow was in that package too,he has survived.

Redhawk, that is a good looking bow.

Tests seem informative up to this point.

Redhawk; Nice gear, it has a historic look. The points look like ones that I got in Germany. They were leaf shaped-more like Assyrian/Egyptian. Those clever Germans. It is amazing what one can get there. But for field testing, my points were not tempered, more theatrical than functional. Also. Scythian points were socketed. My German points are tanged. But they are identical to Egyptian points from the tomb of King Tut, and not unlike certain Scythian ones.

Can you give some dimensions on your bow; overall size, grip heigth and width, mid limb and tip? Thanks for sharing and job well done. -j-

redhawk:

Apopos of the draw length and its effect, I note that the brace height of your replica is not great. So, even at a 26 inch overall draw, the arrow may be under the impulse of the string for some considerable distance.

It may be a matter of distance between release point (where the archer looses his hold on the arrow nock) and "launch point" (where the arrow nock leaves the string).

Hi MJuingong,

the braceheight is not correct.I was in a hurry and stringed the bow somehow for making a picture.
Usually I choose 15cm of braceheight for to shot a horsebow.

Hi Jack,
there are examples that also Scythian bronze and steel arrow heads could be with tangs. Examples are shown in Holger Eckhardt's book on arrows and bows (in German).
Regards, Erhard

redhawk:

So, usually, your arrows would be under the impulse of the string for 21 inches, out of a total pull length of 26 inches.

Has anybody any idea of the length of sting impulse for the generality of English longbows, Mongol, Avar, Hun, Parthian, Persian (Achemenid and Sassanian and later), Arab, Turkish [Ottoman and other], Tatar, Chinese, Japanese, Korean etc bows ?

And, would the profile of the bow change this in any way, or serve as a substitute for draw length?

I think I'm getting obsessed.