Hunnic Quiver

I'm not sure, but i think they used gorytos...

Stonethumb

The Hunnic style bows from the Niya M3 and M8 graves were found with combined bowcase and double-quivers. These are also illustrated on one of the Kurgan-Tepe plaques.

There is a picture of the Niya M3 archery kit here:
http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/3/5/21/c12989.htm
This shows the double-quiver with the bowcase hidden behind.

The Kurgan-Tepe or Orlat battle plaque is pictured and was discussed here, although the link was not working when I tried it before posting:
http://www.transoxiana.org/Eran/Articles/mode.html

This type of bowcase/quiver is probably a bit bulky for use on foot.

Regards

Andrew

Thanks a lot. I agree that it would be difficult to use these quivers at foot. I think I will make a turkic quiver or something. They look realy nice :D .

Judging from what has been published, the bow case part of the bow case and quiver is soft leather or cloth and so would not get in the way too much when the bow was not in it. The two tube quiver could be made so the shorter tube exposed the fletching and the longer tube completely covered the arrows for protection. Then you would only have to change the angle to adjust for your height so that the quiver did not drag on the ground.

Andrew,
Do you have any information, dimensions, etc about the Niya M3 bow in your first link? I'd certainly appreciate if you do.

The bow is from Niya Cemetery 1 Tomb M3 (95MN1M3) in Xinjiang, China. It was found in the grave of a royal couple in 1995. A sample from the grave was carbon dated to 215+/-60AD.

Overall length 61 3/4" round the curves. The following dimensions were scaled from several photos, so subject to some error. Siyah plates 15 1/2 and 9 1/4", limbs 14 3/4 and 13 1/4" and grip plates 9 1/4" long. Limb width circa 2" near grip, tapering to base of siyahs.

Found with three arrows 33.1" long, quiver with tubes of 35x3.9 and 29.1x3.1" and bowcase of 42.7x7.1". (These dimensions, together with the overall bow length, from the archaeological report on the M3 tomb in Xinjiang Wenwu 1999-2).

The site also supplied a similarly asymmetric but narrower bow (95MN1M8), two roughly symmetrical very wide-limbed bows similar to Stephen Selby's Khotan bow (59MNM001 and 95MN1M4), a wooden self-bow (also 95MN1M4) and two unidentified bows (95MN1M1 - probably composites, as the grave contained bowcases).

Regards

Andrew

I have these sorts of Xianbei figures dating from around 450AD:



But clearly, these wide-limbed bows should not have been able to fit in the bow holsters that are shown. I don't really have an answer to that :(

And the quiver:

Andrew,
Thanks for those details, much appreciated. This bow is intriguing with the upper siyah being longer than the limb. It is a little hard to tell from this photograph, the lower siyah appears to be recurved or it could be some distortion as there looks like it is slightly damaged? What would the curved shape be in the smaller arrow tube? There appears to be evidence of a serving on the string.

Stephen,
Regarding the bow case, I would put it down to a slight inaccuracy on behalf of the artist, which is common even to this day. Osprey publications feature a few questionable scale details; I would say the same for the arrow lengths in your second pic, which appear to be quite short. In the scenes on the Orlat plaque, some of the figures carry a strung bow which is obviously the wrong way around in the bowcase. We can overlook things like this as they are minor details which do not detract from the overall insight we get from the whole.

It would be interesting to establish the period where combined Gorytos style cases gave way to the seperate quiver and bowcase.
I really should get round to joining the Society of Archer Antiquaries

Stephen's figures are at about the changing point. I am in Korea at the moment and the similarity of the quiver in Stephen's figure to some early Korean quiver parts is remarkable.

I think that the change from gorytus to quiver and bow case might be more complicated than it first seems. There might have been several transitions that gradually merged. There were a lot of cultures involved.

Please excuse my late reply to the Hunnic quiver question. In my article on Sakian rock art of the Silk Road, many pictographs have been discovered of archers from the last centuries Bc to the first centuries AD on foot wearing a single quiver at the waist. These are shown as almost horizonal. This would presumably be a tube-type quiver cylinder of rolled rawhide with a running stitch of the same holding it together. Some stuffing might have prevented the arrows from falling out on their own or maybe the lidded version was used or eighter.

The complete set found in Xinjaing does not look to be joined permanently together so maybe the arrangement was a flexible one.

Saka and Hunns were contemporaries/antagonists. I am not able to scan a pic presently but hopefully soon. -j-

Jack,
Are you talking about the Xiongnu or the Huns? When the Huns were invading Europe, the Saka as a political entity were out of the picture.

Bede; I am elaborating on Andrews post about Xinjiang finds from early AD. Xiongnu is one of the many Chinese synonyms for Hunns.

Saka remains are often confused with those of their more famous neighbors, Hunns.

Jack,
The Xiongnu are believed by many people to be the ancestors of the Huns in Europe, but the two names are not synonymous. The Xiongnu state at various times controlled what is now Xinjiang, but mainly in the first two centuries BC when there was active competition between them and the Western Han Empire of China.

The Xiongnu split into a Northern and a Southern confederation when their state broke apart due to civil wars. Scholars speculate that part of one of the confederations migrated westwards and eventually became the Huns in Europe. However, that does not imply that they were racially or linguistically related to the main body of the Xiongnu who stayed north of China until they were either wiped out or absorbed by their neighbours.

There are two other important nomad confederacies who moved through Xinjiang, the Wusun and the Yuezhi.

Bede; I assume that this is a personal preference of yours as the literature is rife with examples identifying the Xiongnu as the Central Asian Hunns. There is no strong countertheory.

Dr. Karasev. co-author of "Shamans", "In the fourth century AD the first seed of the Turkic tribes is to be seen among the Hunns of Mongolia."

TB magazine printed the first part of our article recently. -j-

Jack,
I am making a point about using blanket terms when the majority of specialist literature isn't prepared to be that precise. The majority of Western Hun leaders have Germanic names, Attila, Rugila and Bleda for example. That might be because the contemporary historians Indo-Europeanised their names to make them more familiar to their readers. However, it does suggest that we should be careful when we refer to a race, a culture or a polity. They are not the same thing and there are many cross-overs between them.

For example, I write in English, read English literature and am part of an English-based culture, but I am not English and my Irish ancestors would be spinning in their graves if I suggested I was. That is to say, I am genetically Irish, linguistically English and culturally English-speaking Australian. I think we should show the same respect to the Xiongnu and the Huns, no matter how closely related they are.

There is a good summary of the scholarly position on Wikipedia on the net if you are interested.

Bede; From the point of view of an Australian of Irish ancestry speaking English looking at a two thousand year old name in Chinese, now Latinised, of an enemy nation refering to them as Xion slaves; might it not be politically correct to also refer to them from the point of view of a Russian- speaking Slavic /Tatar educator of Central Asian birth who refers to these same people as Hunns?

Jack,
I have no desire to argue with someone by proxy. We have drifted a long way from the point of this topic and don't seem to be advancing anyone's knowledge by this discussion.

Can you remember why I asked you if it was Huns in the West or Xiongnu in the East? You wrote:

Saka and Hunns were contemporaries/antagonists.

The Huns in the West appeared in the 3rd century in force. They fought the Alans who were probably Sarmatian which is a term used for the Saka in the West. From Roman and Greek sources, we have some idea of what kind of equipment the Alans used. They were known for their heavy cavalry wearing armour and carrying lances and long swords. There are engraved stones in the Crimea showing both the two-tubed quiver with a straight-eared bow and the shorter Scythian style bow in a small gorytus. The two-tubed quivers excavated in Xinjiang seem similar, as do the Roman and Palmyran bas-reliefs of two-tubed quivers. In a previous article I referred to them as gorytoi because in all the images I had seen there was an attached bow case.

Unfortunately, the Central Asian petroglyphs are hard to date. However, I do not see any reason to doubt that they could be depicting foot archers with quivers. I would really appreciate seeing a picture. I have some of your articles and will look through them to see if one has the images you mentioned.

I would like to ask, if there in there are any archeological findings of arteficially deformed skulls in area of Xiongnu early country.

Its considered to be typical, although not specific for Hunns in Europe.

thanks
M.

Michal,
To the best of my knowledge there are not and as I understand, not all the Huns in the west followed this practice. I've read that certain Sarmatian tribes practiced head binding also, though of course this may have been copied from their Hunnic overlords. It may well have been an elitist thing that set one apart from a person of lower standing but at this point it's conjecture.
I watched a documentary a long time ago about Hunnic influence in Pannonia and the Balkans that touched on this subject. It is most frustrating that we have to rely on outside sources to gain information. There again it's all part of the mystery that makes the Huns and other horse archer nations such a fascinating subject.

Yes Orda, it was not specific for Hunns, also in some Goths burials such a skulls were found.
The discussion above stimulated to that question, if it deals with relationship between Hsiungnu/Xiongnu and European Hunns, such a expresive sign would be checked. Heads of warriors figures on Stephens pictures seems turicephalic, but due to their helmets its not easy to recognize.

Of course it could also be suggested that head binding was adapted at some point during a westward migration. Personally, I tend to lean towards the XiongNu argument as a social elite/ruling class among a coalition of various steppe tribes.

I found interesting web site,
http://hsiungnu.chat.ru/

Michal,
Dr Miniaev (Minyaev in other transliterations) is a world authority on the Xiongnu and his web site is very useful. He helped me when I was writing about thumb rings by e-mailing me about the absence of rings in Xiongnu graves. He knows about all the new research and discoveries and publishes mainly in Russian. The New Books section of the site is very useful.

During searching for next Xiongnu informations i found theese pages with pictures of Noin Ula archeological objects.

http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/mu ... inula.html
http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/mu ... ongnu.html


Bede - it is very interesting that there are no thumbrings in XN graves. What do you think it means?
On friday i sent e mail request to Dr. Minayev. My questions dealed with deformed skulls and at the second with the dress of Xiongnu.
Today Dr. Minyaev kindly answered me that there are no findings of deformed skulls in region of Xiongnu, and that only one dress we have is from Noin Ula and is by his opinion chinese.

Orda: i have "Hunnic" bow too, made by Csaba Grozer (Composite Extra III.- 60 lbs) and as is evident i am looking for informations about other equipment as you do.

My research was leading to the belief that thumb rings were not universal in the steppes north of China in the last millennium BCE. When I spoke to Professor V Kubrarev, he confirmed that in northern Turkish tombs of the 7-8th centuries CE he had found no archers rings. Later I discovered pictures of Dunhuang wall paintings of several decades earlier than the tombs showing the two finger Sassanian release. When the tombs from Xinjiang were published with European looking bodies, it confirmed a strong Western influence on the steppe north of China.

When Professor Miniaev confirmed there were no archers rings in the Xiongnu tombs he excavated, it fitted into a pattern. Later during the Turkish expansion into the Western Steppe, some tribes seemed to use thumb rings and others didn't. It appeared that tribes that originated closer to China or who had strong military interaction with China after the 4-5th centuries CE had thumb rings and the ones that had originated further north and west did not and showed more Iranian influence on their archery practice.

The more general use of archers rings in the Western Steppe looks to be a Mongol invasion effect. There were groups who migrated west with thumb ring technology before this time, but they did not have a major effect except on the Islamic world and Byzantium in the south.

Michael, I have read your post on the szip, my suggestion to you is the orlat battle plake; on www.transoxiana.org, the warriors there are maybe from the middleor late -sarmatian period, but I think their equitment are close to the noble huns.

in the state.hermitage museum there are some artifacts from noin ula and from lop-nor too, but those from Noin Ula are almost surely from asian huns.

I have some pics from hunic (ore from the hun age) graves, I cuold post them for you (e-mail-adress!!:-) if you want.

TZH

OK, Noin Ula deleted:-))))

TZH,
Could you post them here maybe?

Thanks TZH, i send my email to you by PM.
Bede: its very interesting, so close to China, fighting with them, possibly make some exchange as well but not influenced by their shooting style.
The carpets from Noin ula with fighting beasts motives, suggest similar mythology as scythians had. And that has, after some archeologists (prof. Rostovcev) roots in archaic mythology of Elam 3 th. BC. in southwest Iran area. Probably mythology is one of the strongest characteristics and marker of not only cultural but as well genetical roots.
Europeans looking bodies? Where can i read more about this topic?

Michal,
I think that the Xiongnu who didn't adopt archer's rings were satisfied with their own archery techniques. After all, they were very successful in their interactions with the two Han empires and their leaders intermarried with the Han royal family. Perhaps some of the Southern Xiongnu did adopt thumb rings, but we need evidence.

There are several books in English about the Xinjiang excavations as well as extensive coverage in Chinese in the archaelogical journal, Wenwu.

In English, there is Mallory and Mair, The Tarim Mummies, 2000, Thames and Hudson. This has an extensive bibliography of the other publications.

The ONLY bronze thumbring that I have seen in China looks very similar to the bronze goods made in the Han Dynasty as gifts/trade items with the Xiongnu.

On the absence of thumbrings from burials, for context you need to be aware that no operational thumbrings were included in burials from the early Han period onward. The disappearance of thumbrings from Chinese burials coincides roughly with the spread of popularity of the yin-yang/five elements/empress mother of the West cult. Thumbrings were therefore probably not a significant symbol in that cult. In contrast, they did play a role in burial cults throughout the Eastern Zhou period.

Incidentally, I believe in general that what is included in graves bares little relation with what people use and do in their lifetime. Burial goods are a distorting mirror.

That is despite the fact that there is reference to the use of thumbrings in the later literature.

The Xiongnu were a large political (not racial) confederation. I would expect a wide variety of shooting techniques among them including, though not necessarily predoiminantly, a thumb draw.

Stephen,
I think your analysis is correct. The absence of something from the archaeological record does not prove it did not exist in the culture. The Xiongnu appear to have included bows and quivers in their burials so there might be a chance of surviving rings if they were high status objects. Because they were a federation, what happened in one area might not have happened elsewhere.

I do not know what the changes were in Xiongnu burials over the four centuries of the state they founded.

Bede, thanks for recomendation of literature.
M.

One is an alanian warrior with his "college" wife:-), the other is probably a hun with the large reflexbow.

oops. And the hun:-) :

Thanks TZH, much appreciated.

Oh, please... :)

I found interesting abstract from mitochondrial DNA study, which suggests that Niya people where geneticaly Scythians settled in Xinjiang with possible Iranian origin.

http://211.68.23.76/webmedia/jingpin/do ... ngif/2.pdf

Michal; Greetings and thanks for that reference. In her book Warrior Women. Davis-Kimball marches across eastern Russia, Central Asia and Xinjaing digging graves and analysing museum artifacts. She repeatedly mentions remains of Scythian, Saka, Sarmatian etc but only rarely mentions Hunns (Xiongnu. Hsiung-nu etc etc) the first group being nominal Persian people. It makes me wonder if after the domestication of the horse, 3rd millinea BC, if it then became viable to take to the nomadic life in search of pasturage and plunder of the Silk Road.

Good costuming information can be found in Heirs to the Silk Road, Uzbekistan which was the first silk area outside of China. Patterns are shown for many pieces. These are mostly late but find their predecessors in antiquity.

For instance a fine pair of leather pants. When laid flat the legs spread wide, perfect for horse riding.

The Orlat belt plaques are well illustrated in that book, encyclopedic images of Sakian nomad art. -j-

Thanks Jack for the tips to literature, but Heirs....., well its quiet luxury book :-)

If somebody is interesting i found:
http://s155239215.onlinehome.us/turkic/turkicsite.htm
http://dsr.nii.ac.jp/toyobunko/VIII-1-B ... 65.html.ja
http://www.peterchai.net/sitefiles/thes ... nuarts.pdf

Michal, Yes, price matters. But then there is always the library, and almost all libraries have inter-library loan for special books. Just photocopy what you need. -j-

Remember how long ago we began with a discussion of the Hunnic quiver? Well it has taken me this long to be able to post this picture of Sakian Rockart from the area of Samarkand, epicenter of the Silk Road. These presumably date from the last centuries BC to the first centuries AD. They demonstrate that Sakians on foot wore a single quiver,in back probably belt mounted, similar to the double quiver bowcases found in Xinjaing of similar age. The doubles are a rawhide cylinder with or without a lid. -j-