Bows from Siberia

Two useful articles that may have been mentioned in the original thread:
Ragnar Insulander, "The Two-Wood Bow", Acta Borealia, 1-2002, pp.49-73.
Ragnar Insulander, "Linneaus, Lapland and the Saami Bow", JSA-A Vol 42, 1999.

If you do a web search for Ragnar Insulander you should find some other articles he has written on the subject in various languages.

The long thread on the two-wood bows in Norwegian is here:
http://www.bueforum.no/viewforum.php?f=11
Look under "Den store tovedsbue-diskusjonen". There are quite a few photos of finds, drawings from archaeological reports and the odd reconstruction.?

Andrew

Yep, those articles are good :)

I've just finished my own paper on these bows, and made some reconstructions based partly on the Siberian bows, and partly on a medieval find of a belly-laminate from Bergen, Norway.

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Fine looking bows.
How heavy are they, have you crono them yet and what glue did you use?

Thanks :)

It depends on how far you draw them, but inbetween 50 and 100# at 23-26". I haven't chronoed them yet, but they shoot pretty good.

I've used regular wood glue, araldite, hidegule and fish glue. They seem to work just the same, although hideglue is no good since it gels too quickly. Fish glue on the other hand stays liquid in room temperature, so it's much more usable.

Hi Kviljo, last February I had been invited by the Russian Academy of Science to check different bow- findings, above all the Scythian bow finding of olon kurin gol.
The Russian archaeologists have excavated so much bow findings, so the number of the findings speaks for itself.
All the Siberian bows were two- wood laminations in the length of 130- 180cms, with a soft kind of siyahs. Often there were sinew- backed and wrapped with birchbark. The siyahs and the grip were often reinforced with bone or antler plates. I?ve seen hundreds of these reinforcements plates.
The so- called Novgorod bow is the typical design of a Siberian bow.
For the laminatons the Siberians used birch at the backside of the bow and kren, this is the hardest larch you can find in Siberia. So today the Russians call these bows krenovji.
They didn?t work with compression pine or juniper.

The Nerchin, Yakut Tunguses as well as Selenga Mongols and Bratskie tribes are told to have used hornbows, which they?ve bought from Chinese tribes. In the Northern regions of Siberia the kren- wood was often substituted by whalebone- plates.

Above all it has been the German scholar G.F. Mueller who has recorded a lot about Siberia. He had been in Siberia for several times from 1730- 1750.

Michael

This type of bow is hard shooting. What wood depends on what is available.

One thing puzzles me. In the dimensions for the first bow, a width of 16.7 cmis given, which equals almost 6 inches. It doesn't look that wide. Is the figure correct?

I notice that to, maybe it's the hight with ears.

Redhawk, that's really interesting to hear! Do you have any recommendations regarding papers on these Siberian two-woods? - regardless of language.

I've got Medvedevs bow-paper, but that's about it.

Did they use compression-larch or just regular larch?

16,7cm might be the length of the ears. I would guess it is about 4-5 cm wide at the widest.

Kviljo, no, in Muellers report, you?ll not find more about the bows as I?ve just posted.
But I? ve examined more than 100 fragments of these bows when I was in Siberia. The birch- backings were made of small diameter trees or branches. The kren- wood was cut from even smaller branches, with a lot of knots and they had to decrown it for to get the needed width of 3-4cm.

In February you don?t have a good chance to see a living kren, everything is covered with ice and snow, the Russians told me that this kind of larch is more a bush than a tree.

Some of the bows were made asymmetrically. the longer limb up.

I guess that the Siberian two- wood bow is one of the most under-estimated bow- designs.

Michael

I see. There's not much published on these then.

It would be awesome to have a close-up look at these some day! Interesting stuff you say about the stave-thickness. All the medieval belly laminates from Norway are from larger trees, with an approximate diameter of 12-25 cm. Guess it solely has to do with the avaliability of materials.

It's a rather weird design isn't it? A recurved paddle :) But they really represent a brilliant design if you want a short, stable, wooden bow. - with the paddle-shape to allow for enough wood in the bow to store enough energy while still keeping the handle narrow. The extra mass at midlimb help stabilize them for better accuracy, and the recurves gives them a smooth draw regardless of the heavy bend at midlimb. They look like the result of trying to force a hornbow-design into a climate that won't allow the use of horn.

I'm quite curious to hear if the Siberian fragments have the same longitudinal lines as the Norwegian/Swedish/Finnish medieval ones? - like my reconstructions on the picture:

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Kviljo, I?ve just found some recordings I?ve done in Siberia.

Due to the cooperativeness of the Russian archaeologists I got every info
I want.

About glue: the Siberians used fishglue. They preserved the glue as small pellets, before the glueing they chewed these pellets until the glue got a processable consistency.

About arrowsheads:
With points made of bone:
tamary, an arrowhead that looks like a little club, as big as a small birds egg
Mumah: the arrowhead is one spike of bone
Wakar: four spikes of bone in a square, one in the middle

Points made of iron:
Dschaldiwun: a long spike
S?le?: a long rhombus
Pjelaga: like a fork, but with a transverse of wood to prevent deep penetration
Daptama: chisel shaped

The names of these arrowheads are in the language of the Tungus.

The arrowshafts were made of pine.

Michael

Ahh, brilliant!

The long spike-arrowhead, was that considered a point for war/penetrating some kind of armour, or did it have some other use?

I was wondering, did you ever see these longitudinal incised lines on any of the bow-laminates? These occur the majority of medieval two-wood bows.

The backings were also de-crowned, or did they follow the outer growthring on the back?

Kviljo,

I just love your two-wood bows!
If I may ask you how did you do the bowstrings?

Kviljo wrote:

Ahh, brilliant!

The long spike-arrowhead, was that considered a point for war/penetrating some kind of armour, or did it have some other use?

Hungarian archaeologists tend to state that they were used for hunting fur animals, as they would drop the animal, but do minimal damage to the valuable pelt.

Ashbow wrote:

Kviljo,

I just love your two-wood bows!
If I may ask you how did you do the bowstrings?

Thank you :)

The strings both have seperate loops for the recurves, tied the same way as on turkish hornbows. The middle part is either endless loop, or with spliced loops in each end. The one to the left is hemp, with linnen loops, and the right one is all linnen.

Russ Mitchell wrote:

Kviljo wrote:

Ahh, brilliant!

The long spike-arrowhead, was that considered a point for war/penetrating some kind of armour, or did it have some other use?

Hungarian archaeologists tend to state that they were used for hunting fur animals, as they would drop the animal, but do minimal damage to the valuable pelt.

I see! Do you know what that is based on? Ethnographical or historical sources?

I haven?t seen these longitudinal lines on the findings.

Even the laminations on the bows belly are decrowned, they?ve to do it cause the Siberian bowyers worked with small diameter- woods.

Michael

sorry, even the laminations on the bows back are decrowned.........

Michael

Kviljo, thanks for your answer

redhawk wrote:

sorry, even the laminations on the bows back are decrowned.........

Michael

Great stuff! Have you considered writing an article from your study? This information really deserves to get out to the archery community :)

- especially when considering the amount of work done on the simpler english longbow and other bow types.

I hope I don't have understand the decrown wrong? But to make the belly part flat it needs some work and so the back part also. Is this what you refer as decrown?
Decrown the back as I understand is to make it flat on back side but follow the ring. For glue line it only had to be flat so they bond. And when glue is done it can be tiller as a selfbow. And back will get sinew.

Small diameter staves are sometimes decrowned to achieve the required width of limb. The integrity of the growth ring is not maintained, the rounded back is removed to achieve a flatter profile.

Yes, decrowning is a way to achieve a flat back on a small diameter stave, I assume on a flat back tension is evenly distributed, a flat backed bow is therefore less likely to break and more durable than a a bow with a rounded one.
You can decrown the stave maintaining the wood fibers integrity of the back, you have to cut through the wood following the tree surface, than every growth ring will appear on the flat surface as two parallel lines (each one of the two on the opposite side of the middle of the stave) running along lenght of the back, the effect is supposed to be similar to following the surface of one growth ring on a wider in dimeter stave.

Sorry, I have logged out during writing a post :)
I'm the above guest

.................I guess we?ve to move this thread to Making bows........

Ashbow is right in explaining the decrowning of a stave, the sinew- backing is a must.

The discovery of decrowning as a principle of construction is a kind of side- result I?ve found in Siberia. Mainly I was focused on the Scythian bow finding of olon kurin gol. But even this finding is made of decrowned slats.

Maybe the bigger trees growing in Siberia are to bad for making bows, but I don?t think so. There is a lot of birch, pine, juniper.....the Scandinavians made their 2 wood-laminations with such woods without decrowning them.
I guess the decrowning is done to get a rectangular cross- sections for to degrade the shear- forces of rounded cross- sections. So it is a principle of construction. I?m not sure about that, many other ideas are welcome.

Michael

Assume the limb is 14mm and 40mm width. Glue line in middle you need 7mm wood, and a flat side few mm, so it takes a thick tree to make it. If you put on 3mm back with flat side it takes a wider tree. So decrown is a natural way to do it. And of course it needs sinew but that just makes a better bow :)
I use to tiller the bow before sinew and have break few that way (: but if it can't bend to brace without sinew it probably don't stay together at 28 inch draw.

I want one of these bows. I'm no bowyer so is anyone selling?

So this illustration could have been quite accurate. Perhaps it was engraved after a photograph.

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