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Karl Randall




Location: South Korea
Joined: 10 Jul 2009
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PostPosted: Tue 30 Apr, 2013 3:50 am    Post subject: Historic Examples of Angular Bow of "Self" Constru         Reply with quote

Greetings all.

As one or two of you may know, I am doing my doctorate dissertation on the origins of the composite bow.

As a part of my research, I am looking for period examples of Angular bows of all wood (self) construction.

Rausing in his book, The Bow states that the Egyptians had such bows, but doesn't cite any existing artifacts.

Does anyone know of any period examples (I'll settle for pre-modern, but ancient would be better) of angular "self" bows? I for one am not convinced that they exist.
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Harri Kyllönen




Location: Finland
Joined: 12 Jun 2009

Posts: 42

PostPosted: Tue 30 Apr, 2013 8:26 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I hope you include in you research the North-Eurasian laminated bow that could be a kind of "missing link" between self bows and more complex composite bows.
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Christopher Treichel




Location: Metro D.C.
Joined: 14 Jan 2010

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PostPosted: Tue 30 Apr, 2013 11:42 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Didn't the Egyptians use angular self bows during their early period before they used composite bows?
I bet there are some in museums... considering how everything else they did got preserved in the dry desert/tombs

http://www.griffith.ox.ac.uk/gri/9bow.html
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Timo Nieminen




Location: Brisbane, Australia
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PostPosted: Tue 30 Apr, 2013 2:02 pm    Post subject: Re: Historic Examples of Angular Bow of "Self" Con         Reply with quote

Karl Randall wrote:

As a part of my research, I am looking for period examples of Angular bows of all wood (self) construction.


I'd be very surprised if you find one that's a self bow, in the strict sense (a functional one, as opposed to a non-functional copy).

Made in 3 pieces (limbs + grip) would be plausible, but I don't see any advantage over decurve self-bows, and it would (probably) have less power due to a larger brace height.

The triangular composite bow makes sense; start with curled-forward limbs that straighten when the bow is strung. I wonder how that compares with a regular reflex-recurve composite bow? Sounds like a good student project!

"In addition to being efficient, all pole arms were quite nice to look at." - Cherney Berg, A hideous history of weapons, Collier 1963.
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Dan Howard




Location: Maitland, NSW, Australia
Joined: 08 Dec 2004

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PostPosted: Tue 30 Apr, 2013 2:39 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

All the examples I found when writing my book were composite bows.
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Karl Randall




Location: South Korea
Joined: 10 Jul 2009
Likes: 3 pages

Posts: 38

PostPosted: Tue 30 Apr, 2013 3:16 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Thank you for the replies thus far.

@ Harri - Yes I will be including the Lake Baikal region artifacts, and am making them a key point of my artifact-based evidence.

@Christopher - There were definitely some JOINED bows made of horn (pair of Oryx horns with a wooden plug) which may have taken on an angular profile, one of which goes all the way back to the first dynasty, but I can't find any examples made out of wood.

@Timo - I would be very surprised as well. Rausing claims that these angular profile self bows were made in imitation of the new angular composite design - but then fails to back up the claim with any kind of physical proof. I agree that the angular profile really doesn't make any sense for self construction, but as the claim has been made, I am trying to see if anyone knows of a period example that can verify it.
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