Turke bowes two hadde he.
That oon of hem was of a tree
That bereth a fruyt of savour wikke;
Ful croked was that foule stikke,
And knotty here and there also,
And blak as bery, or any slo.
That other bowe was of a plante
Without wem, I dar war ante*(*The
Romaunt of the Rose, Fragment A, 923-930) |
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Lorris and Chaucer wish to describe a very strong
bow. The Turkish bow was certainly very powerful, but it
was not made of wood; instead, it was a reflexed bow,
skillfully fashioned of layers of horn, wood, and sinew.
The result was a very far-shooting weapon, even
surpassing the famed English longbow which Chaucer
probably had in mind, although no bowyer would choose a
stave "full croked... and knotty here and there also."
The Composite Bow
The composite bow, as used by the
Islamic horse-archers, represents one of the most
efficient forms of this weapon ever devised and its
construction is worthy of detailed consideration. The
most important source of information is Mustafa Kani,
Telhis-i Resail er-Rumat, Istanbul, A.D. 1847, with
Joachim Hein's dissertation on this work in Der Islam,
xiv (1925), pp. 289-360, on which P. E. Klopsteg based
his translation and commentary in Turkish Archery and
the Composite Bow, which appeared as a private edition
in 1934 with a revision and reprint in 1947. This work
is mainly concerned with the flight bow of the Ottoman
Turks, which is a specialised form of this weapon
devised for sporting purposes. Flight shooting was a
favorite pastime among most archers in the Middle East,
and its sole object is to achieve maximum distance
without regard to accuracy. The techniques involved
require special skill, and exponents of this art among
the Turks, where it reached its highest perfection,
could send their light and delicate little arrows over
600 yards. However, neither the bows nor the arrows used
with them were suitable for war, though this method of
shooting has an obvious application in the long-range
barrage against a massed target up to a limiting range
of about 400 yards.
Valuable contributions have also been
made by Henry Balfour and Commander H. S. Hamlin, Jr.
Their published works give a very complete picture of
the internal structure of the Eastern bows. During
recent years painstaking and careful dissection of a
number of Oriental composite bows have been made by
Edward McEwen to determine the exact details of their
construction, followed by the making of replicas, using
the original materials, to prove the accuracy of his
observations. Discussions with him have added
considerably to our knowledge of the finer points in the
art of the craftsmen who made these weapons.
With reference to fig. 1 the
construction of a typical bow was as follows. The
craftsman started with a wood core, the main requirement
of which was that it should absorb glue well. Varieties
of maple, cornus, mulberry and similar types are among
the better woods for this purpose, and dissected bows
often show different woods were used for different
sections of the core. This is usually in five sections,
two siyahs, two dustars and the grip. The siyahs provide
the relatively thick and un- bending ends to the bow,
whose purpose will be discussed below, while the dustars
are thin and flexible, as all the bending when the bow
is drawn takes place in this section.
The parts were then glued together
with fishtail splices about 32 inches in length. In this
way the actual handle, or grip, of the bow is about 5
inches long, but about 12 inches with its splices at
either end. The form of the wood core determines the
final shape of the bow and the curve of the siyah in
relation to the dustar. In the case of Persian and
Turkish bows-using this latter adjective in its wider
sense-the siyab is smoothly curved over its length
through about 60o, while the Indo-Persian
ones have a more sharply curved knee near the base of
the siyah where it joins the dustar giving a curve in
the siyah through about 90g or, in the case of the
so-called 'crab' bow from India of as much as 120o
(see Plate III). To achieve this amount of curve the
siyah is made in two parts spliced together as otherwise
weakness would result due to there being no continuous
run in the grain of the wood. Craftsmen appear to have
preferred splicing to increasing the curve of the wood
by heat or of going to the trouble to find a natural
growth of approximately the right shape.
The siyah at this stage was made
longer than the final form, as shown in the top
left-hand drawing, to allow a temporary nock to be cut
on the 'wrong' side and, as will be explained, this was
used to control the shape of the bow during manufacture.
The siyah, though carved from a single piece of wood, is
in two sections. There is the end which is usually oval
or triangular in section and is 2 to 3 inches in length
and then the ridged part which in section is like a
triangle with two concave sides that extend to the point
of the splice (see fig. 2).
In designing any good bow there are
two important features that must be avoided. One is that
there must be no bend in the grip when the bow is drawn.
If there is, the bow kicks in the hand when it is shot,
it is unpleasant to use and it is almost certain to be
inaccurate. The second is related to the pull on the
string, which the archer calls the weight of the bow.
This, naturally, increases as the string is drawn
further and further back, but if the weight increases
rapidly towards the end of the draw it will again result
in inaccurate shooting as a fractional variation in draw
length will have a more marked effect on the range
attained by the arrow than if the weight increases
slowly at the end. In this way a rapid build-up in the
weight at the end of the draw magnifies any error made
by the archer, while a slow build-up tends to eliminate
it (see fig. 3).
With the Oriental composite bow the
design of the handle eliminates bending in the centre
when the bow is drawn and the rigid siyahs, acting as
levers during the latter half of the draw, effectively
reduce the rate of increase of the weight at this stage.
These factors will be con- sidered in further detail
below.
The next stage in the construction of
the bow was to attach two strips of horn to the belly,
which is the side facing the archer as he shoots. That
of long-horned cattle was most commonly used and the
strips taper from the grip to the end of the splice
where the siyah is fitted to the dustar. At the centre
of the limb they vary in thickness from about 1/8th to
1/4 inch. Both the inside of the horn and the wood core
of the dustar, which is not usually flat, but slightly
curved from side to side, were scored along their length
to increase the surface area exposed to the glue and
thus give better adhesion. The horn was lightly bound to
the core to avoid exuding too much of the glue and then
left for, perhaps, two months to allow the glue to set.
At this stage the bow was a flat 'U' in shape and it was
held in this form by a cord tied between the tips of the
two siyahs. The curve of the bow was reflex, that is to
say the opposite way to which it would be bent for
stringing, and the cord that controlled the amount of
bend was firmly seated in the temporary nocks cut in the
'wrong' side of the tips.
With existing Persian bows the horn
on each limb is not a single piece but a number of
strips glued together and held in position with a
binding of fine sinew 1). This practice seems to have
been peculiar to the Persians and arose from the design
of the limbs which were usually much wider than those of
any of the other Middle Eastern bows. Because of this
feature a single piece of horn could not be obtained
that was flat enough and wide enough to fit the belly.
It is of interest to note that a similar width is
favoured in modern bow design as this helps to avoid any
lateral twisting in the limb as the bow is drawn.
This glueing process took place in
the winter, when the cooler and more humid conditions
slowed the setting .rate of the glue 2). A slow setting
rate gives superior adhesion.
When the glue had set, the next stage
was to apply sinew to the back of the bow, which is the
side away from the archer as he shoots. Leg tendon of
cattle or deer answers well. Payne-Gallwey 3) and F. E.
Brown') both speak of neck sinew being used, but from
practical trials this has proved useless. First, it will
not beat out into fine fibres and secondly it is too
elastic to provide the desired tension when the bow is
drawn. It is sometimes found, cut into thin strips, as
additional packing in the region of the siyah, but this
would appear to be its only real use in the construction
of the bow. After the leg sinew has been cleaned and
dried it can be beaten out into fine fibres, and it is
in this form that it is impregnated with glue and
fastened to the back of the bow.
Glue-soaked sinew cannot be
effectively applied in cold weather as it is then
difficult to handle and the result will be a poor bow.
It is by far the most important component in the
composite bow, and even if inferior wood and horn are
used such defects in materials can, to a large extent,
be eliminated by the correct application of sinew. This
process was normally carried out on a warm spring day
and the sinew could be laid on in one, two or even three
layers. Two layers were used in making the flight bows
of the Ottoman Turks and in this case the reflex in the
bow was slightly increased when the first layer was
applied. It is not known if the same practice was
followed by craftsmen from other regions. When the final
layer was applied the bow was reflexed into a complete
oval and a cord was led around the temporary nocks cut
into the extended siyahs and down to the grip to hold it
in this position until the glue had set (see fig. 1,
bottom left-hand drawing). The object of this method of
construction was to get the maximum tension into the
sinew when the bow was later strung and drawn, as high
efficiency can only be achieved if the various
components are adequately stressed when the bow is shot.
However carefully the two horn strips
are butted against each other when applied to the wood
core, a gap almost invariably appears between them when
the bow is fully reflexed. If this gap is not plugged
unfair shearing strains will be thrown on to the bond
between the wood core and the horn when the bow is shot,
the slight reflex in the handle and the rigidity of the
grip will be lost. This is the reason for the ibranjaq
(Turkish: chelik) found at the centre of the grip and
fitted between the two horn strips. All existing bows
that have been examined have this fitting made from bone
or ivory, though in earlier days a suitable hardwood
seems to have been employed 1). Elmer suggested that it
was a form of shock absorber 2), but he lacked practical
experience in their construction.
When the glue had set after about
another two months or so, the bow had to be adjusted so
that both limbs curved equally and correctly when it was
drawn. The excess was cut off the siyahs and the nocks
for the bowstring cut into the back. With Turkish and
Persian bows a saw cut was made 2 to 3 inches in length
and a slim wedge of horn inserted to reinforce and
strengthen the tips of the bow. This feature is absent
in bows from India and no mention of it has been found
in any of the Arabic manuscripts that have been
examined, though this does not preclude the fitting as
none of the works go into the finer details of
construction. On the side of each nock toward the grip,
after the tips of the siyahs had been fully shaped, a
sinew binding was applied to avoid any risk of the wood
splitting under the impact of the bowstring when the bow
was shot. Where the horn insert was used it also held
this firmly in place.
To string a fully reflexed bow is not
an easy task. After removing any surplus or exuded glue
as well as any obvious irregularities with a file, the
bow would have been thoroughly warmed to make it more
supple. The craftsman, probably with an assistant, would
then have carefully flexed both limbs together until a
string could be slipped into the nocks. The shape of the
two limbs could then be studied and, after removing the
string, any section of the limb not curving enough would
be filed away until the right shape was achieved. This
process, known as tillering, calls for much care and
patience if a first class weapon is to be produced.
Having achieved the right shape when the bow was strung,
the bow then needed to be partly drawn and studied again
to see that the two limbs were still correctly balanced
and, if they were not, the file once more had to be
applied. This process continued until the bow could be
brought to full draw with both limbs achieving as
perfect a curve as lay within the skill of the maker to
produce. If the two limbs do not recoil exactly together
when a bow is shot, inaccuracy is the only result and
good shooting characteristics can only be achieved by
the slow and careful process described.
Finally, the sinew was covered with
thin diagonal strips of bark or thin leather and
varnished to make it waterproof. The reason for the
diagonal strips of bark is that this material has
virtually no stretch. If they were placed along the
length of the limb they would break as soon as the bow
was drawn. The horn might also be covered as is
invariably the case with existing Persian and Indian
bows. Mamluk, Ottoman flight, Mongolian and Sino-Tatar
bows, among others, left the horn exposed. The covering
was then decorated and many of the designs that can
still be seen show a high standard of skill and
artistry. Sir John Chardin, writing of his third visit
to Persia, from which he returned in 1677, says: "The
Persian Bows are the most valued of all the East: The
Matter whereof they are made is Wood and Horn laid over
one another, and covered with Sinews, and over that the
skin of a tree very sleek and smooth; they paint them
afterwards, and Varnish them so admirably well, that one
may see one's self in those Bows, and the colour of them
is as bright as possible".
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