ancient chinese self bow

[leehongyi]

here are three self bows from different dynasty tombs in china.
1.Spring and Autumn Period(771-476BC)
from zenghouyi tomb. sorry i have to upload the picture later. before that you can have a look at the spear-axes and arrows from this tomb.
 

[leehongyi]

2.Han dynasty self bow-1( 206 BC – 220 AD)

[leehongyi]

2.Han dynasty self bow-2( 206 BC – 220 AD)
some kind of holmgaard bow

[zenart]

Thanks for sharing. Be nice to see close-ups.

[Badger]

  An almost perfect design about 2,000 years ago.

[IdahoMatt]

Now that would be a fun replica project.  Very cool man.  Thanks for sharing this.

[leehongyi]

1.Spring and Autumn Period(771-476BC) bow

[Holten101]

Wow...that second bow has scary resemblance with the Hjarn๘ bow:-)

Awesome pictures:-)...thanks for sharing

[Del the cat]

Great pics 
Cheers
Del

[mikekeswick]

Haha! Great pictures!
It just goes to show - there is nothing new under the sun.
You can see the almost natural progression towards hornbows.

[Parnell]

Very interesting, brings a lot of questions to mind.  Thanks for sharing.

[bowtarist]

Those are great! kinda reminds me of a sudbury. Love the Chinese archery stuff you've been posting. How bout them arrows? dp

[Banjoe]

This makes me really curious about the origin of these early bows.
At that point in Chinese history there wasn't so much a unified cultural or political identity, it was more like warlord states with different groups. Since each of those groups would have had non-Chinese tribes and peoples in and near their "state" they may have received material tributes from satellite tribes or groups. Or even some exchange of craftsmen/workers.

Just imagining/speculating here, but given that likely mixing and interchange, maybe there were bowyers and bows of lots of different types. That brings up lots of interesting questions about progression of the bow and exchange of technique and technology, which may be represented in some of those pictures leehongyi shared.

I have nothing solid to back it up, but it may be reasonable to guess that the construction of the bow was standardized after the Qin Dynasty (something like 200 BC). If that were the case, that would make these pre-Qin bows even more interesting.

[leehongyi]

This makes me really curious about the origin of these early bows.
At that point in Chinese history there wasn't so much a unified cultural or political identity, it was more like warlord states with different groups. Since each of those groups would have had non-Chinese tribes and peoples in and near their "state" they may have received material tributes from satellite tribes or groups. Or even some exchange of craftsmen/workers.

Just imagining/speculating here, but given that likely mixing and interchange, maybe there were bowyers and bows of lots of different types. That brings up lots of interesting questions about progression of the bow and exchange of technique and technology, which may be represented in some of those pictures leehongyi shared.

I have nothing solid to back it up, but it may be reasonable to guess that the construction of the bow was standardized after the Qin Dynasty (something like 200 BC). If that were the case, that would make these pre-Qin bows even more interesting.

One is pre-Qin and two are post-Qin. even the tang dynasty painting, song dynasty painting, ming dynasty book had showed self bows.
Not everyone could have owned a hornbow. One reason is the high-cost of composite bow, and second the restriction of military items. thus from 2500+ years ago to now, the self bow dose not disappear in history. i agree with that most nations all over the world had and have the similar shape self bows.

[PaulN/KS]

Very interesting pictures, thanks for posting. Wooden artifacts that old are so rare that it's very cool to see the actual items in such good shape.
I can see a resemblance to the Sudbury bow too.