Photos of intentionally deflexed bows?

[organic_archer]

I’ve been scouring the archives for photos of bows with intentionally deflexed tips and was only able to find one.

Does anyone have photos or links they can share? I was hoping to attempt a historical recreation in the near future but it’s been difficult to track down examples. I’ve tried PA, PaleoPlanet and Google with little success.

EDIT : Not reflex-deflex or gull-wings. Referring to the bows we often see in old drawings and paintings that look to be mostly straight with heavily deflexed tips.

Thanks in advance!

[Selfbowman]

You probably won’t find many because they are not a good design and they figured that out a looong time ago. Just a guess.

[organic_archer]

I’m aware of the downsides. A self gull wing tends to have fairly wimpy cast compared to a straight-limbed selfbow, but that didn’t prevent it from being a common design. In my experience, sinew transforms a gull wing, but that’s beside the point.

There are always tradeoffs, and I intend to find out what they are. Maybe it’s the ability to be strung indefinitely with no ill effect. Maybe it’s a totally silent shot. No idea… yet.

I understand adding even more intentional deflex will be even more anemic than a self gull wing. It was an idea passed to me as a future bow build to discuss the pros and cons of the design, and I thought it sounded like a fun.

I ended up finding several examples throughout the Encyclopedia of Native American Bows : Plains and Southwest. Hoping anyone with more info or photos can still share!

[bassman211]

A lot of that deflex may have came with bows that were used frequently causing set. Then may be they would reflex the handle to get some power back. Just some thing I think could have happened.

[lonbow]

That's an interesting topic. Intentionally deflexed bows were quite common around the Mediterranean Sea in the ancient world. There are Mycenaean and ancient Greek depictions on stone walls and pottery showing bows with deflexed tips. This kind of design was also used a lot in ancient Egypt. Thanks to the dry climate, quite some of these bows are still in existence. These bows have different amounts of deflex at the tip regions and their cross sections are round over the entire length. Many of them were made out of acacia wood. Today, there are some African tribes who are still using the same bow style!

I've read that this bow design was made that way in order not to break in the hot and dry climates like in Egypt. I don't be live this to be true:

1. Despite of the deflexed tips, these bows are neither reflex nor deflex in total. The grip section of this bow style is reflexed and compensates for the deflexed tip regions. The material stress isn't reduced therefore. So this design wasn't made that way for preventing tension failure.

2. The backs of the bow would be flat and not round, if tension failure was a problem.

So there must be another reason for this design. Was it just a question of style or were there some practical reasons? So I've built an Osage bow of that design about 10 years ago. It didn't shoot that fast and it was more handshocky than my other bows. But it was the bow I could shoot most accurate with! I actually thought about building a new bow of this design. I think that it will be better than the last one, due to my grown experience. Maybe I should try. I can share this built on PA, if you are  interested in it. But it might take some time until I can start.

lonbow

[lonbow]

https://www.ancientworldmagazine.com/articles/archers-ancient-greece/

https://www.theoi.com/Gallery/K6.1.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%ADtati#/media/File:A_group_of_Egyptian_soldiers_and_Nubian_mercenaries_holding_axes,_bows,_and_quivers_of_arrows._From_the_mortuary_temple_of_Hatshepsut_at_Deir_el-Bahari,_15th_century_BCE._Neues_Museum,_Berlin.jpg

https://www.flickr.com/photos/24729615@N00/35814436512

https://verlag.wiethase.de/?page_id=189

[Aksel]

Lonbow & Organic archer, I´d be very interested in seeing a build of this style of bow !

 If I had a very dry or weak wood, I´d for sure make it longer than depicted on vases etc in the links. Those bows are short with an extreme deflexed tip- very interesting to see and thanks for sharing.
I wonder if they were all self bows or also composite?

[organic_archer]

Thank you for the links, Lonbow! Very interesting!

Askel. The Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen was buried with “a plethora of archery equipment”. The selfbows look to be long. Maybe 5.5 to 6 feet, but I can’t find measurements. The majority were “composites of wood, horn, sinew and bark” shaped in more recognizable D/R and R/D.

Good read about the excavation:

https://lithub.com/a-brief-excavation-of-the-bows-arrows-and-chariots-in-king-tuts-tomb/

The Maasai still use a bow very much akin to the Egyptian selfbow and count on its ability to provide.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/bow-and-arrow-class-and-maasai-mara-spear-throwing--667799450978516277/

A friend of mine who lives with the Hadza for several months each year said they almost never unstring their bows. They just replace it when it becomes “tired”. He’s doing some great work documenting their archery practices, hunting and craftsmanship. I believe the team ran a bunch of the bows through a chrono and noted that although usually quite heavy, they “weren’t very fast”.

His Hadza friend gifted me a half dozen mixed arrows and a longbow with a zebra hide wrap over its entire length and a giraffe sinew string. It has considerable string follow and would be nearly at rest when strung. Their families rely on these bows (that people might assume western bowyers would scoff at if you spend enough time on forums) as the primary source of procuring game. I’ll have to post it sometime. It’s a cool bow.

I’d guess the Maasai never unstring either, based on the bow’s shape. I have no first-hand witness to any of this by the way. Just forwarding what I’ve heard from people who know.

[Aksel]

There are rock carvings in Sweden dating to the Bronze age depicting double convex bows similar to the ones in lonbows link´s. We know they made efficient & long selfbows from elm and yew etc in Sweden at the time, but we also know that they travelled to the Mediterranean sea and it would surprise me if the double convex bows depicted where inefficient short selfbows they´ve seen on travels, but more likely quite amazing composite bows they´ve seen and brought home with them.

[Selfbowman]

You mean like this African poacher bow.

[Aksel]

Poachers bow? Nice. Makes me wonder if it by any chance would shoot more quietly?

[Selfbowman]

Good friend gave me that bow before he passed on. Story I got is they would wound the animal with a rifle track the animal and finish it off away from the scene. But yes I think they could be more quiet.

[NonBacked]

Quick Google search...

http://web.prm.ox.ac.uk/southernsudan/details.php- db=p&add=1967.26.248_O.jpg&a=1967.26.248&cap=Burun+man+shooting+arrow.html

[Aksel]

Interesting topic this.

I was reading in G. Rausings book "The Bow" and he says the double convex bow (as seen in lonbows links) originated indeed from south of Egypt where Nubian mercenaries brought the bow north (from present days Sudan to Egypt and beyond.)

Egyptians referred to Nubia as "Ta-Seti", or "The Land of the Bow," as the Nubians were known to be expert archers.

He also speculates some double segment bows where of antelope (Oryx?) hornes joined together in the handle at an angle. Maybe the explains the odd shape and perhaps did people try and replicate the shape of this famous bow design with selfbows ?

Guess we are drifting away from the original question 

[lonbow]

Thank you very much for the interesting pictures!

It's very interesting that the bows Hadza were seldom unbraced. I belive there is actually a good point in it: I think that these bows don't have any nocks that hold the string. The ancient Egyptian bows didn't. The strings were attached to the bow using knots and windings. I also did it like that and I can say that bracing a bow like that takes some time and doesn't work well if you are in a hurry. But there seems to be a difference between Hadza bows and ancient Egyptian bows: The Hadza bows show a lot of set from being braced for a long time while the preserved Egyptian bows don't. This rises the question, if those ancient Egyptian burial bows were actually used before or especially made for that purpose. Or maybe they just unbraced the bow each time so they didn't take much set.

I just had another idea, why those bows were/are made with deflex tip regions. I think that the tied knots don't slip that easy, because the direction of load is closer to 90 degrees.

With regard to hornbows, I don't know any Egyptian examples with the same shape. According to my knowledge they were brought to Egypt by the Hyksos, a nomadic tribe, before the beginning of the new kingdom. These bows were angular bows with deflexed grips and reflexed bow limbs. But the shape of those antilope horns might fit perfectly for this kind of bow.

lonbow


here's a picture of Egyptian bows. The upper one is a selfbow and the lower ones are composite bows. Their shape is different.

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