History s Curve

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Written by Lee Lawrence

Photographed by David H. Wells

HISTORYS

CURVE


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An unfinished bowrests in the grip of avise in a workshopnear the small town

of Grand Rapids, Ohio. On a

nearby work table is a litter ofsanding blocks, large-toothedmetal combs, wads of steelwool, rolls of masking tape,wrenches, chisels and files. Froma pipe overhead hangs a stalac-tite of orange-tipped clamps.In the center of the chaos sitsBubba, a longhaired gray catwith a body as massive as hisappetite for attention.

It is here, under Bubbas watch-ful eye, that Lukas Novotny is crafting

what he hopes will be a bow in whichsuperlative performance is combinedwith an unsurpassed grace and beauty lightness and hardinessthe dreamof modern bowyers. Trained as a glassartisan in the former Czechoslovakia,Novotny emigrated to the United Statesin 1982; jars of colorful pieces of glasscrowd the shelves behind him. Amongthem, though, are the materials of hispresent career: a curl of buffalo hornprotruding from a top shelf, a slimquiver bristling with arrows standingnearby and, directly in front of theshelves, racks full of row upon row ofbows. A slim 32 to 76 millimeters wide(114 to 3'') but ranging up to 132 cen-timeters long (52''), they extend asgracefully as a ballerinas arms.

These are Novotnys reconstructionsof Asian composite recurved bows, sonamed because they are composed ofseveral materials and because, when

In a modern archery contest like

the 16th-century one depicted in an

Ottoman miniature from the Divan

Ali Sir Nevai at left, a mounted arch

opposite, takes aim with his recurve

bow during Septembers Internatio

Horse Archery Festival (IHAF) in Fort

Dodge, Iowa. While Ottoman caval

archers targeted a gourd on top of

pole, todays sport shooters use bueye patterns set at various distance

was Ottoman bowyers whose techn

ogy gave Sultan Selim III a recurved

composite bow in 1798 with which

the sultan himself shot an arrow

888.80 meters (963 yds), a distance

record that modern composite bow

have yet to approach.

which is in tension. In the procthey reduced the wooden elemeof the bow to a slim core whos

sole role was to keep the sinewand the horn aligned.

The next development wasthe discovery that, by trainingthe tips of the bows limbs tocurve forward, in the oppositedirection of the drawtherecurve of the recurveddesignboth the power and theaccuracy of the bow could beincreased still more, though at

the cost of making it harder to drawAnd over the life of the bow, as it

gradually lost its spring action, thebowyers found that reheating its lim

strung, the curve of the limbs reversesat the tips. Elegant and light, they are

masterpieces of engineering, contempo-rary products of an ancient craft thathas, time and again, changedthe course of history.

Like most great inventions,the composite recurved bowwas the culmination of a longtechnological evolution.Humans had been hunting andwarring with simple woodenbows for more than 30,000years when, about the thirdmillennium BC, bowyers fromMesopotamia to Japan inde-pendently began experimentingwith ways to enhance theirbows springing action by intro-ducing other materials: Theyapplied horn to the side of thebow facing the archer, the sidein compression when the bow isdrawn, and they applied animalsinew to the outward side,


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considered it of secondary importanceand thus failed to perfect archery equip-ment or tactics. The Byzantines, on theother hand, valued archery, and this

had something to do with the fact thatByzantium outlived the Roman Empireby about 1000 years. When its fallbegan with the battle of Malazgirt in1071, it was to the Seljuk Turks, whowere true masters of the bow.

Every historical work on archeryspeaks of the legendary Persian archersaid to have shot an arrow through afive-centimeter (2'') thickness of brass,and of Ottoman Sultan Selim III who,in 1788, personally set a still unsur-passed distance record of 888.80

meters, or 963 yardsfarther than thebest modern bow can shoot. In litera-ture, the bow became associated withgreat heroes as a virtual extension oftheir bodiesan idea that is not in factfarfetched, since the archer, in drawingthe bow, trans-fers energy fromhis body into thebody of the bow,where it is storeduntil he releases

imple bows (self-bows) are what most peoplethink of when they think of bows. Some 30,000 to40,000 years ago, humans took a strip of wood andtied its ends together with a taut string to create the

first weapon that could store energy. The premise is simple:The archer pulls back on the string, drawing the bow to asmaller radius curve. When the archer lets go of the string,the energy stored in the bow transfers to the arrow, castingit faster and farther than the archers hand could throw it.

Longbows are made of one or more pieces of woodtypi-cally yew, osage or black walnutand they are as tall or tallerthan the archer. The strongest are powerful enough to shootan arrow through a plate of armor at 365 meters (400 yds),though their more typical range is about half that. To shoot alongbow with accuracy requires great skill and strength. Easyto reload, the longbow was reputedly Robin Hoods weaponas he roamed Sherwood Forest in the 1200s, and it later dom-inated the battlefields of northern Europe from 1300 to 1500,credited among other things with assuring victory to the

Bowyer Lukas Novotny demonstrates the C-

shape of the unstrung recurved bow, which,

when strung, takes on its characteristically

serpentine, tips-forward shape.

it to the arrow. Rustem, the hero ofFirdawsis 11th-century Persian epicthe Shahnama (Book of Kings), thusliterally uses his final breath to shoothis enemy through the heart.

In Islam, too, the bow holds aspecial place. It is the weapon theArchangel Gabriel handed down toAdam, the one God commanded the

Prophet Muhammad to use. Some 40hadith (traditions, or recorded say-ings and stories about the Prophet)focus on archery as a way to strengtheboth body and soul, and while somehadith encourage metaphorical inter-pretations, others led to the establishment of archery instruction as funda-mental to physical fitness. In 1835 thOttoman ruler Mahmud II had bothaspects in mind when he commandedhis courtier Kani to set down in writinall available information about archer

He was doing this, he announced, sothat under my royal patronage novicesmay acquire complete knowledge ofthe sunna [the example] of the Propheand by diligence come to possess thedegrees of both worlds.

and gently restoring its original curvealso restored its original power.

Asias long-standing preference forthe bow over the sword, mace andother weapons favored by Europeansup through the 15th century is creditedwith helping shape and reshape thepolitical boundaries of the Old World.In 546 BC, Persian archers overcameLydian mounted lancers and, in battlesagainst Babylonians, Egyptians and

Greeks, they often prevailed over theoppositions infantry. Much later, in afamous conflict between the Romanarmy and the Parthians in 64 BC, itwas what military historian E. G.Heath called the never-failing quiverthat thwarted the eastward advance ofthe Roman Empire. It was not that theRomans ignored archerythey simply

BOW FACTSAND TYPES

Simple Bow

a

a

a. Unstrung b. Strung c. Drawn

b

b

c

c

Recurved Composite Bow

British against the French in 1346 at the Battle of Crcy andagain in 1415 at Agincourt. The disadvantage of a longbowis that its size requires that the archer be on foot: It is almostimpossible to shoot a longbow while riding a horse.

Composite bows are typically made of wood, horn and


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shredded animal sinew. They can pack the same poweras a longbow but in a smaller, lighter form usable by amounted archer.

Recurved composite bows are the most powerful, com-pact design known. The recurve refers to the tips that curveforward, in the direction of the shot. Each variation of therecurved composite designPersian, Turkish, Indian or

Mongolexcels in a particular area: The Persian bow, forexample, trades distance for power; the Turkish bow sacrificaccuracy for distance. Some recurved composite bows use otmaterials: The Chinese bow, for example, is made with a baboo core covered with strips of young bamboo on the back(in place of sinew) and dried, year-old bamboo on the belly

Crossbows are mounted in a metal frame equipped witha crank, which gives thearcher a mechanical advantage in drawing the bow.Though it shoots with grepower and accuracy, its loreloading time made itmore useful in sieges thanin battles. Crossbows werdeveloped and used inEurope in the 11th to 15thcentury, and Europeans aldeployed them in the MidEast during the Crusades.

Two hadith specifically mention theArab bow, commonly interpreted asreferring to a composite bowthoughsome scholars believe that the earliestMuslim warriors from the ArabianPeninsula used simple bows until theygained the know-how to constructcomposites from conquered lands suchas Syria. Indeed, a bow considered to

have belonged to Muhammad, now inIstanbuls Topkap Museum, is made ofbamboo. Nevertheless, by the time thehadith were codified in the eighth cen-tury, the bow used by Muslims hadlong been the composite bow, in whichthe wood was said to correspond tobone, the horn to flesh, the sinews toarteries and the glue to blood.

Just as each of these tissues playsa different role in the workings of thebody, each of the bows elements has asimilarly specific function. The sinew

takes the tension, Novotny explains.The horn on the belly takes the com-pression, and in the middle, the woodtakes the shear stress. Its a simplepremise, but if you dont get the detailsright, he warns, youll have prob-lems. After all, when drawn, the bend-ing portions of the bow bear some 175kilograms of pressure per square cen-timeter (2400 lb/sq in). If the belly can-not stand the compression, it buckles,and if the back of the bow cannot bear

the stretch, it pulls apart.At first, Novotnyconfesses, most of thebows I made broke.

Early bowyers nodoubt experiencedsimilar failures inthe development ofrecurved composite

designs, but thanksto trade in peacetimeand the capture ofweapons in wartime,technology was rapidlydiffused as bowyersover wide areas influ-enced each other. Thecultural exchange wasincredible, Novotnysays with enthusiasm.We have an idea ofwhat a typical bow

1. Shown unstrung, this

modern composite bow

uses sheep horn covered

with rawhide. 2. Detail

of the grip of a replica of

a Turkish composite bow.

3.5. Details of 19th-

century Turkish composite

bows made of wood, horn

and sinew covered with

leather and painted.

Below left: Cross-sections of composite Turkish bows show the layering of materials. Below right: An illustra-

tion based on an Assyrian relief shows one method of stringing a recurved bow, a task that usually requires

two people in the field, or a specially designed form in the workshop.

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from each culture looked like, but atthe same time, there could be anyvariation in between.

While Persians, Parthians, Turks,Mongols, Mughals and others all hadhighly developed traditions, mostarchers today consider Turkish bowsof the late 1700s and 1800s to be thehigh-water mark of the Asian compos-

ite bow. After that time, firearms beganto dominate the battlefield, fewer andfewer people had time for archery assport, and the bowyers art declined.There were probably a few peoplealive who knew how to make compos-ite bows until World War II, Novotnyspeculates. But unfortunately, nobodyin Turkey today, at least to my knowl-edge, knows how to build them. Ittook only one generation to lose theknowledge entirely.

The desire to recover and rediscoverthat knowledge has turned into an all-consuming passion for Novotny, who

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over the last decade gradually gave upglass to dedicate himself full-time toresearching and making bows profes-sionally. He began by reading a bookon North American bows and, being anavid horseman himself, tried his hand atmaking the short horn-and-sinew bowsthat Plains Indian tribes used for huntingbuffalo. But always in the back of my

mind, he says, was the history I grewup with in Czechoslovakiaof Turksinvading Europe and besieging Vienna.

He said as much to bow expertTim Baker, whom he met by chancein California in 1992, a time Bakerremembers as the zenith of the recon-struction of Asian composite bows.Their aficionados, he adds, laughing,were one of the smallest minoritygroups in the universe.

What the group lacked in numbers,it more than made up for in dedication,as Novotny discovered when Bakerput him in touch with Jeff Schmidt,

In Fort Dodge, a young archer draws his bow while sitting on a steel horse that simulates

the challenge of shooting from the saddle for novices. The 14th-century author of Essential

Archery for Beginners wrote of young Mamluk archers, As regards the qualities of the

novice, the foundations upon which they all rest are humility, hearing attentively and

obeying that which is pleasing to God Almighty and His Messenger.

a physicist at the University ofWisconsin. For two years, Schmidt toohad been researching Asian compositebows, and he was well known inarchery circles for his extensive libraryof books in English, Russian andPersian and his files bulging withthousands of photocopied papers. Butmore than that, Novotny says, he

had all the technical know-how.Like Novotny, Schmidt had startedout reading books, scouring bibliographies and tracking down every pieceof writing he thought might containuseful information. One discovery waa book published in London in 1970,Saracen Archery: An English Versionand Exposition of a Mameluke Workon Archery, in which authors J. D.Latham and W. F. Paterson explicatea 14th-century Arabic treatise in versetitled Kitab Ghunyat at-Tullab fi

Marifat Ramy al-Nushshab, looselytranslated as Essential Archery forBeginners. The text had been writtenat a time when the Mamluks had convincingly demonstrated the prowess otheir archers by repelling the Mongolassault on Egypt and Syria in 1260. Iprovided basic data on bow construction, supplemented with informationgleaned from other early texts andwith observations derived from theauthors own experimentation.

Saracen Archery showed that the

wooden core of the composite bowwas made of five elements: the handlin the center, two limbs (dustars) oneither side and the curved tips (siyahsthat are either attached to or made aspart of the dustars. In either case, thetips do not flex; they taper sharply tothe nocks, where the string is attachedIn many bows, the siyah simplyextends the curve of the dustar, butearly bowyers introduced the famousrecurve that gave the bows their familiar, wave-like shape, their greatercapacity for tension and their greaterpower. These were the bows thatNovotny wanted to build.

To make the core, Novotny selectspieces of American hard rock maple, thclosest match he can find locally for thfine-grained maple favored by Turkishbowyers. Like them, he carves the handle into a gently rounded form, oval icross-section, that fits comfortably in


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the hand, the fingers curling aroundthe swell and back toward the palm. Toprovide a firm grip, however, the handlemust not be so small that the fingersreach around to the palmthat wouldcreate, in effect, a bearing in which thebow could swivel.

Most bows made with dustars andsiyahs as single elements are Turkish.

To make them, Novotny cuts 76-cen-timeter (30'') sections of wood andsoaks them in cold water for threedays. Then he steams the two piecesinto curves of some 60 degrees. Forbows in which the dustars andsiyahs are separate elements,typically known as Persianfive-element bows, he steamsthe dustars into a gentle curveand finds branches growingat the desired angle for thesiyahs. To assemble the parts,

he tapers both ends of thehandle and, if needed, the endsof the siyahs. He then cuts V-shaped splices into the dustarsand, after brushing on glue,fits the pieces snugly to forma strong, undetectable joint.

Next comes the horn;Novotny uses water-buffalohorn. He prepares it by shav-ing off the surface ridges, cut-ting it roughly to size, thensteaming and flattening it. He

can now shave the horn untilhe has twin strips of uniformthickness the width of thewood core. He glues the hornstrips onto the bows belly sothey meet in the center of thehandle. Then he winds a ropearound the bow using a tradi-

At an IHAF workshop, Novotny

demonstrates shooting positions:

Essential Archery for Beginners

described 10 primary and seven

secondary ones. The Mamluk trea-

tise also had this to say to teachers:

As to a masters duties, he should

labor to the end that [his pupils]

may strive to learn and ever

reverence the place dedicated

to archery. Top: A thumb ring,

believed to have been developed

in China and Central Asia by 200 BC,

allows an archer a stronger draw.

tional tool called, in Turkish, a tepelik.Unlike modern clamps, the tepelik cre-ates an even pressure along the curve,squeezing out excess glue. The bow isnow left to dry for several weeks withits ends tied to maintain a soft curve.

The sinew requires even longerpreparation. Novotny buys whole ten-dons from a slaughterhouse and here

departs from tradition in that he usesacetone to degrease them instead of thehighly carcinogenic naphtha that wasused in the past. But he does so onlybecause both are equally effective. If


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the glue joint has a speck of greaseon it, Novotny explains, itll fail,because grease and glue do not mix,and there will be a speck where thereis no glue. In highly stressed bows,an unglued speck is enough to intro-duce a fatal weakness.

Once the sinew is dry, Novotnybreaks it up with his fingers and

combs through it with a metal brush.The sinew is now a mass of long, thickfibers, which he dips in hot hide gluebefore laying them on the bow. I usefive different lengths of sinew, heexplains. Through the bending por-tion, you always use the long fibers;the shorter pieces are for building uparound the handle area and along thesides, and they get overlapped andstaggered like bricks.

He applies the sinew in two orthree courses, each containing three

to four layers. After the first course,he lets the bow dry a couple of weeksto allow the sinew to shrink. As thefibers shorten, they force the limbsto curve in on themselves, a processNovotny encourages by tying a stringbetween the siyahs and twisting it asthe sinew contracts. This is the begin-ning of a process that ultimately givesthe bow its strength: It is tantamountto instilling the memory of a particularcurve into the fibers of the horn, sinewand wood so that, when Novotny later

bends the bow in the opposite direc-tion to string it, every cell of the bowwill want to spring back. The tensionincreases when Novotny pulls the bowinto full draw, so that upon release thebows fibers snap back, unleashing anexplosion of energy.

But before that happens, there isstill much to do. Novotny applies asecond course of sinew, after whichhe again dries the bow, this time ina heat box. When the limbs are mal-leable, he reflexes them even moresharply, tying the siyahs so closetogether they almost touch. After lay-ing the final course of sinew, he fol-lows the same procedure, this timecrossing the limbs all the way over thecenter until the bow looks like a pret-zel. Then you leave it in that formfor about a year, minimum. You see,he explains, hide glue only reachesits full strength after 10 years.

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Novotny draws one of his Turkish-style com

posite replicas that take some 18 months to

produce. The difference between shooting

a composite bow and a fiberglass one is like

going to a dinner party and using silverwa

instead of plastic. Its more supple and

sweeter to shoot.

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By now the bow has been curved smuch that the two pieces of horn onits belly no longer meet in the centerof the handle. Novotny cuts a sliver o

hardwood or bonecant use ivoryany moreand inserts it in the tinygap. Finally, he covers the sinew sidewith strips of white birch bark thathave been soaked for a year in seawateSometimes he uses leather instead,and often he paints on it a decorationappropriate to the type of bow he hasmade. Jeff Schmidt, on his bows, tookthis a step further, learning Persian inorder to select appropriate verses ofpoetry to decorate his bows.

From the time Novotny cuts thewood to the day he declares a bowcomplete, a year and a half has usualelapsed, some of it spent testing thebow, adjusting it, and testing it againHe is often seen astride his horse, bowin hand, and at least twice a day hesteps outside his studio to shootarrows into stacked bales of corn-husks. The setting in rural Ohio is sobucolic, and Novotnys gestures so

1. Water-buffalo horns await shaving,

cutting, steaming and gluing to a

wooden core in Novotnys Ohio work-

shop. 2. Building blocks of a Turkish-

style composite bow: two strips of

horn, two dustarlimbs, twosiyahs

(attached), a grip and two bundles

of sinew; the finished bow at the

top shows the final unstrung shape.

3. After gluing horn to the inside of the

core, Novotny lays down sinew on the

outside of the dustar. 4. He combs the

sinew, which will then dry for weeks,

pulling the tips of the bow ever closer

together. When the bow is curved back,

the sinew will be stretched, giving the

bow far more power than if it were

made only of wood. 5. After a year

of seasoning, Novotny uses molded

forms called tepeliks to pull the bow

into stringing position.


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6. He then repeatedly tightens the

moldsonly an inch or so every two

or three hoursafter heating the bo

to teach it proper tiller, or curva

ture. 7. The first draws are gentle

tests. 8. Rasping away horn can relie

stiff spots and balance the draw.

9. Like other neo-traditional bowye

Novotny uses decorative patterns fro

antique bows.

skilled craftsmen, Novotny pointsout, bowyers guarded their secrets.

For example, for all its precisepointers on assemblage and mate-rials, Saracen Archery does notprovide exact dimensions forbows. Its units of measurement arenot standardized, and many of theproportions are expressed in terms

of a mans anatomy, yet there is notelling just what size that man is.When Jeff Schmidt, who stands

nearly two meters tall (6' 6''),built a bow using measurementsbased on his own body, it had apreposterous draw of 90 kilo-grams (200 lb): It was impossibleto draw. This is because doublingthe thickness of the bow increasesits stiffness by a factor of eight.

Undeterred, Schmidt keptsearching. He found in the second

edition of Paul Ernest Klopstegsself-published 1947 book TurkishArchery and the Composite Bow notonly the findings Kani compiled forMahmud II, but also the results ofKlopstegs 15 years of experimenta-tion, which yielded dimensions thatactually worked. Then Schmidtheard about a bowyer named JohnMcPherson, a Kansan who was mak-ing highly recurved Native Americanbows of horn and sinew. Schmidtspent a summer with McPherson

learning the ways horn and sinewbehave. By trialand error, Schmidtrefined his bowsproportions anddetermined whichmaterials workedbest: The Achillestendons from cat-tle, he discovered,provided the bestsinew, and waterbuffalo providedthe best horn

even though some texts recommendedgoat and antelope.

It was just about this time, in thefall of 1992, that Novotny showed upon his doorstep with some reallygood North American Indian bows,says Schmidt, who confesses he wasshocked and disappointed becausemine were so crude by comparison.

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assured, that every step looks self-evi-dent, straightforward, easy. Yet nothingcould be more deceptive. With nomaster bowyer to guide them, archerstoday have had to learn from bows inmuseums and from old texts, neitherof which tell a complete story.

A composite bow can only reveal itsfull range of secrets if you take it apart,and for the best bows, invariably inmuseums and private historical collec-tions, this is clearly not an option.

Neither is stringing old bows and test-ing them, since thereis no way to assesswhether or not theycould now withstandthe tension. Whiledamaged bows canbe taken apart with-out as many qualms,they yield informa-tion only about thefinal product, andthus there is little tohelp understand theprocess. As for the texts, they focusmostly on shooting techniques, and thechapters on construction often prove tobe mixed blessings: In some cases, theauthor was not a bowyer himself andthus did not always understand whatthe bowyers were telling him. In othercases, the author assumed knowledgethat has long disappeared. And like any

With no master bowyer

to guide them, archerstoday have had to

learn from bows inmuseums and from old

texts, neither of which

tell a complete story.

September/October 20


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the molecularweight of thefish-bladder gluewas high and itwas thereforedifficult for it topenetrate intohorn. The solutionwas to dilute thestronger fish gluewith the weakerbut more pene-trating hide glue.

Now they facedanother conun-drum: How thickshould the glue linebe? Too thin andthe seal might nothold. Too thick andthe seal might rup-ture. Enter WayneAlex, an Alaskanbowyer who knew

a collector who had X-rayed bowsand reported that the wood and horn

bore minute longitudinal grooves. AsNovotny subse-quently discovered,this grooving issometimes light, justenough to roughenthe surfaces. But onshorter bows thatare more highlystressed, the groov-ing runs deeper,increasing thecontact surfacefor the glue bysome 40 percent.

Schmidt setabout constructingscrapers of a typeNovotny still uses. Some have short,triangular teeth, with which he rough-ens up the wood and horn. Othershave longer teeth, five to eight percentimeter, with which Novotny scores

the horn and wood. It is this handcontrol, he says, that Schmidt mostadmires in Novotnys work. Lukas,he says, is by a long shot the mosttechnically skilled when it comes tofabrication.

Today, Novotny also stands out asone of the rare few to remain dedicateto uncovering the secrets of the earliecomposite bowyers. While Baker,Schmidt and others have since turnedto other pursuits, Novotny has impartewhat he knows to engineer Tony

Horvat, with whom he establishedSaluki Bows. To support his passionfor traditional bows, he makes andsells less labor-intensive bows of fiberglass and other modern materials. Anhe continues to research. About fouryears ago, after examining the cross-section of a bow in a German museumNovotny changed the shape of hiscomposite bows cores from flat torounded, and he built up the sinewat the ends. More recently, he trackeddown a copy of an out-of-print Turkis

book on archery whose author recentdied but whosepapers and sourcematerials Novotnbelieves might beavailable throughhis daughter.

He also remaincommitted to repcating as exactlyas possible thematerials Persianand Turkishbowyers used.He puzzles overrecurring refer-ences in texts tothe use of neck

sinew: Nobody here has been able tomake it work. A truck driver fromFlorida read an article about me andcalled to tell me his grandfather taughhim to make bows in the 1920s in

In this painting from the Persian Shahnama (Book of Kings) dated 148

the mythical Iranian king Kay Kaus holds a recurved bow and an arro

Opposite: You always release the arrow at the top of the gallop, mea

ing that all four hooves are off the ground at that moment, says

Novotny, shown here loosing an arrow during IHAF competition. That

is when you are most still and an accurate shot is most possible. But it

takes much practice to stand a chance of hitting the target, and years

to become really good.

The question was howbest to glue the horn to

the wood. Fish-bladder

glue is stronger than hideglue, but according to

some texts, Turkishbowyers favored glue

made from the roof ofthe sturgeons mouth,

not its bladder.

By now, Schmidt recalls, there wasa network of about 20 people working

on this. We called each other aboutonce a day. It is impossible to chroni-cle how this geographically diffuse,informal bowyers club solved eachproblem its members encountered, butone example imparts their experienceof collaboration and dedication. Thequestion was how best to glue thehorn to the wood. Fish-bladder glue,they knew, is stronger than hide glue,but according to some texts, Turkishbowyers favored glue made from theroof of a sturgeons mouth, not itsbladder. When this proved unsuccess-ful, the bowyers decided there mightbe some ambiguityintentional ornotin the texts. So, it was back tosimmering fish bladders at 65 degreesCelsius (150F). But these results, too,proved unsatisfactory. Someone inthe group called a chemist in NewYork who made hide glue, Schmidtrecalls. And the chemist told us that


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www.atarn.org

www.salukibow.com

http://coas.missouri.edu/anthromuseum/

grayson/grayson.html

www.intlhorsearchery.org

Istanbul. He kept mentioning sinewfrom the neck. Is it faulty memory?Novotny wonders. Or is there reallysome way to use this sinew? Andjust as he hunted down a supply ofsuitable water-buffalo horn inThailand three years ago, he wantsone day to find the exact kind ofmaple described by Kani and others.

Baker, however, considers such con-cern over materials mythologized.Materials, he maintains, only accountfor 10 percent of the bows successthe rest is design. But while Novotnyagrees that design is paramount, heremains curious and respectful of thecenturies of experience that went intodetermining just the best time to cut

Lee Lawrence is a free-

lance writer specializing

in the cultures of Asia.

She lives in Washington,

D.C. David H. Wells

(www.davidhwells.com) is a free-lance editori

commercial and documentary photographer

living in Providence, Rhode Island. He recently

completed an Alicia Patterson Fellowship

project photographing the emerging middle

classes in India.

Saracen Archery: An English Versio

and Exposition of a Mameluke Wor

on Archery. J. D. Latham and William Paters

1970, The Holland Press, 0-90-047004-6.

the sapling and even on which side ofa hill to grow it. I have made somevery strong bows, Novotny says,but I still think I can make themperform much better if I really attainthe right materials.

Until then, the quest for the modernequivalent of the recurved compositebows that shaped centuries of history

continues, as much a frustration asa passion.

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History s Curve