Typology of composite bows

General discussion
1

What is the differences between different composite bow models? And, what is present typology of composite bows?

Seems that, at least following designs are “accepted”:

  • Scythian
  • Egyptian (angular)
  • Turkish
  • Mughal
  • Indo-Persian
  • Crimean Tatar
  • Magyar/Hun
  • Mongolian
  • Korean
  • Ming
  • Manchu (Qing)

But, what are the typical features of the models? How to distinguish them one from another?

Randall (2016) discuss something about the topic. Balfour (1890) has probably the first classification of composite bow, he had nice “bow model tree”.

2

aside from ‘old’ design like angular or Scythian’s… I tend to agree on how Gao-Ying classified ‘modern’ composite-bow on just two basic categories, Da-Shao-Gong (long-ear bow) and Xia-Shao-Gong (small-ear bow)… variations of both might be great according to local tradition, but the fundamental structure of the two is distinguishable from each…

example of long-ear bow: Hunnic, Magyar, MB, Tang, Seljuk, Mongol, Manchu, Mughal, etc…
example of small-ear bow: Mamluk, Ottoman, Korean, Chahar-Kham, Persian, etc

3

There’s also a lot of variation within reach of those"categories" depending on the date of manufacture, purpose of the bow and individual preferences of bowyer and archer.
For the older types, complete bow find are so rare, it’s hard to make hard and clear definitions. Since each bow was individually hand made as it’s own thing, categorization will always be a bit artificial.