Turkish bow

The Turkish bow is a recurved composite bow. It has been used throughout Turkish history by the Turkish cavalry archers since the arrival of Turks from Central Asia. Huns and Avars, earlier confederations probably under Turkic domination, also used composite bows, as did their predecessors in Central Asia.

The construction was that of the classic Asiatic composite bow, with a wooden core (maple was most desirable), animal horn on the side facing the archer, and sinew on the back. Animal glue held it together. From the decline of military archery, mainly flight archery was practiced, and the standard Turkish bow became a particularly light and efficient weapon. The sport declined gradually until the reign of Mahmud II who made great efforts to revive it. He also ordered his archery student, Mustafa Kani, to write a book about the history, construction, and use of these bows, from which comes most of what is now known of Turkish bowyery.

After the death of Mahmud II in 1839, archery declined. The living art of Turkish bowyery was lost in the 1930s with the death of the last bowyer and famous calligrapher, Neçmeddin Okyay; it has since been revived. For many years their efficiency and excellency could be seen from historical records, where in the Ottoman Era the record distance for an arrow shot was 845.5m. (Bows made only of wood have been much less suited to flight archery; the northern European flight archery record to 1910 was 340m, achieved with a long-bow of Osage-orange wood, and a force of over 700N or 157 lb was needed to draw the bow.) In 1910 an archery contest was held on the beach at Le Touquet, France, where Ingo Simon was able to shoot an arrow 434 m using an old Turkish composite bow requiring a force of 440N or 99 lb.

External links

A Turkish bow

See also

• Turkish archery
• Composite bow
• Mongol bow
• Gungdo