A unique Bronze Age composite bow measuring almost 2 meters in length – with the highest accuracy, shooting distance and lethal power of its time – has been reconstructed from authentic materials.
Researchers from the South Ural State University (SUSU) reconstructed the four-thousand-year-old arch in a unique experiment. The basis of the reconstruction were parts of horns found in three funerary complexes of the Sintashta people, an ancient Indo-Iranian tribe. They lived in the Southern Urals at the end of the third and second millennium BC. C., in which the famous archaeological site of Arkaim can be dated.
Reconstructing objects based on archaeological data is one of the most important fields of modern historical science, the specialists noted. By reconstructing artifacts from the past based on indirect data, scientists can better understand the technology and daily life of their ancestors, according to the authors.
The penetration ability of this type of bow was so high that it could even pierce bone and horn plate armor, scientists say. This bow was probably an elite weapon of a chariot warrior, but aristocrats could also use it to hunt large animals. The asymmetric shape of the bow, offset by the balance of the horn parts, may have given the lower part of the weapon special combat ergonomics, which allowed it to be fired from the body of a war vehicle, experts believe. experts.
“The Sintashta bow, in our opinion, is a composite longbow with a number of special parts to improve mechanics and expand functionality. Tests and simulations showed that shooting large Sintashta arrows effectively required a bow tension of over 28 kilograms, compared to only 25 kilograms for a modern men’s Olympic bow. The result of our experiment was a bow 187 cm long with 29.03 kg of draw. It can be used for target shooting at a distance of about 80 meters,” Ivan Semyan, head of the SUSU Laboratory for Experimental Archaeology, said in a statement.
According to archaeologists, these compound bows are the most powerful and accurate ranged weapons of ancient times. The reconstruction of this technology allows us to affirm that they were difficult to manufacture and required specialized labor. The wood and horn parts of the bow were probably created by different craftsmen.
The original arch elements found by archaeologists show a high quality of grinding and polishing. The horn parts are complex in shape and require many hours of drilling, sawing, cutting and polishing with bronze tools, the scientists explained. Furthermore, creating a set of shells, for example, required at least three specialists: a caster, a flintlock, and a bone carver.
“It was extremely important for us to strictly adhere to three principles: using authentic materials, authentic technologies, and not exceeding the level of technical thinking of the old masters. Therefore, only four materials were used: wood, horn, bone glue, and sinew. In total, we tested four versions of the design: two of our colleagues and two of our own,” said Ivan Semyan.
The results of the experimental shots proved the high quality of the bow created by the SUSU specialists, the scientists noted. During the tests, the bow showed high mechanical power with stable repeatability (more than 300 shots), as well as a complete absence of destructive vibrations in the design.
The most exotic detail found during the excavations was a hypothetical “arrow rack” consisting of two slats, experts noted. The team of experts concluded that the lower bar was used when shooting at a distance of less than 20 meters, and the upper bar was used when working on targets at a greater distance, which required raising the arrow.
