Toggle sidebar

Preserved bronze age bow

  • Hey Guest, Early bird pricing on the Summer Moot (29th July - 10th August) available until April 6th, we'd love you to come. PLEASE CLICK HERE to early bird price and get more information.
MrHare

MrHare

Tenderfoot
Apr 27, 2012
94
0
Skipton,Yorkshire
Apologies if this has already come up - I had a good look round and couldn't see anything.

This:

http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/topic/51328/Re-Fully-preserved-bronce-age-bow-from-Norway?page=-1

appeared on paleoplanet.net. A 3300 year old bow, more or less intact, preserved in ice was found last autumn in Norway. The post links to this article:

http://www.oppland.no/Fag-og-tjenes...lturvern/Buen-fra-Breheimen---3300-ar-gammel/

(In Norwegian)

which features a simple but fairly useful picture of the bow. The left hand limb is damaged (the archeologists are speculating that's why it was discarded).

You can see something of both the side and limb profile. It looks like it has slightly stiffened tips (going by the undamaged limb) and either

a) quite a lot of recurve or

b) quite a lot of set

probably the former IMO, but it's difficult to tell.

The limbs appear fairly wide and flattish, which fits with other european bows of the period. Lets hope for lots of details and pictures once the experts have had chance to investigate it more closely!
 
dwardo

dwardo

Bushcrafter through and through
Aug 30, 2006
6,458
478
46
Nr Chester
Cant wait for better pictures and cross sections. They do say the cross section of the outerlimbs is traingular, oval midlimb and rounded handle.
They go on to mention that the back of the bow is the ring just under the bark as we would do white wood bows so they must know which side is up?
I did try re-reading it again but even translated its hard work to undertand the techincal info.
 
MrHare

MrHare

Tenderfoot
Apr 27, 2012
94
0
Skipton,Yorkshire
"will be exhibited at the Norwegian Mountain Museum in Lom from the 23 June this year."

Long way to go for a look though....

"The aim of the arc length is 126 cm (kordelengde) and approx. 131 cm. in the "done" state."

I'm guessing that 126cm is the length with the bit missing off the end of the limb, and 131cm is the 'intact' length. That's a very short self bow, especially if the triangular sections don't work much. Which might explain why it broke of course.
 
dwardo

dwardo

Bushcrafter through and through
Aug 30, 2006
6,458
478
46
Nr Chester
MrHare said:
"will be exhibited at the Norwegian Mountain Museum in Lom from the 23 June this year."

Long way to go for a look though....

"The aim of the arc length is 126 cm (kordelengde) and approx. 131 cm. in the "done" state."

I'm guessing that 126cm is the length with the bit missing off the end of the limb, and 131cm is the 'intact' length. That's a very short self bow, especially if the triangular sections don't work much. Which might explain why it broke of course.
Click to expand...

What do you think they mean by "the arc", the recurve part of the limb?
131 is quite short but most of my recent bows are only about 150 and draw to 28 so not overly short, plus and they would also have been a damd site more experienced than me.
Do we know awt about their average height too? This would affect their draw and bow length, maybe they were all 5ft n a fag end.
Fascinating stuff anyways.
 
MrHare

MrHare

Tenderfoot
Apr 27, 2012
94
0
Skipton,Yorkshire
The translation seems to consistently refer to the bow as an 'arc' - maybe it's translating into Franglais. So (speculating a bit on a dodgy babelfish translation here) that suggests the whole bow is 131cm long. Made from ash or elm I'd have thought that would put a biggish strain on the wood. Mind, I've made exactly 0.7 bows in my time, so you'd know better than me. Plus I'm >6' with arms like a gibbon, so my standards are probably skewed.

I suspect that we're going to be waiting a while for the academic work. Serious interest in prehistoric bows isn't *that* commonplace though, so I'd have thought unofficial info will be around long before publication.

A friend just pointed out the mention of 'scare sticks' in the article. Explanation here:

http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/2010/09/14/ice-thaw-exposes-trove-from-pre-viking-hunters/

"Most of the finds at the ice, known as Juvfonna, are “scare sticks” — perhaps a metre long with another small piece of wood tied to the top to flap in the wind [...] Placed in rows on the ice, they would worry the unwitting reindeer just enough to guide them towards hunters lying in wait behind rocks, without causing a stampede."
 
Last edited:
Skaukraft

Skaukraft

Settler
Apr 8, 2012
539
4
Norway
As far as I know the wood is visually ID'ed as Ash, but some belive it is Elm. I don't know if there has been a more accurate ID before it is displayed.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

BCUK Shop

We have a a number of knives, T-Shirts and other items for sale.

SHOP HERE
Top Bottom