Preserved bronze age bow

[MrHare]

Apologies if this has already come up - I had a good look round and couldn't see anything.

This:

http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/top...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-tjenest...300-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]

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.

[John Fenna]

That is very interesting!
I too would love to see more pictures and see more tech info

[MrHare]

"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]

"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.

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]

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...iking-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."

[Skaukraft]

The Norwegian word for bow is "bue" and can be translated to both 'arc' and 'bow'.

You can read more about it here at the Norwegian ow forum.
Google translate kind of works, but not good.
http://forum.bueforum.no/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1786

[robin wood]

Great links thanks. Bizarre that at time of article they had done c14 but not a microscopic wood ID. Is there any word on species yet?

[Laurentius]

Well the "rainbow" has associations with an ark anyway.

[Skaukraft]

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.

[Dannytsg]

That is a brilliant find. I'd love to know more about the technical aspects of this

[MrHare]

Another one:

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science...e-in-banyoles/

[Dannytsg]

Another one:

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science...e-in-banyoles/

A good read thanks for sharing