Roman crossbow

[Koyuncu]

I read the sad story of Genoese Crossbowmen at Cercy with wet crossbow and how this severely reduced performance of weapons. While British archers treated with utmost care to their bows and bow strings to cover them from rain. If I remember correctly, composite bows are also sensitive to wet weather conditions so maybe this portative bow design was introduced for protecting the bow from air conditions.

As far as I know, ash and elm was used in case of lack of proper yew bodies. Such as in Finland, ash bows were typical choice since both yew is not available and also yew bows are not capable of working in frozen climate of Finland.

[Robert]

Yew is very good for making longbows but not for making flatbows. Bogfinds are flatbows of ash and elm, these are nice springy woods which make great bows. Yew however works in a different manner and is most suited for making a D bow (the D being the cross section). This is because the sapwood of yew, used on the outside (back) of the bow, is resistant to stretch, while the heartwood of the yew is resistant to compression and is the belly side. You could call yew a natural laminate, combining two characteristics in a single trunk. Yew also grows slowly, so to get bowstaves from a yew, it is quartered, at least split into triangular sections with the pointy end toward the center. When you shave off that point, hey presto, there is the D shape you want for your bow. The back of the bow (for non archers, the side away from the archer) is stripped of bark and hardly worked at all, just smoothened. Should you try to turn a yew bowstave into a true flatbow, you will violate the grain and seriously weaken the bow. Because of the many sideshoots, getting a good piece of yew suitable for making a bow is a propper chore, the best pieces come from stems/shoots that have grown on the inside of a clump of yew, shooting upwards and not forming hardly any sideshoots, so no knots.

Any bow will become brittle in freezing conditions, yew and ash and elm alike. Yew just isn't indignious to north europe so as a bowwood would have been unknown ...

[Thomas V.]

Bogfinds are flatbows of ash and elm, these are nice springy woods which make great bows. [...] Yew just isn't indignious to north europe so as a bowwood would have been unknown ...

The bows from the Nydam bog are are yew bows with a D-shaped cross section.

Yew also grows slowly, so to get bowstaves from a yew, it is quartered, at least split into triangular sections with the pointy end toward the center. When you shave off that point, hey presto, there is the D shape you want for your bow. The back of the bow (for non archers, the side away from the archer) is stripped of bark and hardly worked at all, just smoothened. Should you try to turn a yew bowstave into a true flatbow, you will violate the grain and seriously weaken the bow.

Actually it's the other way round: The straigth part of the "D" (back of the bow) is an intact growth ring, the belly is rounded by the bowyer. You can turn a yew stave into a flatbow without violating the grain of the back of the bow; you just have to make a flat belly instead of a rounded one.

I don't deny the existence of ash bows, by the way. However, given the Germanic bog finds from the Roman era, my opinion is that said finds, (mainly :?) "D"-shaped yew bows, are the best basis for reconstructing Roman self bows.

Apart from this, even if Roman self bows should have been of ash, it's quite unlikely that this matters in terms of the arcuballista, as the depictions strongly indicate composite bows.

[Thomas V.]

As far as I know, ash and elm was used in case of lack of proper yew bodies. Such as in Finland, ash bows were typical choice since both yew is not available and also yew bows are not capable of working in frozen climate of Finland.

The "typical Finnish bow" (if there ever was one) seemed to be a laminated two-wood bow not containing ash: [hide]http://www.freebirdarchery.com/images/twowoodbow.pdf[/hide] ("Another name was finnbogi, ‘Finnish bow’ [..].") A referenceless part of a Wikipedia article seems to be the only source claiming that there were Finnish bows made from ash. Moreover, the Roman Empire wasn't to cold for yew bows and it also intersected with the habitat of yew.

[Koyuncu]

You are right, Thomas. Thanks for clarification. :-) If I understand correctly the problem here to find a self bow that is actually used by Romans in place of composite bow of crossbow which both hard to produce and expensive.

So we need some Roman self bows, their specific size and draw weights I think.

[Thomas V.]

Then there is the question why you would want to put a normal bow on a stock, instead of just holding it.

Because the benefits (cf. Alm, Baatz, Harmuth) of the crossbow still apply:

• higher draw weight limit,
  
• better aiming,
  
• can be kept spanned for quite a long time.
  

I just came across the following text passage: "The third variety of hand bows—the Persian and Turkish—are made in the same way as the Arab composite bow [i.e. wood, horn, sinew]. [...] The Turks and most of the Persians make this bow heavy, and set it on a grooved stock (majra), which they fit with lock and trigger and to the end affix a stirrup, thus making it a foot bow [i.e. crossbow] (Arab Archery, p.12)." So it seems that crossbow prods constructed like hand-held composite bows indeed existed.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Which is fascinationg considering Persian, Turkish, Hunnic Bows, etc were Asymmetric, were they not?

[Thomas V.]

Which is fascinationg considering Persian, Turkish, Hunnic Bows, etc were Asymmetric, were they not?

I seem to recall that Hunnic bows where asymmetric. But then again, Hunnic bows aren't mentioned.

I'm not aware of the (a)symmetry of Persian and Turkish bows, however.

My assumptions regarding "de-facto hand composite bows" used as a crossbow prod:

• There might have been symmetric types of composite bows.
  
• Composite bows belonging to an asymmetric type might have been symmetric when intended for a crossbow.
  
• Asymmetry might not necessarily exclude a bow from beeing used as a crossbow prod. According to Harmuth, a crossbow is a bow operated with replacements for body parts: The stock replaces the left arm and the release mechanism replaces the right hand. As you can handle an asymmetric composite bow with your arm and the hand of your other arm, maybe it is possible to operate an asymmetric composite bow with a stock and release mechanism?
  
  

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Hun bows I know were Asymmetric, and I thought Turkish and Persian ones were as well. Thanks for the info.

[Iagoba]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co...ma_85v.jpg
Beato of Osma, mid XIth century. Too "modern", but this crossbow has always "looked" me more close to the Roman ones than to the typical medieval examples...

I'm almost sure that I uploaded here at RAT the photos of the French crossbow reliefs, but I'm unable to find them now...Give me a couple of days to find again the archives if not.

[Thomas V.]

This photo shows a composite bow from Damascus (13th or 14th century):
[attachment=9285]CompositeProd.jpg[/attachment]
According to David Nicolle, said bow migth have been a part of a large crossbow and "[...] is of normal composite construction, though larger than an ordinary hand-bow (David Nicolle, The Crusades, p. 80)."

The bow depicted above is a further indication of crossbow prods constructed like hand-held composite bows.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Good catch. I saw a mention on Wikipedia that the Gastraphetes used a Composite Bow for a Prod.

[Koyuncu]

In the book, Ancient and Medieval Siege Weapons by Konstantin Nossov, below drawing shows how string of bow is notched on the stock of crossbow. It is easy to see resemblance between relief and the drawing. Also, David Nicolle's image has same shape, ears pointing forward when bow is unstrung.





I know superiority and power of composite recurved Scythian bows were very well known for Greeks, could it be said that Romans also were aware of this fact just like Greeks or is it a later introduction after Barbarian incursions?

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Well considering the Scythian themselves were long gone, the Romans probably used a Sarmatian bow.

[Thomas V.]

In the book, Ancient and Medieval Siege Weapons by Konstantin Nossov, below drawing shows how string of bow is notched on the stock of crossbow. It is easy to see resemblance between relief and the drawing. Also, David Nicolle's image has same shape, ears pointing forward when bow is unstrung.

Doesn't the drawing depict a gastraphetes? The release mechanism looks different to the one in the relief. The one in the relief bears a striking similarity to a nut lock seen from above. The similarity of Romanic crossbows to Roman ones indicates that the latter are the antecessor of the former, wich would be another argument in favor of the nut lock.