So I was looking at some information on Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age Near Eastern bows recently (that's really how I became interested in archery and traditional bows) and I ran across two things that I thought more experienced bowyers and archers might be able to help me figure out. Not sure exactly where to put this, so my apologies if this is the wrong section of the forum.
First, the triangular bow:
(http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d73/Emb1346/Triangularbow.jpg)
These bows appear all over the place, especially in Egyptian tomb paintings and carvings. The bows appear to be strung, so I initially thought perhaps it had been reverse-strung for storage. However, there are several places where the Pharaoh is depicted charging into battle with a bow like this (they apparently bend quite normally, see below), but not drawn, and it's in this triangle shape. There's also a carving where several archers are shooting from a city wall with normal-looking drawn bows, but one of the archers has himself been shot, and he is tumbling to the ground with a triangular bow in one hand.
Second question: how does one make a bow like that?
And then there's the matter of the manner of shooting. There's a number of pretty detailed painting of the Pharaoh shooting a bow (it's one of the most important weapons of the time) and he's always doing this with his fingers (this picture is re-drawn for clarity):
(http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d73/Emb1346/Pharoahshooting.jpg)
I tried my best attempt at matching this drawing position and came close to both hurting myself and losing an arrow. Any ideas as to how he's pulling that arrow?
Yeah that's simple, the artist wasn't an archer and wasn't at the battle. Is it just me or does it look like he is pulling it behind his back?
The original Ferguson 'behinder', trick shot ? :D
It would not surprise me if the artist deliberately drew the picture that way to avoid having the arm and string in the face / body of the Pharaoh.
After all he is the king and should be the main focus in the picture.
Who really knows except the artist I suppose
Could it be a thumb ring release? Those triangle bows were featured on the history channel not too long ago. If you look at the Shrew bow, you'll notice some similarities. Also those bows were made with horn bellies and sinew backs.
Paul and Michael have it nailed as to the shooting technique.
Well, the position of the draw is less the question, since that does vary quite a bit from picture to picture, and I agree that getting the bow out of the Pharaoh's face is probably a legitimate artistic concern. However, the finger position is both weird and consistent across a pretty large span of time. I picked the best picture to scan, but I've seen tomb paintings several centuries apart all using this finger position for archers (although not all with the index finger crooked).
I'm not real familiar with the Shrew bow.
The "angular" bow is typical for the Egyptians. James Parker(HuntWorthy Productions[TG advertiser]) is in the process of making about 6 different styles of ancient horn bows and one is the Egyptian angular bow. He has posted the building process for these bows in a thread on PA. He goes by the user name "robustus" on PA.
As far as the drawing style the archer has the arrow on the right side of the bow as if he were using a thumb ring. I see no possible way he could draw the bow as pictured with the draw being behind his back. Must be artistic license to preserve the face and body of the archer(king).
I wonder how long they kept their ears intact with that much over draw. Might have also been a solution for crosseyed dominance. Or not.
I think it is a thumb ring also. Gary
Thanks guys, when I dropped "archery thumb ring" into my searches I found that, sure enough, there's ample attestation that several groups in the Ancient Near East used these.