Composite bow A composite bow is a traditional bow made from horn , wood , and sinew laminated together , c . f . , laminated bow . The horn is on the belly , facing the archer , and sinew on the back of a wooden core . When the bow is drawn , the sinew ( stretched on the outside ) and horn ( compressed on the inside ) store more energy than wood for the same length of bow . The strength can be made similar to that of all - wood " self " bows , with similar draw - length and therefore a similar amount of energy delivered to the arrow from a much shorter bow . However , a composite bow requires more different materials than a self bow , its construction takes much more time , and the finished bow is more sensitive to moisture . Composite bows have been known from archaeology and art since the second millennium BCE , but their history is not well recorded as they were developed by cultures without a written tradition . They originated among Asiatic pastoralists who used them as daily necessities , classically for mounted archery although they can also be used on foot . Such bows spread among the military ( and hunters ) of civilizations that came into contact with nomad tribes ; composite bows have been used across Asia from Korea to the Atlantic coasts of Europe and North Africa , and southwards in the Arabian peninsula and in India . The details of manufacture varied between the various cultures that used them . Initially the tips of the limbs were made to bend when the bow was drawn . Later , the tips were stiffened with bone or antler laths ; post - classical bows usually have stiff tips , " siyahs " , made as an integral part of the wooden core of the bow . Like other bows , they lost importance with the introduction and increasing accuracy of guns . In some areas composite bows were still used and were further developed for leisure purposes . Later Turkish bows are specialized for flight archery ( shooting for distance ) . Composite bows are still made and used in Korea and in China , and the tradition has been revived elsewhere . Modern replicas are available , often made of fiberglass . Construction and materials . The wooden core gives the bow its shape and dimensional stability . It is often made of multiple pieces , joined with animal glue in V - splices , so the wood must accept glue well . Pieced construction allows the sharp bends that many designs require , and the use of woods with different mechanical properties for the bending and nonbending sections . The wood of the bending part of the limb ( " " dustar " " ) must endure intense shearing stress , and denser woods such as hard maples are normally used in Turkish bows . Bamboo , and wood of the mulberry family , are traditional in China . Some composite bows have nonbending tips ( " " siyahs " " ) , which need to be stiff and light ; they may be made of woods such as Sitka spruce . A thin layer of horn is glued on to what will be the belly of the bow , the side facing the archer . Water buffalo horn is very suitable , as is horn of several antelopes such as gemsbok , oryx , ibex , and that of Hungarian grey cattle . Goat and sheep horn can also be used . Most forms of cow horn are not suitable , as they soon delaminate with use . The horn can store more energy than wood in compression . The sinew , soaked in animal glue , is then laid in layers on the back of the bow ; the strands of sinew are oriented along the length of the bow . The sinew is normally obtained from the lower legs and back of wild deer or domestic ungulates . Traditionally , ox tendons are considered inferior to wild - game sinews since they have a higher fat content , leading to spoilage . Sinew will extend farther than wood , again allowing more energy storage . Hide glue or gelatin made from fish gas bladder s is used to attach layers of sinew to the back of the bow , and to attach the horn belly to the wooden core . Stiffening laths , if used , are attached . Both horn and laths may be bound and glued with further lengths of sinew . After months of drying the bow is ready for use . Further finishing may include thin leather or waterproof bark , to protect the bow from moisture , and recent Turkish bows were often highly decorated with colourful paints and gold leaf . Strings and arrow s are essential parts of the weapon system , but no type of either is specifically associated with composite bows throughout their history . Advantages and disadvantages of composite construction . Advantages . The main advantage of composite bows over self bow s ( made from a single piece of wood ) is their combination of smaller size with high power . They are therefore more convenient than self bows when the archer is mobile , as from horseback , or from a chariot . Almost all composite bows are also recurve bow s as the shape curves away from the archer ; this design gives higher draw - weight in the early stages of the archer ' s draw , storing somewhat more total energy for a given final draw - weight . It would be possible to make a wooden bow that has the same shape , length and draw - weight as a traditional composite bow , but it could not store the energy , and would break before full draw . For most practical non - mounted archery purposes , composite construction offers no advantage ; " the initial velocity is about the same for all types of bow . . . within certain limits , the design parameters . . . appear to be less important than is often claimed . " However , they are superior for horsemen and in the specialized art of flight archery : " A combination of many technical factors made the composite flight bow better for flight shooting . " The higher arrow velocity is only for well - designed composite bows of high draw - weight . At the weights more usual for modern amateurs , the greater density of horn and sinew compared to wood usually cancels any advantage . Disadvantages . Constructing composite bows requires much more time and a greater variety of materials than self bows , and the animal glue used can lose strength in humid conditions and be quickly ruined by submersion . Karpowicz suggests that crafting a composite bow may take a week ' s work , excluding drying time ( months ) and gathering materials , while a self bow can be made in a day and dried in a week . Peoples living in humid or rainy regions historically have favoured self - bows , while those living in dry or arid regions have favoured composite bows . Medieval Europeans favoured self bows as hand bows , but they made composite prods for crossbows . The prods were usually well protected from rain and humidity which are prevalent in much of Europe . Origins and use . By charioteers . Bows of any kind seldom survive in the archaeological record . Composite bows may have been invented first by the nomads of the Asiatic steppe , who may have based it on earlier Northern Asian laminated bow s . However , archaeological investigation of the Asiatic steppe is still limited and patchy ; literary records of any kind are late and scanty and seldom mention details of bows . There are arrowheads from the earliest chariot burial s at Krivoye Lake , part of the Sintashta - Petrovka culture about 2100 – 1700 BCE , but the bow that shot them has not survived . The Andronovo Culture , descendant of the Sintashta - Petrovka culture , was the first to extend from the Ural Mountains to Tian Shan , and its successor cultures gave rise to the Indo - Aryan migration . Composite bows were soon adopted and adapted by civilizations who came into contact with nomads , such as the Chinese , Assyrian , and Egypt ian . Several composite bows were found in the tomb of Tutankhamun , who died in 1324 BCE . Composite bows ( and chariots ) are known in China from at least the Shang Dynasty ( 1700 – 1100 BCE ) . By the 4th century BCE , chariotry had ceased to have military importance , replaced by cavalry everywhere ( except in Britannia where charioteers are not recorded as using bows ) . By mounted archers . The mounted archer became the archetypal warrior of the steppes and the composite bow was his archetypal weapon , used to protect the herds , in steppe warfare , and in incursions ( notably those of the Huns , Magyars , Mongols , and Turks ) into settled lands . Classic tactics for horse - mounted archers included skirmishing ; they would approach , shoot , and retreat before any effective response could be made . The term Parthian shot refers to the widespread horse - archer tactic of shooting backwards over the rear of their horses as they retreated . Parthians inflicted heavy defeats on Romans , the first being the Battle of Carrhae . However , horse archers did not make an army invincible ; Han General Ban Chao led successful military expeditions in the late 1st century CE that conquered as far as central Asia , and both Philip of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great defeated horse archer armies . Well - led Roman armies defeated Parthian armies on several occasions and twice took the Parthian capital . By infantry . The infantry archers of classical Greece and the Roman Empire used composite bows . The military of the Han Dynasty ( 220 BCE – 206 CE ) utilized composite crossbows , often in infantry square formations , in their many engagements against the Xiongnu . The Battle of Lepanto ( 1571 ) was the last major use of composite archery by the Ottoman Empire . Technical changes to classical times . The details of bow construction changed somewhat with time . It is not clear that the various developments of the composite bow led to measurable improvements ; " the development of archery equipment may not be a process involving progressive improvements in performance . Rather , each design type represents one solution to the problem of creating a mobile weapon system capable of hurling lightweight projectiles . " Scythian bows , bending tips . Variants of the Scythian bow were the dominant form in Asia until approximately the first century BCE . These were short weapons - one was 119 cm long when strung , with arrows perhaps 50 – 60 cm long - with flexible , " working " tips ; the wooden core was continuous from the centre to the tip . Siyahs / kasans , stiff tips . From about the 4th century BCE , the use of stiffened ends on composite bows became widespread . The stiffened end of the bow is a " siyah " ( Arabic ) , " szarv " ( Hungarian ) , " sarvi " ( Finnish ; both ' sarvi ' and ' szarv ' mean ' horn ' ) or " kasan " ( Turkish ) ; the bending section is a " dustar " ( Arabic ) , " lapa " ( Finnish ) or " sal " ( Turkish ) . For centuries , the stiffening was accomplished by attaching laths of bone or antler to the sides of the bow at its ends . The bone or antler strips are more likely to survive burial than the rest of the bow . The first bone strips suitable for this purpose come from " graves of the fourth or third centuries " BCE . These stiffeners are found associated with nomad s of the time . Maenchen - Helfen states that they are not found in Achaemenid Persia , nor in early Imperial Rome , nor in Han China . However Coulston attributes Roman stiffeners to about or before 9 CE . He identifies a Steppe Tradition of Scythian bows with working tips , which lasted , in Europe , until the arrival of the Huns , and a Near East or Levantine tradition with siyahs , possibly introduced by the Parni as siyahs are found in Sassanid but not Achaemenid contexts . Siyahs have also been described from the Arabian peninsula . Composite bows were adopted by the Roman Empire and were made even in the cold and damp of Britannia . They were the normal weapon of later Roman archers , both infantry and cavalry units ( although Vegetius recommends training recruits " " arcubus ligneis " " , with wooden bows ) . Laths stiffening the grip . A new bow type , in which bone reinforcements cover the handle of the bow as well as the tips , may have developed in Central Asia during the 3rd to 2nd century BCE , with earliest finds from the area of Lake Baikal . Fittings from this type of bow appear right across Asia from Korea to the Crimea . Such bows with reinforcement of both grip and siyahs have been called “ Hun , ” “ Hunnic ” or “ Hsiung - nu ” composite bow . Huns did use such bows , but so did many other peoples ; Rausing termed this type the ' Qum - Darya Bow ' from the Han Chinese type - site at the frontier post of Loulan , at the mouth of the Qum Darya river , dated by analogy between c . 1st century BCE and the 3rd century CE . With the arrival of the Huns , this tradition of bows with stiffened grips arrived in Europe . " Alanic graves in the Volga region dating to the 3rd to 4th century CE signal the adoption of the Qum - Darya type by Sarmatian peoples from Hunnic groups advancing from the East . In general , Hunnic / Qum - Darya bows had two pairs of ear laths identical in every respect to those found on Roman limes sites . The ear laths show only a greater proportion of longer laths ( like those of Roman examples from Bar Hill and London ) . More distinctively , the grip of the bow was stiffened by three laths . On the sides were glued a pair of trapezoidal laths with their longest edges towards the back . On the belly was glued a third lath , varying in shape but often narrow with parallel sides and splayed ends . Therefore , each bow possessed seven grip and ear laths , compared with none on the Scythian and Sarmatian bows and four ( ear ) laths on the Yrzi bow . " Such bows were often asymmetric , with lower limbs shorter than the upper . The Huns and their successors greatly impressed their neighbours with their archery . Germanic tribes transmitted their respect orally for a millennium ; in the Scandinavian Hervarar saga , the Geatish king Gizur taunts the Huns and says , " Eigi gera Húnar oss felmtraða né hornbogar yðrir . " ( We fear neither the Huns nor their hornbows . ) The Romans , as described in the Strategikon , Procopius ' s histories , and other works , changed the entire emphasis of their army , from heavy infantry to cavalry , many of them armed with bows . Maurikios ' s Strategikon describes the Byzantine cavalry as bow - armed " cursores " and lance - armed " defensores " . Additional stiffening laths . The Qum - Darya bow was superseded in the modern area of Hungary by an ' Avar ' type , with more and differently - shaped laths . The grip laths stayed essentially the same except that a fourth piece was sometimes glued to the back of the handle enclosing it with bone on all four faces . The belly lath was often parallel - sided with splayed ends . The siyah laths became much wider in profile above the nock and less rounded , giving a bulbous aspect . The nock was often further away from the upper end of the siyah than on Qum - Darya type examples . Additional laths were usually added to the belly and back of the siyah thus enclosing both ends of the stave on four faces . This made a total of up to 12 laths on an asymmetrical bow with stiff , set back handle . Examples measured in situ suggest bow lengths of 120 – 140 cm . When unstrung the siyahs reversed sharply forward at an angle of 50 - 60 degrees . Post - classical development . After the fall of the Western Roman Empire , armies of the Byzantine Empire maintained their tradition of horse archery for centuries . Byzantium finally fell to the Turks before the decline of military archery in favour of guns . Turkish armies included archers until about 1591 ( they played a major role in the Battle of Lepanto ( 1571 ) , and flight archery remained a popular sport in Istanbul until the early 19th century . Most surviving documentation of the use and construction of composite bows comes from China and the Middle East ; until reforms early in the 20th century , skill with the composite bow was an essential part of the qualification for officers in the Chinese Imperial army . The composite bow was adopted throughout the Arab world , even though some Bedu tribesmen in the Hijaz retained the use of simple self bow s . Persian designs were used after the conquest of the Sassanid Empire , and Turkish - type bows were widely used after the Turkic expansion s . Roughly speaking , Arabs favoured slightly shorter siyahs and broader limbs than the Indo - Persian designs . Sometimes the protective cover on the back was painted with Arab calligraphy or geometric patterns . No design was standardized over the vast area of the Arab conquest s . It was said that the best Arab composite bows were manufactured in Damascus , Syria . The first surviving treatise on composite bow construction and archery was written in Arabic under Mamluk rule about 1368 . Integral wooden siyahs . Later developments in the composite bow included siyahs made of separate pieces of wood , attached with a V - splice to the wooden core of the bow , rather than strengthened by external reinforcement . Mediaeval and modern bows generally have integral wooden siyahs and lack stiffening laths . String bridges . A string " bridge " or " run " is an attachment of horn or wood , used to hold the string a little further apart from the bow ' s limbs at the base of the siyahs , as well as allowing the siyah to rest at an angle forward of the string . This attachment may add weight , but might give a small increase in the speed of the arrow by increasing the initial string angle and therefore the force of the draw in its early stages . Large string bridges are characteristic of Manchu ( Qing dynasty , 1644 – 1911 ) bows and late Mongolian bows , while small string bridges are characteristic of Korean , Crimean Tatar , and some Ming dynasty ( 1368 – 1644 ) bows . String bridges are not present in artwork in the time of Genghis Khan or before . Modern living traditions of composite bows . All Eurasian composite bows derive from the same nomad origins , but every culture that used them has made its own adaptations to the basic design . The Turkish , Mongolian , and Korean bows were standardized when archery lost its military function and became a popular sport . Recent Turkish bows are optimized for flight shooting . Turkish bow . This is the Ottoman development of the composite bow , presumably brought from the steppes . Turkish bows evolved , after the decline of military archery , into probably the best traditional flight bows . Their decoration often included delicate and beautiful multicoloured designs with gold . Chinese bow . For millennia , archery has played a pivotal role in Chinese history . Because the cultures associated with Chinese society spanned a wide geography and time range , the techniques and equipment associated with Chinese archery are diverse . Historical sources and archaeological evidence suggest that a variety of bow designs existed throughout Chinese history . For much of the 20th century , only one Chinese traditional bow and arrow making workshop was active . However , in the beginning of the 21st century , there has been revival in interest among craftsmen looking to construct bows and arrows in the traditional Chinese style . Mongol bow . The Mongolian tradition of archery is attested by an inscription on a stone stele that was found near Nerchinsk in Siberia : " While Genghis Khan was holding an assembly of Mongolian dignitaries , after his conquest of Sartaul ( Khwarezm ) , Yesüngge ( the son of Genghis Khan ' s brother ) shot a target at 335 alds ( 536 m ) . " The Mongol bowmaking tradition was lost under the Manchus , who forbade archery ; the present bowmaking tradition emerged after independence in 1921 and is based on Manchu types of bow . Mounted archery had fallen into disuse and has been revived only in the 21st century . Archery with composite bows is part of the annual festival of the three virile sports ( Wrestling , Horseriding , Archery ) , called " Naadam " . Hungarian bow . The Hungarian bow is a fairly long , approximately symmetrical , composite reflex bow with bone stiffeners . Its shape is known from two graves in which the position of the bone plates could be reconstructed . Modern Hungarians have attempted to reconstruct the composite bows of their ancestors and have revived mounted archery as a competitive sport . Korean bow . A traditional modern Korean bow , or gakgung , is a small but very efficient horn - bamboo - sinew composite bow . Korean archers normally practice at a range of approximately 145 metres . Perso - Parthian bow . The Perso - Parthian bow is a symmetric recurve under high tension when strung . The " arms " of the bow are supposed to reflex far enough to cross each other when the bow is unstrung . The finished bow is covered by bark , fine leather , or in some cases shark skin to keep out moisture . Perso - Parthian bows were in use as late as the 1820s in Persia ( ancient Iran ) . They were then replaced by muskets . Analogous New World bows , modern replicas , alternative materials . American sinew - backed bows . When Europeans first contacted Native Americans , some bows , especially in the area that became California , already had sinew backing . After the reintroduction of horses , newly mounted groups rapidly developed shorter bows , which were often given sinew backing . The full three - layer composite bow with horn , wood , and sinew does not seem to be recorded in the Americas , and horn bows with sinew backing are not recorded before European contact . Replicas made with modern materials . Modern replicas of traditional composite bows are commercially available ; they are usually made with fibreglass on both belly and back , easier to mass - produce and easier to take care of than traditional composite bows . Other less satisfactory materials than horn have been used for the belly of the bow ( the part facing the archer when shooting ) , including bone , antler , or compression - resistant woods such as osage orange , hornbeam , or yew . Materials that are strong under tension , such as silk , or tough wood , like hickory , have been used on the back of the bow ( the part facing away from the archer when shooting ) .