Several Types of Horsebow You May be Interested in Knowing

Introduction

I have been into archery since I was in junior high schools, around 7 years ago. I started for around 4–5 months before timeskips in my senior year and undergraduates. Then, I started again since a month ago, using the horsebows and barebows as two foundations.

Horsebow is one type of a composite bow, which describes a bow that is decomposed from more than one materials. There are usually around 5 type of materials used to build a composite bow, usually EFG, woods or maple woods, leather, coatings, and strings.

I used the turkish bending horsebow and assyrian horebow, two types of several other amazingly historical types of horsebow, each of which have rich history and philosophies. In this article, I am gonna try to explain briefly about the types of horsebows, as well as each history backgrounds and their descriptions, as below.

Explanations

Turkish Bending Horsebow — The Common one

• History: The Turkish horsebow reached its pinnacle of development during the Ottoman Empire (roughly the 15th to 17th centuries). It was highly prized not only for cavalry skirmishes but also for “flight archery” — the specialized sport of shooting lightweight arrows over massive distances.
• Materials: Traditional construction relies on a classic composite matrix: a core of maple wood, a belly (the side facing the archer) made of water buffalo horn to handle compression, and a back covered in layered sinew to handle tension. The layers were bound together using highly refined animal glue.
• Characteristics & Types: The Turkish bow is famous for its extreme reflex. When unstrung, the limbs curl aggressively forward into a “C” shape, with the tips sometimes overlapping. It is exceptionally short (typically between 41 and 47 inches), which allowed for maximum maneuverability on horseback. It features short, rigid tips known as kasan.
• Visual Description: When strung, it forms a classic, elegant “Cupid’s bow” silhouette. Historically, these bows were highly decorated, wrapped in fine leather or bark, and painted with intricate gold leaf, geometric, or floral motifs.

Tartar Bending Horsebow / Mongolian Horsebow

This type of horsebow is usually utilized since the nomadic Tatar tribes that roamed in the steppes of Central Asia, especially the mounted archers that relies on quick and precise shots. The dimension stands out for performance, especially for horseback archery, power, and fast performance with its compactness.

• History: Originating from the nomadic Tatar tribes of the Central Asian steppes, this bow was instrumental during the era of the Golden Horde and was heavily utilized across Eastern Europe and Russia.
• Materials: Like most Asiatic bows, it utilizes a wood core, horn belly, and sinew back. Because the steppes and Eastern European climates could be harsh and damp, Tatar bows were frequently wrapped entirely in birch bark or thin leather to waterproof the sensitive sinew and organic glues.
• Characteristics & Types: The Tatar bow is medium-to-long in comparison to the Turkish variant, usually measuring around 50 to 60 inches. Its defining physical traits are its pronounced, long, and forward-pointing rigid tips (siyahs). This design creates a deep recurve, providing a very smooth draw and generating massive kinetic energy, making it excellent for shooting heavier arrows.
• Visual Description: Unstrung, the bow has a slightly less extreme reflex than the Turkish bow, but its striking, elongated “ears” (siyahs) point aggressively forward. Strung, it maintains a sharp, aggressive angle at the tips.

Assyrian Horsebow

According to several references, this particular horsebow is utilized in early ages of horsebow, which is usually used in a chariot or on foot, around the ages of early BCs, and used in a chariot-based warfare.

• History: The Assyrian bow is one of the earliest highly developed composite bows in recorded history. Originating in the ancient Near East (around the 9th to 7th centuries BC) during the Neo-Assyrian Empire, it was originally designed to be fired from chariots before transitioning to early mounted cavalry.
• Materials: Instead of water buffalo, the horn was frequently sourced from local cattle or the Nubian oryx. The wooden core was remarkably complex, often composed of multiple strips of wood meticulously aligned at right angles, bound with sinew and early forms of hide glue.
• Characteristics & Types: The hallmark of the Assyrian bow is its distinct "angular" or triangular geometry. Unlike the sweeping, continuous curves of later Asiatic bows, the Assyrian bow features a deflexed grip. Its limbs bend completely into an arc of a circle at full draw, allowing for a surprisingly long draw length from a relatively short weapon.
• Visual Description: It possesses a highly distinct, geometric silhouette. When strung but undrawn, the limbs do not curve smoothly; rather, they angle sharply outward from the handle, forming what looks almost like an equilateral triangle.

Persian Horsebow

• History: The Persian bow boasts a rich lineage stretching from the ancient Achaemenid Empire through to the Safavid and Qajar dynasties. In Persian culture, archery was not merely a military necessity but an aristocratic art form, deeply intertwined with royal hunting and poetry.
• Materials: The core was typically made of flexible woods like cornus or maple, backed with sinew, and bellied with the horn of long-horned cattle. Bowstrings were high-quality composite threads, often blending silk with animal tendons for a balance of flexibility and unyielding strength.
• Characteristics & Types: Persian bows are characterized by a smooth, continuous curve. They lack the sharp angles of the Assyrian bow or the extreme forward reflex of the Turkish bow. Instead, the Persian design features slightly wider limbs and gracefully curved siyahs that blend seamlessly into the working limbs. This creates an incredibly smooth draw cycle that does not abruptly “stack” (increase in resistance) at the end of the archer’s pull.
• Visual Description: Visually elegant and sweeping. Due to their status as noble weapons, surviving examples from the 18th and 19th centuries are breathtakingly beautiful — often painted with vivid orange or black backgrounds and intricately decorated with golden floral motifs, calligraphy, and miniature hunting scenes.

According to the article "Persian Archery - Tactics of an Empire" by Archery Historian, the primary difference between Persian and Assyrian archery lies in their tactical battlefield formations and the sheer volume of archers deployed.

The Persian tactic during the early Achaemenid period was a direct evolution of the earlier Assyrian methods:

• Assyrian Formation: The Assyrians utilized a formation consisting of one row of shield-bearers protecting one row of archers behind them.
• Persian Formation: The Persians expanded this significantly by deploying one row of shield-bearers (known as sparabara) protecting a massive nine rows of archers behind them.

This change in formation allowed the Persians to unleash incredibly high-intensity volleys. The article notes that a unit of 10,000 Persian warriors arranged in this nine-deep formation could fire 100,000 arrows in a single minute, creating the famous effect of arrows seeming to "blot out the sun."

Regarding the weapons themselves, the article notes a similarity rather than a difference, stating that the Persian bow during the Achaemenid era was a longer recurve that was "similar to the angular bow used by the earlier Assyrians." Therefore, the key distinction the article highlights is the scale and tactical deployment of the archers rather than the fundamental design of the early bows.

References

1. tirendaz — The Inheritance of a Turkish Bowyer
2. Tatar traditional recurve bow toth — Recurvebowshop
3. Understanding Traditional Bows: — Recurvebowshop
4. https://archeryhistorian.com/persian-archery/