The Egyptian bow is one of a series of bows known as recurved composite bows. This type of bow is commonly used by archers from Korea all the way to the Lower Balkans. It is a very versatile weapon as it can be used either on foot or on horseback. Even the Ancient Greeks and the Romans utilized these bows. Composite bow technology was lost in Western Europe after the fall of Rome in 476 and archers turned to simpler wooden self bows.
yes, the composite bow is the best bow of the ancient world. it's worth noting, however, that the english longbow, while a self bow, was quite a good bow. by making it longer and from yew wood it could generate as much power as the composite bows, and since it was used by foot soldiers the length wasn't as much of a problem. it's also possible that england's humid climate might have made the composite bow a bit impractical. fish and horse glue don't do well in humidity, which is the reason that in north america sinew backed bows were mostly used in the dry plains and deserts, while eastern woodland tribes used flat longbows. yew, by the way, is a very interesting bow wood because it's sort of a natural composite. the white sapwood was the back of the english longbow, which is very good for elasticity, while the darker heartwood was very very good for compression. so while they were self bows, the wood they used was basically two types of wood. one last note on the english longbow: the brits didn't like using their own yew. it wasn't very good. the best yew came from northern italy and certain highlands in spain.
Western European relearned composite technology during the Crusades. Instead of creating composite bows, they use it to create crossbow prods. Early Medieval crossbows use wooden prods and with composite technology, prods become shorter making crossbows easier to be used in confined spaces. It is often said that the glue that binds the composite materials disintegrate under damp weather of Western Europe making composite bows ill-suited. Weather is not the reason as the composite prods are treated with special sealant to prevent moisture from disintegrating the glue. Otherwise they will never used composite technology to make prods. The main reason is most likely due to cost. Making composite bows is time consuming. Bowyers need to process materials like horn and sinews and the process takes several days. After binding the wood, horn and sinews together, the finished bows are put aside for the glue to set in and it will be months before they are ready. This lengthy process and the requirement of more materials makes composite bows very expensive.
In fact there is a culture in history never seems to have developed the bow. The Australian Aborigines. Instead, they used the woomera for their projectile weapon, similar to an atlatl. It is believed that because of the type of animals in Australia, the wolmera, or dart thrower, was sufficient enough that there was no need to develop the bow and arrow. My understanding is that Australia is the only inhabited continent in which the bow and arrow was not naturally developed.
@@josephnebeker7976 Yeah, it's weird they never developed bow. It would have been a massive advantage over throwing sticks and atlatl that were no longer used in other places.
The Egyptian bow was totally a super weapon in its day. Any weapon that allows a person to change the face of warfare is revolutionary. Such a weapon could not be easily considered normal, and would be seen as extraordinary, or super...
@@fe7264 the nubian longbow is the Egyptian longbow they were more intertwined in the ancient days the medjay was nubian elite that comprised the elite of the protector of the Pharoah
Other sinew goes on the back of the bow on the opposite side of the horn not directly on top of it. Sinew is good in tension not compression. Other than that its pretty good
All the advanced cultures of antiquity faced similar challenges with projectile weapons and they all solved those problems with the materials available to them. The "Egyptian Bow" was not a superweapon.
@@Mostafa_elfagal Nope your wrong but let me explain why Egyptians called Kush Ta-Seti translating to land of the bow the main unit or Egyptian soldier was called a Medjay but originally the Medjay was a fierce tribe in kush of warriors who were renowned for their skill in warfare and hunting and the Egyptians put so many of them in there armies that the soldiers themselves took on the word anyone could be a Medjay if they were a Egyptian soldier because the word’s meaning took a new form. The point is that because the Medjay were the main unit of the Egyptian army in ancient times, it is clear that it would wrong to give Egypt credit for a bow some one else invented. Even the textiles and the crowns jewelry and gold statues from Egypt are actually for the most part imported from Kush but paid for by the Egyptians a lot of people don’t know or forget that but I’m happy to inform some one else of the truth. 😄👌🏾
@@김해린-c5p You are correct the bow they used changed to composite over time due to West Asian influence and they used several types of composite bows this also was the case for the Nubians.
I guess you've never seen a Comanche bow. You can make a short bow without it snapping like that if you're not using a thin and very narrow furring strip like you easily snapped at the beginning of the video. You can put a backing on a short bow, but you don't have to. You just have to know what you're doing. Also, the horn doesn't hold all the power in the bow. A lot of the power comes in the lamination of the different materials. Some of the information in this video is either disingenuos, or downright wrong.
You are wrong Commanche bow is very weak because have 20 inch draw lenght compare to 36 inch draw lenght egypt bow Short draw lenght is weak power Longer draw lenght is big power Commanche bow use for hunting and not for armoured soldier
You mean Nubian bow...nubians did hit and run as well. I can't find anywhere were it was actual nubians with their self bows, they always talk of Egyptians, and Egyptians just copied the Nubians.
actually we ruled the nubians! there is only one black nubian family they called " 25th family " you people are just jealous its how we treated the blacks vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/egyptology/images/d/d7/Slaves1.jpg after thousands of year ,, yes we still hate blacks
@@monglianland3410 Yep, seems the composite made its way to Africa from somewhere. People used self long bows from ancient times. Perhaps it was the style of archery that was copied...
The Egyptians were on the twilight of their reign. Also with tensions high as they were in the region at the time, the Romans could effectively steam roll over them. Not as simple as that but that's the gist of it. Also a weapon system of any kind is only as effective as the army that wields it. Ultimately the Egyptians got under Roman rule because the Egyptian Army and Empire withered with age.
After the Nubian empire lost Egypt to the Assyrians Egypt became weak military, after the Assyrian empire was ambushed by its neighboring enemies, the Persians came into power and held onto power from N. Africa to the middle east. The Persians would hold power until Alexander in 332bc. The Greeks would hold power then the Romans became a up and coming power in the Mediterranean. The romans defeated the Greeks and would take over the Mediterranean. Egypt was too weak militarily by the time of the Romans to offer any type of resistance.
+Brandon Green "If the Egyptians had this why did Rome roll over them." - Because bows weren't nearly as important as people believe, the vast majority of battle casualties in the ancient and medieval world were in melee and the Romans were best at that...they also had very large shields. The Romans beat the Parthians many times and set their capital on fire twice, surely having superior bows would not stop their shielded/armored juggernaut legions.
Neutral Fellow From what i understand the Romans first defeats in combat (they would still lose on occasion) happened when they were caught in ambushes in Germania (Herman the German) and the later when their armor changed (they stopped wearing the LORICA SEGMENTATA)
Brandon Green The Romans lost battles long before they even got to Germania(they later won though), the lorica segmentata was not widely used at any point in time, hamata was far more popular.
That self bow is a caricature of an Egyptian self bow! It's a joke! Granted, the self bows in paintings appear to be whip tillered--but not like that! The very low humidity of much of Egypt would make wood less resilient and more brittle ...and they did use designs that show this... apparently...though the Nubian mercenary archers in the Egyptian armies had standard long bows of great power that looked similar to the English Longbow--and didn't seem to need to compromise efficiency to adapt to the low humidity! I can't imagine what the wood is in the sample shown--its very thick but weak? Or is it only bending in the tips? And is that sinew really being used to lash the horn to the bow? That would be highly abnormal. The sinew is normally applied to the bow as backing---and is as vital a component on the tension side of the bow as the horn is on the compression side. There could be some sinew wrapping, but that would not be it's primary purpose.
Looked to me to be rattan or something close to it, rattan is very hollow and light, meaning you need a ton of material to make a proper bow weight, for example i made a rattan egyptian bow with 42x42 cross section which made a 40-50 pound bow, a white wood of the same dimension would have made a 150+ pound bow!
You aren't a very accomplished reader, are you? None of your response directly referred to my post. Apparently you had already decided what you response was going to be before you actually responded. I don't "have" technology, I have "access" to technology. Automobiles are composed of many parts, many of them made of high grade metal and composites never before available. Anticipating your response, and conserving characters, please further embarrass yourself before I deliver the felling blow.
Those "wooden" bows must be the most shittiest bows I have ever seen. And he's saying that he can pull those with 1 finger... They are just some kids bows, real wooden bow can be made just as high draw weights than a composite bow can. Wooden bow just needs to be longer cus it would break otherwise.
The bow design that are depicted on the murals, or hieroglyphs are not efficient at all. The ones that look like modern recurves strung backwards. It's a mistake made by historians who have no bow experience.
@@jonajo9757 @Jona Jo Absolutely not. Are you an archer? The brace height on that bow is so low that the string would be slapping your wrist every time you shoot it. This is not a functional bow. It's a bow that was made by a person with no experience in archery. Just by looking at hieroglyphics, and copying them. When in reality the bow used by ancient Egyptians probably resembled this design in terms of shape, it was not made like this. And here we have a problem, where archeology fauls to take into account simple logic. And this happens all the time. They think they get it right, based on certain evidence, but fail to take into consideration common sense.
I don't know how much he knows. But I haven't find anyone ever on television who told me anything about Egyptian chariots and chariot bows, other than this man.
he has written multiple books on military bows that were published by osprey publishing and they are amazing. he referanced tests done by 2 of the best contemporary english longbowmen. he is quite the archer himself. why do you think he doesnt know what he is talking about?
@@mdstmouse7 but he puts tendons over the HORN PLATE !!! and compares fiberglass to the same tendons! although carbon fiber and fiberglass do the same job, but with different efficiency! I may have expressed myself too harshly, saying that he does not know anything ... but in some matters he needs to improve his knowledge. I have been archery for 17 years and during this time I have shot all types of bows: from Korean to compound bows and I also understand a thing or two.
THANK YOU. I ENJOYED THIS. HELPS PEOPLE UNDERSTAND THAT COMPOSITE BOWS HAVE BEEN AROUND A LONG TIME.
TAKE CARE GARE
The Egyptian bow is one of a series of bows known as recurved composite bows. This type of bow is commonly used by archers from Korea all the way to the Lower Balkans. It is a very versatile weapon as it can be used either on foot or on horseback. Even the Ancient Greeks and the Romans utilized these bows. Composite bow technology was lost in Western Europe after the fall of Rome in 476 and archers turned to simpler wooden self bows.
yes, the composite bow is the best bow of the ancient world. it's worth noting, however, that the english longbow, while a self bow, was quite a good bow. by making it longer and from yew wood it could generate as much power as the composite bows, and since it was used by foot soldiers the length wasn't as much of a problem. it's also possible that england's humid climate might have made the composite bow a bit impractical. fish and horse glue don't do well in humidity, which is the reason that in north america sinew backed bows were mostly used in the dry plains and deserts, while eastern woodland tribes used flat longbows. yew, by the way, is a very interesting bow wood because it's sort of a natural composite. the white sapwood was the back of the english longbow, which is very good for elasticity, while the darker heartwood was very very good for compression. so while they were self bows, the wood they used was basically two types of wood. one last note on the english longbow: the brits didn't like using their own yew. it wasn't very good. the best yew came from northern italy and certain highlands in spain.
But europeans began using composite technologies for their crossbows tho.
@@jonajo9757 yes, you're right, but mostly in the east of europe
@@jonnyhatter35 you right-
Western European relearned composite technology during the Crusades. Instead of creating composite bows, they use it to create crossbow prods. Early Medieval crossbows use wooden prods and with composite technology, prods become shorter making crossbows easier to be used in confined spaces. It is often said that the glue that binds the composite materials disintegrate under damp weather of Western Europe making composite bows ill-suited. Weather is not the reason as the composite prods are treated with special sealant to prevent moisture from disintegrating the glue. Otherwise they will never used composite technology to make prods. The main reason is most likely due to cost. Making composite bows is time consuming. Bowyers need to process materials like horn and sinews and the process takes several days. After binding the wood, horn and sinews together, the finished bows are put aside for the glue to set in and it will be months before they are ready. This lengthy process and the requirement of more materials makes composite bows very expensive.
I love learning about Egypt, best monarchy of all time.
Does anyone else find it cool that every culture had archery in it one way or another.
In fact there is a culture in history never seems to have developed the bow. The Australian Aborigines.
Instead, they used the woomera for their projectile weapon, similar to an atlatl.
It is believed that because of the type of animals in Australia, the wolmera, or dart thrower, was sufficient enough that there was no need to develop the bow and arrow.
My understanding is that Australia is the only inhabited continent in which the bow and arrow was not naturally developed.
@@josephnebeker7976 wow that neet
@@josephnebeker7976 Yeah, it's weird they never developed bow. It would have been a massive advantage over throwing sticks and atlatl that were no longer used in other places.
The Egyptian bow was totally a super weapon in its day. Any weapon that allows a person to change the face of warfare is revolutionary. Such a weapon could not be easily considered normal, and would be seen as extraordinary, or super...
Namnecron - the Nubian longbow*
@@fe7264 the nubian longbow is the Egyptian longbow they were more intertwined in the ancient days the medjay was nubian elite that comprised the elite of the protector of the Pharoah
“Don’t be confused by its great girth, that doesn’t necessarily signify power.”
Damn dawg. Story of my life right there.
You are fat?
The ones I made as child out of twigs and elastic bands never worked as well.
You clearly forgot to boil yourself some fish bladder
Love how this bow is actually bend backwards, when compared to parthian,scythian and mongol bows but still remains its power
beautiful collection
Other sinew goes on the back of the bow on the opposite side of the horn not directly on top of it. Sinew is good in tension not compression. Other than that its pretty good
I love archery....
Cool bow I didn’t know that a bow could bend backwards like that. Also the first bow, the wood bow, looks badass.
Thanks for the interested content
Funny - he assembles the wood, horn and the sinew in the wrong order at about 3:17..... wood should be in the middle! Not so important I suppose....
The Hyksos first introduced the chariot and the composite bow to Egypt
they introduced bow, not horses
you should see traditional korean bow. I was very surprised but it's pretty much a U that turns upside down before it's strung.
I'm guessing having such a light bow is part of the reason Egyptians were considered some of the greatest archers in history.
Lol I think you mean the Nubians or Kushites😂
amazing..thanks for the video :)
All the advanced cultures of antiquity faced similar challenges with projectile weapons and they all solved those problems with the materials available to them. The "Egyptian Bow" was not a superweapon.
fascinating
You mean the Nubian bow. Home of the bow.
Land of the bow Ta-seti
awesome
What is the self bow made from? Whats the draw weight?
I think he means Nubian bow or Kushite bow
no it's an Egyptian bow
@@Mostafa_elfagal Nope your wrong but let me explain why Egyptians called Kush Ta-Seti translating to land of the bow the main unit or Egyptian soldier was called a Medjay but originally the Medjay was a fierce tribe in kush of warriors who were renowned for their skill in warfare and hunting and the Egyptians put so many of them in there armies that the soldiers themselves took on the word anyone could be a Medjay if they were a Egyptian soldier because the word’s meaning took a new form. The point is that because the Medjay were the main unit of the Egyptian army in ancient times, it is clear that it would wrong to give Egypt credit for a bow some one else invented. Even the textiles and the crowns jewelry and gold statues from Egypt are actually for the most part imported from Kush but paid for by the Egyptians a lot of people don’t know or forget that but I’m happy to inform some one else of the truth. 😄👌🏾
You meand the composite bow or self bow?
@@김해린-c5p You are correct the bow they used changed to composite over time due to West Asian influence and they used several types of composite bows this also was the case for the Nubians.
I guess you've never seen a Comanche bow.
You can make a short bow without it snapping like that if you're not using a thin and very narrow furring strip like you easily snapped at the beginning of the video.
You can put a backing on a short bow, but you don't have to. You just have to know what you're doing.
Also, the horn doesn't hold all the power in the bow. A lot of the power comes in the lamination of the different materials.
Some of the information in this video is either disingenuos, or downright wrong.
You are wrong
Commanche bow is very weak because have 20 inch draw lenght compare to 36 inch draw lenght egypt bow
Short draw lenght is weak power
Longer draw lenght is big power
Commanche bow use for hunting and not for armoured soldier
Commanche bow is self bow
If you draw more 20 inch,the bow easy to break
Egyptian weapons
Really?
Of course it isn't. Let's see you make one.
Damn they were pretty smart to figure out how to make the best bow from literally animals and wood
I wanna make one!!!! How do u bend it??????
that is a lukas novotny composite bow right there, i cringed when he unstrung it like it was some kind of toy bow....
Wasn't it the Hyksos who came up with this?
dammit! the bow was not made of sand :(!
You mean Nubian bow...nubians did hit and run as well. I can't find anywhere were it was actual nubians with their self bows, they always talk of Egyptians, and Egyptians just copied the Nubians.
actually we ruled the nubians! there is only one black nubian family they called " 25th family " you people are just jealous
its how we treated the blacks vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/egyptology/images/d/d7/Slaves1.jpg
after thousands of year ,, yes we still hate blacks
Oh please 🙄
Nubian bows were self long bows not composite bows
@@monglianland3410 Yep, seems the composite made its way to Africa from somewhere. People used self long bows from ancient times. Perhaps it was the style of archery that was copied...
Did not realize that the Egyptians had a composite bow.
Thought that the Mongols were first.
If the Egyptians had this why did Rome roll over them.
The Egyptians were on the twilight of their reign. Also with tensions high as they were in the region at the time, the Romans could effectively steam roll over them. Not as simple as that but that's the gist of it.
Also a weapon system of any kind is only as effective as the army that wields it. Ultimately the Egyptians got under Roman rule because the Egyptian Army and Empire withered with age.
After the Nubian empire lost Egypt to the Assyrians Egypt became weak military, after the Assyrian empire was ambushed by its neighboring enemies, the Persians came into power and held onto power from N. Africa to the middle east. The Persians would hold power until Alexander in 332bc. The Greeks would hold power then the Romans became a up and coming power in the Mediterranean. The romans defeated the Greeks and would take over the Mediterranean. Egypt was too weak militarily by the time of the Romans to offer any type of resistance.
+Brandon Green "If the Egyptians had this why did Rome roll over them." - Because bows weren't nearly as important as people believe, the vast majority of battle casualties in the ancient and medieval world were in melee and the Romans were best at that...they also had very large shields. The Romans beat the Parthians many times and set their capital on fire twice, surely having superior bows would not stop their shielded/armored juggernaut legions.
Neutral Fellow
From what i understand the Romans first
defeats in combat (they would still lose on occasion) happened when they were caught in ambushes in Germania (Herman the German) and the later when their armor changed (they stopped wearing the LORICA SEGMENTATA)
Brandon Green The Romans lost battles long before they even got to Germania(they later won though), the lorica segmentata was not widely used at any point in time, hamata was far more popular.
That self bow is a caricature of an Egyptian self bow! It's a joke! Granted, the self bows in paintings appear to be whip tillered--but not like that! The very low humidity of much of Egypt would make wood less resilient and more brittle ...and they did use designs that show this... apparently...though the Nubian mercenary archers in the Egyptian armies had standard long bows of great power that looked similar to the English Longbow--and didn't seem to need to compromise efficiency to adapt to the low humidity!
I can't imagine what the wood is in the sample shown--its very thick but weak? Or is it only bending in the tips?
And is that sinew really being used to lash the horn to the bow? That would be highly abnormal. The sinew is normally applied to the bow as backing---and is as vital a component on the tension side of the bow as the horn is on the compression side. There could be some sinew wrapping, but that would not be it's primary purpose.
Looked to me to be rattan or something close to it, rattan is very hollow and light, meaning you need a ton of material to make a proper bow weight, for example i made a rattan egyptian bow with 42x42 cross section which made a 40-50 pound bow, a white wood of the same dimension would have made a 150+ pound bow!
@@almubarizunarchery4607 That makes sense! I only learned about rattan bows recently. Fascinating material.
You aren't a very accomplished reader, are you? None of your response directly referred to my post. Apparently you had already decided what you response was going to be before you actually responded. I don't "have" technology, I have "access" to technology. Automobiles are composed of many parts, many of them made of high grade metal and composites never before available. Anticipating your response, and conserving characters, please further embarrass yourself before I deliver the felling blow.
Those "wooden" bows must be the most shittiest bows I have ever seen. And he's saying that he can pull those with 1 finger... They are just some kids bows, real wooden bow can be made just as high draw weights than a composite bow can. Wooden bow just needs to be longer cus it would break otherwise.
The bow design that are depicted on the murals, or hieroglyphs are not efficient at all. The ones that look like modern recurves strung backwards. It's a mistake made by historians who have no bow experience.
We have tombs full of them..?
@@jonajo9757 @Jona Jo Absolutely not. Are you an archer? The brace height on that bow is so low that the string would be slapping your wrist every time you shoot it. This is not a functional bow. It's a bow that was made by a person with no experience in archery. Just by looking at hieroglyphics, and copying them. When in reality the bow used by ancient Egyptians probably resembled this design in terms of shape, it was not made like this.
And here we have a problem, where archeology fauls to take into account simple logic. And this happens all the time. They think they get it right, based on certain evidence, but fail to take into consideration common sense.
Wait, are you referring to the composite itself or the longbow featured in the video that looks like a backwardly strung recurve?
@@jonajo9757 The wooden one of course. Not the composite.
I hate that man! He is don't know the subject about he says!
I don't know how much he knows. But I haven't find anyone ever on television who told me anything about Egyptian chariots and chariot bows, other than this man.
he has written multiple books on military bows that were published by osprey publishing and they are amazing. he referanced tests done by 2 of the best contemporary english longbowmen. he is quite the archer himself. why do you think he doesnt know what he is talking about?
@@mdstmouse7 but he puts tendons over the HORN PLATE !!! and compares fiberglass to the same tendons! although carbon fiber and fiberglass do the same job, but with different efficiency! I may have expressed myself too harshly, saying that he does not know anything ... but in some matters he needs to improve his knowledge. I have been archery for 17 years and during this time I have shot all types of bows: from Korean to compound bows and I also understand a thing or two.
@@MasterSkif86 I mean other historians do that as well