From which wood were longbows made?
"bows, especially the longbow. British yews tend to be to gnarly, and thus the wood for English longbows used at the Battle of Agincourt was imported from Spain or northern Italy.</ref> Ötzi, the Chalcolithic mummy found in 1991 in the Italian Alps, carried an unfinished bow made of yew wood. Consequently, it is not surprising that in Norse mythology, the abode of the god of the bow, Ullr, had the name Ydalir (Yew Dales). Most longbow wood used in northern Europe was imported from Iberia, where climatic conditions are better for growing the knot-free yew wood required. The yew longbow"
"Longbow A longbow is a type of bow that is tall – roughly equal to the height of the user – allowing the archer a fairly long draw. A longbow is not significantly recurved. Its limbs are relatively narrow so that they are circular or D-shaped in cross section. Flatbows can be just as long; the difference is that, in cross-section, a flatbow has limbs that are approximately rectangular. Longbows for hunting and warfare have been made from many different woods by many cultures; in Europe they date from the Paleolithic, and since the Bronze Age were made mainly from"
"resilient timbers can make an effective and powerful wooden longbow. In most parts of the world, common hardwoods may be used to create excellent bows. Suitable and easily available timbers include elm (used in ancient Europe, as evidenced by bows pulled from European bogs), maple, sycamore, hazel, and ash. The flatbow design also lends itself to very dense, high strength woods such as hickory and especially osage orange (a wood favored by many Native American tribes for bow making). Good quality yew wood is still much more expensive and difficult to find than woods suitable for flatbows, and beginning bowyers"
"of the longbow. The Eastern Woodlands tribes of North America used hickory, tribes in parts of the Midwestern United States osage orange, Native Americans of the west coast used short, wide, recurved bows made of American Pacific yew, Brazilian rainforest tribes used palm wood, and many others. In Europe and North America, common woods such as maple, ash, elm, and oak make excellent flat bows, and are far easier to obtain than good-quality yew. The fibres on the back of a self bow must be, so far as possible, continuous. This may be achieved by using the outer, under-bark surface"
"made so that its thickness is at least (62.5%) of its width, as in Victorian longbows, and is widest at the handle. This differs from the Medieval longbow, which had a thickness between 33% and 75% of the width. Also, the Victorian longbow does not bend throughout the entire length, as does the medieval longbow. The earliest known example of a longbow was found in 1991 in the Ötztal Alps with a natural mummy known as Ötzi. His bow was made from yew and was 1.82 metres (72 in) long; the body has been dated to around 3,300 BC and"
"of wood: the core of the bow is bamboo, the back and belly are bamboo or hardwood, and hardwood strips are laminated to the bow's sides to prevent twisting. Ready-made laminated longbows are available for purchase. Any wooden bow must have gentle treatment and be protected from excessive damp or dryness. Wooden bows may shoot as well as fiberglass, but they are more easily dented or broken by abuse. Bows made of modern materials can be left strung for longer than wood bows, which may take a large amount of set if not unstrung immediately after use. The longbow and"
"in 1545. A longbow must be long enough to allow its user to draw the string to a point on the face or body, and the length therefore varies with the user. In continental Europe it was generally seen as any bow longer than . The Society of Antiquaries of London says it is of in length. Richard Bartelot, of the Royal Artillery Institution, said that the bow was of yew, long, with a arrow. Gaston III, Count of Foix, wrote in 1388 that a longbow should be ""of yew or boxwood, seventy inches [] between the points of attachment"
"can manage with practice. Today, there are few modern longbowmen capable of using bows accurately. A record of how boys and men trained to use the bows with high draw weights survives from the reign of Henry VII. What Latimer meant when he describes laying his body into the bow was described thus: The preferred material to make the longbow was yew, although ash, elm and other woods were also used. Gerald of Wales speaking of the bows used by the Welsh men of Gwent, says: ""They are made neither of horn, ash nor yew, but of elm; ugly unfinished-looking"
"naturally because of the unsuitable climate. The traditional Finnish flatbow is made either from ash, or as birch/pine laminate glued together with fish or hide glue. Yew was available as an imported material for bows in Finland, but it was considered not suitable for serious use, because it is fragile at cold temperatures and the season for hunting for furs is in January and February, when the furs are at their best. The American longbow, also known as the ""American flatbow"", was developed in the 1930s. It resulted from scientific investigation into the best cross-sectional shape for a bow limb."
"arquebusiers in front. More than 3,500 arrows and 137 whole longbows were recovered from the ""Mary Rose"", a ship of Henry VIII's navy that capsized and sank at Portsmouth in 1545. It is an important source for the history of the longbow, as the bows, archery implements and the skeletons of archers have been preserved. The bows range in length from with an average length of . The majority of the arrows were made of poplar, others were made of beech, ash and hazel. Draw lengths of the arrows varied between with the majority having a draw length of ."
"of wood. By the beginning of the Dynastic Period, bows were made of wood. They had a single curvature and were strung with animal sinews or strings made of plant fiber. In the pre-dynastic period, bows often had a double curvature, but during the Old Kingdom a single-arched bow, known as a self (or simple) bow, was adopted. These were used to fire reed arrows fletched with three feathers and tipped with flint or hardwood, and later, bronze. The bow itself was usually between one and two meters in length and made up of a wooden rod, narrowing at either"
"the Baltic, but at this period bows were being replaced by guns in any case. Bowstrings are made of hemp, flax or silk, and attached to the wood via horn ""nocks"" that fit onto the end of the bow. Modern synthetic materials (often Dacron) are now commonly also used for strings. A wide variety of arrows were shot from the English longbow. Variations in length, fletchings and heads are all recorded. Perhaps the greatest diversity lies in hunting arrows, with varieties like broad-arrow, wolf-arrow, dog-arrow, Welsh arrow and Scottish arrow being recorded. War arrows were ordered in the thousands for"
"in Germany. From such continental evidence, it has been asserted that long bows were common in Northwestern Europe during the early medieval period. Long bow staves were constructed from a single piece of wood, and the string was made of hair or animal gut. Underwood suggested that the maximum shooting distance of an Anglo-Saxon bow would have been about 150 to 200 metres (500 to 650 feet). However, he also noted that the power of the arrow would have been greatly diminished beyond 100 to 120 metres (325 to 400 feet), and it only would have caused relatively minor wounds."
"to take advantage of the inherent properties of different woods: some woods can better withstand compression while others are better at withstanding tension. Examples include hickory and lemonwood, or bamboo and yew longbows: hickory or bamboo is used on the back of the bow (the part facing away from the archer when shooting) and so is in tension, while the belly (the part facing the archer when shooting) is made of lemonwood or yew and undergoes compression (see bending for a further explanation of stresses in a bending beam). Traditionally made Japanese yumi are also laminated longbows, made from strips"
"English longbow The English longbow was a powerful medieval type of longbow (a tall bow for archery) about long used by the English and Welsh for hunting and as a weapon in medieval warfare. English use of longbows was effective against the French during the Hundred Years' War, particularly at the start of the war in the battles of Sluys (1340), Crécy (1346), and Poitiers (1356), and perhaps most famously at the Battle of Agincourt (1415). They were less successful after this, with longbowmen having their lines broken at the Battle of Verneuil (1424), and being completely routed at the"
"enfilade their foes. Other, more recent, historians such as Matthew Bennett dispute this, holding that the archers were normally deployed on the flanks of the army as a whole, rather than between divisions. While the famous English longbowman is better known in popular imagination, the missile troops that caused the most damage in the medieval era were the crossbowmen. The Catholic Church tried to outlaw the crossbow and all other ranged weapons at the Second Lateran Council in 1139, without much success. The crossbow was constructed initially of wood with steel gradually taking over in the 15th century, producing a"
"while in the ""Mary Rose"" bows the back of the bow was the natural surface of the wood, only the bark being removed. The inner side (""belly"") of the bow stave consists of rounded heartwood. The heartwood resists compression and the outer sapwood performs better in tension. This combination in a single piece of wood (a self bow) forms a natural ""laminate"", somewhat similar in effect to the construction of a composite bow. Longbows will last a long time if protected with a water-resistant coating, traditionally of ""wax, resin and fine tallow"". The trade of yew wood to England for"
"weapons, but astonishingly stiff, large and strong, and equally capable of use for long or short shooting"". The traditional construction of a longbow consists of drying the yew wood for 1 to 2 years, then slowly working the wood into shape, with the entire process taking up to four years. (This can be done far more quickly by working the wood down when wet, as a thinner piece of wood will dry much faster.) The bow stave is shaped into a D-section. The outer ""back"" of sapwood, approximately flat, follows the natural growth rings; modern bowyers often thin the sapwood,"
"are made of elm and have flat arms and a D-shaped midsection. The center section is biconvex. The complete bow is (5 ft) long. Bows of Holmegaard-type were in use until the Bronze Age; the convexity of the midsection has decreased with time. Mesolithic pointed shafts have been found in England, Germany, Denmark, and Sweden. They were often rather long, up to (4 ft) and made of European hazel (""Corylus avellana""), wayfaring tree (""Viburnum lantana"") and other small woody shoots. Some still have flint arrow-heads preserved; others have blunt wooden ends for hunting birds and small game. The ends show"
"and less than 6 cm wide. It has been suggested that only the inner limbs of a Holmegaard style bow bend in use, but this is incorrect, they bend to their tips. All Mesolithic bows from this area are made of elm, the best European bow wood apart from yew. (Yew spread to modern Denmark only in about the third millennium BCE.) Initially, the Holmegaard bows were believed to have been made ""backwards"", that is with wood removed from the back and the belly made convex. This may be the result of a comparison with the English Longbow that has"
"its historical significance, arising from its effective use by the English and Welsh during the Hundred Years' War, have created a lasting legacy for the longbow, which has given its name to modern military equipment, including: Longbow A longbow is a type of bow that is tall – roughly equal to the height of the user – allowing the archer a fairly long draw. A longbow is not significantly recurved. Its limbs are relatively narrow so that they are circular or D-shaped in cross section. Flatbows can be just as long; the difference is that, in cross-section, a flatbow has"
"1.59 m long, 3.4 cm wide and 1.4 cm thick. Wood laminated bows were popular in southern China because of the humid climate. Based on excavated bows from the Spring and Autumn period through the Han dynasty (770 BCE–220 CE), the typical construction of a Chinese wood laminate was a reflex bow made from multiple layers of wood (such as bamboo or mulberry), wrapped in silk and lacquered. The typical length of such bows was 1.2–1.5 meters. Bows with long siyahs were popular in China from the Han dynasty through the Yuan dynasty (206 BCE–1368 CE). (Siyahs are the non-bending"
"a warbow-weight English longbow; but these styles may easily overlap each other.) Traditional flatbows are usually wooden self bows (bows made of one solid piece of wood), though laminated and composite flatbows have been made in ancient and modern times. Modern flatbows commonly use fiberglass. The flatbow is a superior bow design for almost all materials because the stress is more evenly spread out than with rounded limb sections. A bow limb is essentially a flexed beam undergoing bending, and in any flexed beam the farther from the neutral axis (line in the middle of the flexing beam which is"
"may be made from less dense timber by making them wider near the centre. The mass of equivalent bows is closely similar whatever the density of wood; approximately the same mass of wood is required whatever the density of the timber. The overall length of bending wood must be about 2.3 times the draw length. Narrow bows (known as ""longbows"") can bend in the handle. Wider bows (known as ""flatbows"") must be narrow in the handle if they are to be practical, but the handle must be made thicker so as not to bend, and the complete bow will therefore"
"and ready to shoot for some time with little physical straining, allowing crossbowmen to aim better without fatiguing. Chinese crossbow bows were made of composite material from the start. European crossbows from the 10th to 12th centuries used wood for the bow, also called the ""prod"" or ""lath"", which tended to be ash or yew. Composite bows started appearing in Europe during the 13th century and could be made from layers of different material, often wood, horn, and sinew glued together and bound with animal tendon. These composite bows made of several layers are much stronger and more efficient in"
"at Clacton-on-Sea, in Essex, UK. Known as the Clacton Spear, it is estimated to be over 400,000 years old. Yew is also associated with Wales and England because of the longbow, an early weapon of war developed in northern Europe, and as the English longbow the basis for a medieval tactical system. The oldest surviving yew longbow was found at Rotten Bottom in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. It has been given a calibrated radiocarbon date of 4040 BC to 3640 BC and is on display in the National Museum of Scotland. Yew is the wood of choice for longbow making;"
"English longbows, flatbows, and Native American sinew-backed bows. The wood is marketed as ""eastern redcedar"" or ""aromatic cedar"". The best portions of the heartwood are one of the few woods good for making pencils, but the supply had diminished sufficiently by the 1940s that it was largely replaced by incense-cedar. Juniper oil is distilled from the wood, twigs and leaves. The essential oil contains cedrol which has toxic and possibly carcinogenic properties. The cones are used to flavor gin. Native American tribes have historically used juniper wood poles to mark out agreed tribal hunting territories. French traders named Baton Rouge,"
"be made of steel, laminated wood, or by the traditional method, of a single, bent piece of wood. The drawbacks of a metal shaft bow is that in very cold weather it might shatter, and the hard metal will wear the wooden shafts quickly. A wooden, so-called ""pressed shaft bow"" can be made of bird cherry (which is the most durable), lime or birch – all these trees grow slowly in the Finnish climate. The wood is softened by storing it in a dung heap for about a week, warming it by an open fire, steaming it, or using microwaves."
"done with a side axe. Other tools used in woodwork were hammers, wedges, drawknives, planes and saws. Iron saws were probably very rare. The Domesday Book in England (1086 AD) records only 13 saws. Possibly these were pit saws and it is uncertain if they were used in longship construction. Even though no longship sail has been found, accounts and depictions verify that longships had square sails. Sails measured perhaps across, and were made of rough wool cloth. Unlike in knarrs, a longship sail was not stitched. The sail was held in place by the mast which was up to"
"Manchu bow The Manchu bow is a type of composite recurve bow historically used in Manchuria, and subsequently spread to China, Mongolia, and Tibet during the Qing dynasty. It is similar in construction and likely shares roots with the medieval Mongol bow. It is characterized by very large siyahs, long draw length, prominent string bridges, and use with typically large and heavy arrows. Due to its extensive usage outside Manchuria, this bow is also often identified as a Chinese bow or Mongol bow, and during the 17th century, its widespread usage (along with the increasing proliferation of firearms) almost completely"
"crossbowmen were also valued as long-range snipers; such was the case when the Liao general Xiao Talin was picked off by a Song crossbow at the Battle of Shanzhou in 1004. Crossbows were mass-produced in state armories with designs improving as time went on, such as the use of a mulberry wood and brass crossbow in 1068 that could pierce a tree at 140 paces. Song cavalry used an array of different weapons, including halberds, swords, bows, and fire lances that discharged a gunpowder blast of flame and shrapnel. In preparation for war, government armories manufactured weapons in enormous quantities,"
"Lowebow A lowebow is a variation of the cigar box guitar, created by John Lowe in the 1990s. It involves a cigar box with two wooden rods projecting from it. Each wooden rod typically holds one string: a bass string attached to one rod and a standard acoustic guitar string attached to the other. This allows the player to pluck a one-string bass and a one-string guitar at the same time. Each of the two strings has its own electric pickup that feeds into an amplifier. Some variations contain multiple strings on the treble neck, similar to standard cigar box"
"fish, cougars or bears. Charles Wilkes described Shasta made weaponry in 1845:""Their bows and arrows are beautifully made: the former are of yew and about three feet long; they are flat, and an inch and a half to two inches wide: these are backed very neatly with sinew, and painted. The arrows are upwards of thirty inches long; some of them were made of a close-grained wood, a species of spiraea, while others were of reed; they were feathered for a length of from five to eight inches, and the barbed heads were beautifully wrought from obsidian... Their quivers are"