Author Topic: Holmegaard, Muldbjerg and Nydam bows on display  (Read 33709 times)

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Offline Jodocus

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Re: Holmegaard, Muldbjerg and Nydam bows on display
« Reply #15 on: August 13, 2012, 05:36:19 am »
Thank you lots for posting this. (by the way, how do you insert pics into the text, not as attachement?) It is good to see these new angles.

I personally think the mollegabet bow IS a bow for someone small, might be adult or youth, male or female, but I don't see any other way to shoot than with the entire hand plus the arrow on that handle. I think the reason for the bows thickness is that it wasn't drawn as far as we do nowadays. long draw is much more typical for military bow use in historical contents. Many, in fact most, bow hunting pre-industrial cultures use shorter draws. There may be a mark on the arrow or just training used for a much shorter, yet constant draw. To get a decent weight, then, the bow will be thicker, looking overly hard to our eyes.

As far as the back of the Muldbjerg bow is concerned, I also think it is reduced to a certain shape. I wouldn't say carelessly, but pragmatically. Mind you, working with the tools of their time was very different, no such thing as a drawknife for that one bowyer. Much less cutting, much more splitting and slow grinding. And the way it is displayed next to a paddle makes it also more obvious: that bow was a tool, good enough was good enough. The fact that parts of the bow were later used in a fish trap makes it very clear that function was on the maker's mind. In fact, the holmegaard specimen looks made a bit more carefully.
Don't shoot!

Offline Holten101

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Re: Holmegaard, Muldbjerg and Nydam bows on display
« Reply #16 on: August 13, 2012, 05:49:39 am »
@Jodocus
I completly agree on you points....and careless was a bad expression;-).


One thing though...the bow besides the paddle is the Holmegaard bow and the single bow in the cabinet the Muldbjerg bow...none of them are the Møllegabet bow, that specimen is in another museum to my information.

Cheers

Offline arklowrebel

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Re: Holmegaard, Muldbjerg and Nydam bows on display
« Reply #17 on: August 13, 2012, 07:05:42 am »
Holten - thank you so much for posting these pics.  I too have bookmarked the page and will be coming back to it when I try to tackle making a Holmegaard later this year.   :)

Offline Jodocus

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Re: Holmegaard, Muldbjerg and Nydam bows on display
« Reply #18 on: August 13, 2012, 07:19:28 am »
yeah, sorry, I got it all mingled up.  ??? the holmegaard one is the one that I cosidered small, and the muldbjerg the one that might be decrowned.
When I saw the paddle I just thought that those people had lots of pieces of wood to work on, so they moved to the next one as soon as one was reaonably working. Except for prestige pieces, of course.

Don't shoot!

Offline Scowler

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Re: Holmegaard, Muldbjerg and Nydam bows on display
« Reply #19 on: August 13, 2012, 09:09:15 am »
Thanks for posting the photos and information, Holten 101.  Great stuff!  I noticed the bulberous nocks on the arrows.  Reminds me of some Native American arrows I've seen.  Perhaps a pinch release was used with these arrows?  The fletching lengh was a bit of a suprise to me.  I've done some experimenting with short, tallish fletchings and, although they "flew" well, they were a bit slower and noisier than longer, lower fletchings (similar to using Flu-Flu arrows).  Definitly gives me some things to think about.  Thanks again for the postings. :)

Offline Whitebeam

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Re: Holmegaard, Muldbjerg and Nydam bows on display
« Reply #20 on: August 13, 2012, 03:04:47 pm »
... no such thing as a drawknife for that one bowyer.
There is a Ray Mears television programme where he is working with Chris Boyton to make a replica of the Ashcott Heath bow. During the process Chris discovers that a large flint blade works very nicely as a draw knife. I have a link to it on YouTube, but will post this link in a separate post in case it gets deleted for copyright reasons ... if it does, search YT for "Making A Bow And Arrow And Fire With Stone Age Tools"

Peter

Offline Whitebeam

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Re: Holmegaard, Muldbjerg and Nydam bows on display
« Reply #21 on: August 13, 2012, 03:05:48 pm »

Offline Alaric

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Re: Holmegaard, Muldbjerg and Nydam bows on display
« Reply #22 on: August 13, 2012, 03:35:48 pm »
Thanks for all the pictures of the Holmegaard bow, I’ve been gathering info on it lately and these are very helpful.

On a side note:
I know it is now widely believed that these bows were conventional strung and not strung backwards, a belief I also hold and I have wondered how the idea they were strung backwards ever got started. In my research I found a post on a forum, not sure which one, that appeared to blame the mistake on Paul Comstock misinterpreting archeological drawings but I now have both “THE BOW; Some notes on Origin and Development” by Gad Rausing and “Neolithic bows from Somerset, England, and the prehistory of archery in North-west Europe” by J.G.D. Clark  the two primary references that Paul sites in “Ancient European Bows” and I find that Mr. Rausing clearly states that the bow was stung backwards so the idea did not start with Paul he was just referencing Mr. Rausing whom I suspect was referencing other who came before him. I still don’t know why anyone ever thought it was strung backwards but wanted to throw out this defense of Paul’s reputation. ;)
If anyone knows of any other research material on the Holmegaard bows I’d love to know about it.

Richard

Offline druid

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Re: Holmegaard, Muldbjerg and Nydam bows on display
« Reply #23 on: August 13, 2012, 05:37:13 pm »
Thanks for posting, great collection.....
Are there some better quality photos of some Mary Rose stuff or it is still forbidden?

Offline Holten101

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Re: Holmegaard, Muldbjerg and Nydam bows on display
« Reply #24 on: August 13, 2012, 05:44:47 pm »
Thanks for posting, great collection.....
Are there some better quality photos of some Mary Rose stuff or it is still forbidden?

These are all danish bows...the Nationalmuseet in Denmark dont have anything Mary Rose....or any middelage bows to my knowledge.

The Nydam finds are just as amazing imo....a whole ship filled with spoils of war purposly sunk as an offering (or thats the story at least....weapons including bows, arrows, swords and what not practically littering the area were it was found. I am still biased towards stoneage tools, but Nydam is great stuff none the less:-).

Cheers


Offline Adam

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Re: Holmegaard, Muldbjerg and Nydam bows on display
« Reply #25 on: August 13, 2012, 10:50:52 pm »
Very cool, thanks for posting.  It sure would be fun to go to that museum and just stare for awhile...

Offline Comalforge

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Re: Holmegaard, Muldbjerg and Nydam bows on display
« Reply #26 on: August 14, 2012, 01:29:03 am »
Many ancient skeletons are quite short in stature by today's standards.  Depending on locale, many full grown men were 5'0" or less with women even smaller.  Otzi the Iceman was around 5'5" and considered tall - perhaps because he also appeared to be well nourished during his lifetime.  Short, handy bows may have been the standard at the time.

Offline Carson (CMB)

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Re: Holmegaard, Muldbjerg and Nydam bows on display
« Reply #27 on: August 14, 2012, 02:27:01 am »
Holmegaard:

I am wondering if certain bows had certain uses.  Was the same bow used for hunting deer as for shooting large fish?  If a hunter had several bows, like most of us modern hunters, he probably had one better suited for different hunting conditions and or target prey. Given the associated artifacts on display, paddle and fish point, maybe this bow was a fishing bow.  I know I prefer a shorter bow when bowfishing. Possibly that explains, in part, the shorter length.  Just a thought. 

"The bow is the old first lyre,
the mono chord, the initial rune of fine art
The humanities grew out from archery as a flower from a seed
No sooner did the soft, sweet note of the bow-string charm the ear of genius than music was born, and from music came poetry and painting and..." Maurice Thompso

Offline Holten101

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Re: Holmegaard, Muldbjerg and Nydam bows on display
« Reply #28 on: August 14, 2012, 03:45:51 am »
Average height at "the time" was 166 cm for males and 154 cm for women. Now im NOT saying its a womens bow...but it is kinda funny that of the two Holmegaard bows one was 154 cm and the other 160-170 cm;-). Mind you that that average height is from the Ertebøl period several thousand years younger than the Maglemose period in wich the Holmegaard artefacts belong.

In that light there is nothing unusual about the bows length....I just felt the need to express the thought that poped up when I saw it this time around. The displayed bow IS the shorter of the two bows found however, by a good margin.

Cheers


Offline TimPotter

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Re: Holmegaard, Muldbjerg and Nydam bows on display
« Reply #29 on: October 24, 2013, 07:38:04 am »
Thank you very much for those pictures. :)
"The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them."  Ernest Hemingway