Bow prices

[Furry Fella]

On 8/18/2018 at 2:49 AM, Brootse said:

A longbow cost about a week's wage for a Medieval English crafter, not a half year's wage. Why are bows so expensive in RQ? Is it for game balance?

The problem is you are comparing cost to the characters net disposable income AFTER All living and family expenses NOT to a wage. Take you wage and deduct food, housing, clothing, tools, family etc and see where it gets you. As an example by the 14th century a man-at-arms  armour cost several years disposable income for the holder of a single manor, often more than the total cash receipts taken by even a quite well of minor knight. That is why raising troops by indenture was so much used and why loot was so blood important - almost all your pay even for a knight was absorbed by paying your commander for your kit and caboodle plus feeding you.

[Joerg]

Praxian crafters have the nomad's dilemma - stay with the clan or stay with your special workplace. If the drying process for the horn or the curing process for sinews or hides takes weeks at constant conditions, packing up and following the herd doesn't really help with your quality.

 

Jason's middle-of-the-night scenario (Berlin time) led his party into a gully just outside of the Dead Place, one of the most reliably dry places in Prax (alongside the Long Dry). Great conditions to age your horn parts before assembling that bow, but a lousy place to survive for more than a few days while your personal beasts nibble off all of the available vegetation.

 

For the glue, it will probably easier to use something squirming in one of the marshes than the fish stuff used by the Silk Road bowyers. Still, you will need some liquid for the glue to become applicable. It doesn't have to be potable, though, which means that what you find in the marshes will most likely be sufficient.

 

The other approach would be runic. Archery is a fire-related custom, and bowyers might have fire magics adaptable for preparing their raw material.

[David Scott]

58 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Praxian crafters have the nomad's dilemma - stay with the clan or stay with your special workplace. If the drying process for the horn or the curing process for sinews or hides takes weeks at constant conditions, packing up and following the herd doesn't really help with your quality.

Praxian nomads aren't moving everyday. camp is set up and the herd either is grazing ahead or towards you. When the range between camp and graze becomes impractical, you move. Big moves are across poor areas. You may be camped for a week, that's plenty of time. Sinew dries very fast, I have prepared and used sinew that dried with in 24 hours. Skins are prepared in stages, easy to move, horn preparation has plenty of time.

Look at neolithic technologies, they are the closest to the Praxians eg

https://www.braintan.com/articles/brainbones&hotsprings.html

https://sensiblesurvival.org/2011/11/07/preparing-and-using-sinew/

It's also no coincidence that the Bighorns oasis has sheep

http://www.heartwoodbows.com/Bighorn_sheep_bows.html

These are two good resources:

https://www.amazon.com/Native-American-bows-T-Hamilton/dp/B0006C4FXA (my local library had this)

https://www.amazon.com/Arrows-Native-Americans-Step-Step/dp/1599210835/ much cheaper!

This next one is my favourite, it gives you good practical handling experience of materials that aren't fiddly bows or arrows!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Drums-Tomtoms-Rattles-Percussion-Instruments/dp/0486218899

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

For the glue, it will probably easier to use something squirming in one of the marshes than the fish stuff used by the Silk Road bowyers.

The most common glue is from the natural slime of the giant praxian sand slug. Children are often sent out to hunt these before they grow too big. 

As for costs, most of the materials are free, the actual cost is time related. There aren't any specific praxian crafters for bows, everyone makes their own or shares in part of the process. 

 

[David Scott]

For praxian bows, you'd probably have a go at making your first when you're about 10, that's when the boys leave the women and join the men. BTW I'm not saying that women don't make bows, they do, I'm just looking at when it would happen. Up until that age, any weapon making would have been done on your behalf or you would of "helped" in the process. You'd have a good knife, a short spear and a maybe a small bow. After this you start to grow, get stronger and more able to handle larger weapons, you also get better at knapping. Children can make arrow heads, knives and spear heads, they just don't have the dexterity, strength and skill yet to be efficient and quick. By the time you are about 15 you should have made passable weapons for yourself. Family members may have provided parts, help, corrections and support, but it will have been mostly your own work.

It's quite easy to start knapping, I learnt it as part of my degree. This is an excellent resource -

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Flintknapping-Making-Understanding-Stone-Tools/dp/029279083X/

Making an arrow head by pressure flaking is a good insight as thaw this kind of technology works. I've never made a bow, that was a step to far for me. But I've made skin drums and rattles. 

[styopa]

4 hours ago, Furry Fella said:

Composite bows and quality powerful "self" bows (for a longbow is "merely" a large specialist self bow with some careful customised selection and finishing that helps mimic strengths of composite construction)

A fair point.

If one wanted to get into the weeds of detail, one could easily postulate where the draw strength and damage of a bow were a direct function of the time invested in the process.

While it's not easy, it's also not crazy-hard to hack a basic bow together.  (The bowstring is actually the hardest part, IMO.)  Of course, this is only going to be capable of killing small game....like we're talking 1d2 damage or maybe only 1 point.

With long enough investment in wood, seasoning, other materials your basic kludged primitive bow evolves into a longbow or a recurve. 

Ultimately, the world has largely moved on to recurves from the longbow for a variety of very good reasons - essentially the performance for the price (in labor, materials, and technique) is a better return.

 

[Joerg]

Reading David’s sources on tanning I started to wonder what kind of containers or vats the praxians woud use.

Skulls, possibly with treated interior, make good chalices and crucibles for preparing agents, if you get them in decent size. Herdman skulls not only have a good volume but also offer a good material for tanning, a win-win situation. Gourds or skin-clad vessels won’t last long exposed to the tanning agents, but they might last long enough.

Holes in the ground are fine if you can line them with some material to make them watertight, like clay, dung or sludge that you let seep into pereable soil. I think that quite a few curing and tanning processes (and definitely some pof the processes producing the agents from raw ingredients) are supposed to be anaerobiic, requiring at least good water coverage, though ideally a seal against air.

Other tanning processes I have seen applied involved open vats and people stirring the hides with paddles. I guess that dugout trees can make good vats, but we are discussing Prax, where such resources would be rare. Sitill, master tanners might have traded for earthware vats or barrels.

(Some aspects of my daytime job taking samples or making measurements “in the field” aren’t too far from handling tanning agents under primitive conditions, which is what has me wondering about such things.)

 

The source on making sheephorn bows has resting periods for the sinew-backed bows on the rack for a couple of weeks before they become usable. As far as I know, such resting or aging processes benefits from constant, con trolled conditions. That means taking such unfinished bows on the move will be detrimental to their performance. There were a couple of other steps which suggestlonger resting oeriods than the average stay of e herd in a place to me.

I guess that the Praxians have two distinct qualities of bows or similarly complex items they produce – quick and dirty for short-lived replacements for broken stuff, or carefully and slowly for superior quality worthy of a khan or distinguished warrior.

 

If I interpret David correctly, then a bow isn't something you buy, but something you work for, at least among the Praxians. That's certainly true for fletchery, but may well extend to all other arms and armor of the Praxians, and probably to a good deal of equipment used by the Orlanthi as well, when you don't go for highest quality.

In that regard, how much time otherwise available for training does go into the making of a composite bow? Is the value in lunars (minus raw materials, unless you work for getting these, too) comparable to the training time that amount of lunars would buy you?

[Brootse]

7 hours ago, Furry Fella said:

The problem is you are comparing cost to the characters net disposable income AFTER All living and family expenses NOT to a wage. Take you wage and deduct food, housing, clothing, tools, family etc and see where it gets you. As an example by the 14th century a man-at-arms  armour cost several years disposable income for the holder of a single manor, often more than the total cash receipts taken by even a quite well of minor knight. That is why raising troops by indenture was so much used and why loot was so blood important - almost all your pay even for a knight was absorbed by paying your commander for your kit and caboodle plus feeding you.

Nah, I'm not. A Gloranthan crafter makes about 80L a year or 2L a week, and and it's difficult for them to save any of it if they want to keep their normal standard of living. So using the current prices, commoners can't afford the weapons they are supposed to use.

[Brootse]

4 hours ago, David Scott said:

Praxian nomads aren't moving everyday. camp is set up and the herd either is grazing ahead or towards you. When the range between camp and graze becomes impractical, you move. Big moves are across poor areas. You may be camped for a week, that's plenty of time. Sinew dries very fast, I have prepared and used sinew that dried with in 24 hours. Skins are prepared in stages, easy to move, horn preparation has plenty of time.

Look at neolithic technologies, they are the closest to the Praxians eg

https://www.braintan.com/articles/brainbones&hotsprings.html

https://sensiblesurvival.org/2011/11/07/preparing-and-using-sinew/

It's also no coincidence that the Bighorns oasis has sheep

http://www.heartwoodbows.com/Bighorn_sheep_bows.html

These are two good resources:

https://www.amazon.com/Native-American-bows-T-Hamilton/dp/B0006C4FXA (my local library had this)

https://www.amazon.com/Arrows-Native-Americans-Step-Step/dp/1599210835/ much cheaper!

This next one is my favourite, it gives you good practical handling experience of materials that aren't fiddly bows or arrows!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Drums-Tomtoms-Rattles-Percussion-Instruments/dp/0486218899

The most common glue is from the natural slime of the giant praxian sand slug. Children are often sent out to hunt these before they grow too big. 

As for costs, most of the materials are free, the actual cost is time related. There aren't any specific praxian crafters for bows, everyone makes their own or shares in part of the process. 

 

Nice!

Would you, or anyone else, happen to know if IRL nomad tribes had designated bowyers, or was it something that every man had to learn himself? Or were full time bowyers only employed by some warlords?

Edited August 20, 2018 by Brootse

[Brootse]

In addition to bows, some other simple weapons also have inflated prices. Eg. atlatl costs 10L, when its accurate description is "A short stick with a socket at one end". Javelins cost more than spears, but they need much less metal. The staff in staff sling costs 9L. And two darts cost as much as a sword.

Now missile weapons are effective, but their prices shouldn't reflect how good they are, but instead the costs of making one.

[David Scott]

13 minutes ago, Brootse said:

Would you, or anyone else, happen to know if IRL nomad tribes had designated bowyers, or was it something that every man had to learn himself? Or were full time bowyers only employed by some warlords?

The praxians are neolithic nomads, who don't do hot metal work and don't practice agriculture, so I doubt it, although I wouldn't preclude people with good ability. There is evidence of craft specialisms in settled areas in the neolithic:

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/research/directory/craft_specialisation_wright

http://www.academia.edu/725301/Craft_Specialization_in_the_Neolithic_of_Greece

It might be different amongst other nomadic peoples.

[M Helsdon]

9 hours ago, Furry Fella said:

Much is being argued of the whole "invasion" story and about population replacement etc. There is something significant to this just I doubt very very strongly the views of those such as Francis Pryor who want to claim there was no war or conquest. To me the inescapable problem is the Anglo Saxon Chronicle - the Saxons say they had to fight big time. There is also far too much contemporary historical / literary material for 5th to 6th centuries for the revisionists to be doing other than throwing the baby out to.

Even in the south east, there is little genetic evidence of a population replacement by the Saxons. The Danes left a far greater genetic footprint in what was the Danelaw.

The early entries of the Anglo Saxon Chronicle are very suspect; of course there were fights, but on the whole it seems likely that in many areas the Romano-British nobility suffered a severe case of 'stabbed in the back', something that would be rewritten in far more heroic terms, if the later chroniclers knew what was good for them.

[M Helsdon]

1 hour ago, Brootse said:

In addition to bows, some other simple weapons also have inflated prices. Eg. atlatl costs 10L, when its accurate description is "A short stick with a socket at one end". Javelins cost more than spears, but they need much less metal. The staff in staff sling costs 9L. And two darts cost as much as a sword.

Now missile weapons are effective, but their prices shouldn't reflect how good they are, but instead the costs of making one.

Spears tend to be expensive, especially if they are made of coppiced wood, which provides a stronger shaft than a spear made from split planks. Atlatl, to be effective, have to be made very carefully; if the shaft isn't perfectly straight then it isn't going to work very well.

As for the price of bows, whilst arrows are supposedly covered by the cost of a quiver, historically, a sheaf of arrows could cost more than a self bow (including a long bow). In the 14th century, a sheaf of 24 arrows for a long bow cost 16d (one shilling and four pence). As few players or GMs keep a tally of munitions, the cost of a RuneQuest bow also covers an endless supply of arrows. 

[styopa]

1 hour ago, David Scott said:

The praxians are neolithic nomads, who don't do hot metal work and don't practice agriculture, so I doubt it, although I wouldn't preclude people with good ability. There is evidence of craft specialisms in settled areas in the neolithic:

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/research/directory/craft_specialisation_wright

http://www.academia.edu/725301/Craft_Specialization_in_the_Neolithic_of_Greece

It might be different amongst other nomadic peoples.

I think in primitive environment it would be commonsensical that they recognize at least some specialization in any important role - it might not be formalized into a "job" but we all know that Grog just seems to make things that taste good and Marraga, well, she just seems to have a sense how to find the deer.  I believe I saw something about flint knapping being a rather specialized skill but I don't recall if this was the author's speculation or had some basis in fact.

It would likely all be on the basis of natural ability, and nothing remotely resembling training for a job...except perhaps the "job" of shaman/god talker, etc.  I believe (at least it seems widely accepted in the archaeological things I read) that this was indeed a very apprenticelike situation?

[Brootse]

1 hour ago, M Helsdon said:

Spears tend to be expensive, especially if they are made of coppiced wood, which provides a stronger shaft than a spear made from split planks. Atlatl, to be effective, have to be made very carefully; if the shaft isn't perfectly straight then it isn't going to work very well.

As for the price of bows, whilst arrows are supposedly covered by the cost of a quiver, historically, a sheaf of arrows could cost more than a self bow (including a long bow). In the 14th century, a sheaf of 24 arrows for a long bow cost 16d (one shilling and four pence). As few players or GMs keep a tally of munitions, the cost of a RuneQuest bow also covers an endless supply of arrows. 

 

Yes, spears weren't the cheapest of weapons, but javelins require much less wood and metal, so they should be cheaper than spears. Fom: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/291766619_Late_Bronze_and_Early_Iron_Age_bronze_spear-_and_javelinheads_in_Bulgaria_in_the_context_of_Southeastern_Europe "The way to distinguish javelinheads from spearheads is to take in consideration the size and the weight of the ends. The first type weighs less than 150 g and is between 6 and 15 cm in length. The second kind has weight between 300–500 g and length between 20 and 50 cm."

And while making a good atlatl requires some skill and work, it doesn't require weeks of whittling. I don't think that one stick should be equivalent to what a cottar makes in a season.

RQG arrows seem to cost about 0.2L, so a sheaf of 24 arrows without a quiver would be 4.8L. This is relatively more expensive compared to the Medieval prices, but bronze in RQG is more expensive than iron was in the Middle Ages, so I think that it looks about right. I've used the same system that's in RQG, ie. the players have to keep a tally of the arrows, but buying new ones is included in the living expenses (along with new scales for scale armour, sword sharpening etc.)

Edited August 20, 2018 by Brootse

[M Helsdon]

20 minutes ago, Brootse said:

 

javelins require much less wood and metal, so they should be cheaper than spears.

No, because they have to be far straighter and well balanced than a thrusting spear, requiring more work on the shaft. A wonky javelin is far less likely to hit the target.

[David Scott]

1 hour ago, styopa said:

I think in primitive environment it would be commonsensical that they recognize at least some specialization in any important role - it might not be formalized into a "job" but we all know that Grog just seems to make things that taste good and Marraga, well, she just seems to have a sense how to find the deer. 

Specialisations do come down to a role, that’s why I said good ability. Everybody is still a herder, warrior or shaman/priest type.

Quote

I believe I saw something about flint knapping being a rather specialized skill but I don't recall if this was the author's speculation or had some basis in fact

Once you’ve been shown how to make the edge of a rock into a tool, you have an advantage over the environment. Where the material for making the tools is rare, only those with good ability will be allowed to touch the good stuff. The Wastelands and Prax are littered with flint from the chaos wars. It’s easy to make stone tools, not so easy to make duarabke stone tools, harder to make nice stone tools, difficult to make exquisite pressure flaked masterpieces. Even I could make tools to skin and butcher rabbits.

Quote

It would likely all be on the basis of natural ability, and nothing remotely resembling training for a job...except perhaps the "job" of shaman/god talker, etc.  I believe (at least it seems widely accepted in the archaeological things I read) that this was indeed a very apprenticelike situation?

Depends on the culture,  there are many ways of becoming a shaman. From being struck by lightning, sitting on a ice block for 30 days or a long apprenticeship with a weird person. Have a look at:

By Mircea Eliade - Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (Bollingen Series (General)) (New Ed) https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002G8A572/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_HXYEBb2PBF54A

For a good overview. 

Amongst the Praxians, it is per the RQG box on 353, where the Horned Man whispers the secrets of the Universe into the ears of sleeping children. 

Edited August 20, 2018 by David Scott

[Brootse]

12 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

No, because they have to be far straighter and well balanced than a thrusting spear, requiring more work on the shaft. A wonky javelin is far less likely to hit the target.

A carpenter makes a 1.5L a week, so even when if a more balanced shaft requires a day more of whittling, planing, and filing, it wouldn't raise the price over what the extra bronze and wood would cost for a spear.

[M Helsdon]

1 hour ago, Brootse said:

A carpenter makes a 1.5L a week, so even when if a more balanced shaft requires a day more of whittling, planing, and filing, it wouldn't raise the price over what the extra bronze and wood would cost for a spear.

Making a good javelin, much like making a decent bow, is a job for a specialist, not a carpenter. A javelin requires the services of a redsmith, a leatherworker (for the ankyle) and a skilled wood crafter.

Carpenters make carts, wagons, doors etc. not precision weapons.

[Joerg]

Javelins suitable to be cast with an atlatl are basically over-long arrows, and are at least as hard to get right as arrows with regard to stiffness/flexibility. Thrown spears already vibrate strongly (just watch the spear toss in an athletics meet). Spear-like objects accelerated from their back are even worse in this regard.

 

 

5 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

aking a good javelin, much like making a decent bow, is a job for a specialist, not a carpenter. A javelin requires the services of a redsmith, a leatherworker (for the ankyle) and a skilled wood crafter.

Operating a bow and fletching your own arrow requires specialized woodcarving skills like turnery, but also familiarity with the behavior of the missile in flight.Application of flight feathers will stabilized flight, as will selection of the tip weight.

Arrow and javelin tips can be mass-produced, and a skilled flint knapper or a redsmith with a mold can save you time for producing quality. You will require "glue"to affix tip and fletching, like birch pitch and/or sinews.

You'll be interested in learning to dovetail the point-side piece of shaft to the flight shaft. Arrows hitting hard surfaces often split in the wood. By dovetailing the part holding the tip onto the flight shaft, you have a good chance that the split won't affect the flight shaft, so you just replace the piece at the tip.

 

You also mentioned coppiced wood for shafts. Very true. While you can shoot arrows produced from planks by turnery, those shafts split way more easily along the grain, and an arrow hitting a target will easily exert forces which can cause such a split.

The Vingkotlings had special bushes to grow arrows - check the Berthestead entry on p.6 of History of the Heortling Peoples. This sounds like something acquired from the Aldryami, but considering that even the Vingkotlings have such a resource for arrows when they are one of the cultures not usually thought of as archers, you can expect cultures well known for archery to use such methods too, like Dara Happans, Impala riders, and of course elves.

 

[Atgxtg]

On 8/18/2018 at 12:38 PM, Brootse said:

I meant a crafter's wage, not an untrained labourer's. In 1460s a thatcher (ie. not the best earning craftsman) would have made 5.5p a day according to http://medieval.ucdavis.edu/120D/Money.html so the more expensive bow would have cost under a week's wage. And as for a Gloranthan crafter's weekly wage, that would range from 1.5 to 4 (p. 65 in RQG, and working 40 weeks a year).

Oh, okay. I just have RQ2 and RQ3 to work with.  

Quote

RQ3 lunars are worth about RQG's clacks. In the RQ3 Deluxe Edition self bows' prices were 150L, and longbows' and composite bows' were 350L, which would also have been too high.

Bows cost too much in all RPGs I've seen. My guess is that Arneson and Gygax just made all the weapons doing the same damage cost about the same, and everyone's been copying them.

Perhaps. Most RPG price lists tend to be pretty bad overall. I used to get my playerslaughing in D&D by translating prices from gp to weight in gold, and the nightmare of logistics. Magics items were literally worth more than their weight in gold, which was fine until you realized just how commonplace magic was, and what it meant to the economy. A good magic sword could literally cost a ton on gold, and a leader outfitting his troops with even +1 weapons is going to need a heckova supply line, and the city of El Dorado to pay for it.

Not that any of that helps with RQ bow prices, but at least we don't have it as bad. If you want to, just divide the prices by 10 or 100, or assume that the Gloranthan Yu tree is much rarer and harder to cultivate, and takes longer to dry than the Terran Yew tree. Perhaps Yu only grows in Snakepike Hollow!

 

Edited August 21, 2018 by Atgxtg

[soltakss]

One problem is that people compare price lists and equipment from vastly different periods.

Glorantha is supposed to be Bronze Age (It isn't, but let's pretend for a bit). In the Bronze Age, nomad bbows were very rarely present outside the steppe. Self bows were around and the Egyptians seem to have used a bow, but were usually slingers (But let's not get onto Bows vs Slings, eh?).

However, people are comparing them to medieval Yew Long Bows, composite bows and all sorts of things, over a couple of thousand years.

In any case, the price of a bow in medieval England or in Brionze Age Scythia should have no bearing on the price of a bow in Glorantha, other than to say "They were cheap/They were expensive".

[Martin]

My opinion would be...does it REALLY matter...if you want to change the price do so...i mean  what actual difference does it make, if your story demands someone can have or get a bow then do it....

[soltakss]

14 minutes ago, Martin said:

My opinion would be...does it REALLY matter...if you want to change the price do so...i mean  what actual difference does it make, if your story demands someone can have or get a bow then do it....

Special offer - two bows for the price of one, genuine Praxian Bows, not your Grazeland knock-offs, Roll up, Roll up!

[Joerg]

18 minutes ago, soltakss said:

One problem is that people compare price lists and equipment from vastly different periods.

Glorantha is supposed to be Bronze Age (It isn't, but let's pretend for a bit). In the Bronze Age, nomad bbows were very rarely present outside the steppe.

Given the proximity of arid steppe or outright desert and the riverine high civilizations in Mesopotamia, the proximity may have been a lot closer than you are stating here. I am fairly convinced that e.g. the Hyksos would have used steppe bows, and all my bets are off about the Yamna people.

18 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Self bows were around and the Egyptians seem to have used a bow, but were usually slingers (But let's not get onto Bows vs Slings, eh?).

However, people are comparing them to medieval Yew Long Bows, composite bows and all sorts of things, over a couple of thousand years.

The yew self bows we are talking about were used continuously from the Ahrensburg reindeer hunters 9000 BC through the Vikings to the English at Crecy and Agincourt. The main technological advances were in the arrow tips.

With the steppe bows, we seem assume that the Scythians, Sarmatians and the Huns used basically the same bows as the Seljuk and Ottoman Turks.

18 minutes ago, soltakss said:

In any case, the price of a bow in medieval England or in Brionze Age Scythia should have no bearing on the price of a bow in Glorantha, other than to say "They were cheap/They were expensive".

The real question to me is, what does Joe Average have to sacrifice in terms of time and/or wealth accumulation to equip himself with such an item.

[M Helsdon]

15 hours ago, Joerg said:

You'll be interested in learning to dovetail the point-side piece of shaft to the flight shaft. Arrows hitting hard surfaces often split in the wood. By dovetailing the part holding the tip onto the flight shaft, you have a good chance that the split won't affect the flight shaft, so you just replace the piece at the tip.

Which is why arrows made of light woods or cane often had a fore-shaft of a heavier wood, which increases the 'weight' of the arrow and its penetrating power.

Arrow bushes appear to be relatively rare in human lands.

46 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Glorantha is supposed to be Bronze Age (It isn't, but let's pretend for a bit). In the Bronze Age, nomad bbows were very rarely present outside the steppe. Self bows were around and the Egyptians seem to have used a bow, but were usually slingers (But let's not get onto Bows vs Slings, eh?).

 Composite bows probably originated on the steppes, but were certainly known and widely used in Mesopotamia and Egypt. There are suggestions the Egyptians got them from the Hyskos, but impossible to prove.

Composite bows are known from archaeology and art to have been widely used since the second millennium BC; and there are indications that they were used as the missile weapons of choice in the Near East using Bronze Age chariots as weapons platforms.

However, the style of the composite bow varied widely over time.

30 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Special offer - two bows for the price of one, genuine Praxian Bows, not your Grazeland knock-offs, Roll up, Roll up!

Every archer needed two bows, because keeping one permanently strung will reduce its performance relatively quickly, but in war you can't avoid the time to string your bow (and this was quite an exercise with a composite bow) in the face of the enemy.

27 minutes ago, Joerg said:

With the steppe bows, we seem assume that the Scythians, Sarmatians and the Huns used basically the same bows as the Seljuk and Ottoman Turks.

There were significantly different designs and geometries over time.