Molle/Holmie Vs. American Flat Bow?

[gothmog]

I also fully agree with this point.  To be devil's advocate though(again ), unless said scholar was actually there at the time and place that the design was abandoned, it would be nothing more than an educated guess, not fact.

[half eye]

Just caught this thread.....Jesus Fellas,
        I aint never said I was an expert on anything....I've posted bows and told ya what I found out about them, and where I found it, nothing more. When I got called out on my sources I even posted the museum catalog numbers, but damn if this aint gettin out a hand. By the way the bow WAS made into the middleages (pic attached) by at least the Russ decendants. If you take a good look ya can see where the design is the same but it is a whole lot more crudely built. Maybe they run out of need, people who made 'em, or what ever reason but who cares how come? They existed, they ran their course and went away ....just like everything else does.
       I like 'em cause they shoot good, dont believe I ever said they was any better than anyother kind, so why dont everybody holster their pistols before somebody gets shot in the foot? For everybody that wants to get technical....the bow's located in a Russian museum and listed as a "Middle age Russian hunting bow", and no I didn't make it up.
rich

[attachment deleted by admin]

[n2huntn]

Build them all to the best of your ability and be your own authority. The authority's used to say the world was flat. There are lots of authority's on many subjects, I'm sure you can find one to agree with and probably a few to disagree with.
 P.s. try decaf boys

[gothmog]

   Easy Rich.  Nobody's gettin shot, just a friendly debate held tongue in cheek for entertainment purposes only.

[gothmog]

Got to go, this has been fun, but there are things that need doin....

[sailordad]

gothmog, once again i agree 
i got coral thats cooking that i need to attend to
not to mention its a hell of a day to get out on the scooter 

n2huntn: why decaf,that doesnt keep me going?

[liamfilidh]

What I read TBB vol ? was that after the copper/bronze age when men could split larger logs into
staves with metal wedges and follow one growth ring, the Holmies disappeared. The D-bows that came
after that were easier to build and tiller.

[ErictheViking]

an interesting read about the subject.http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/topic/27645

[Justin Snyder]

Rich, don't missunderstand, I think you are an expert bowyer and you have made some awesome bows of this style. What I am saying is we are speculating on cultural evolution and it isn't enough to build awesome bows to know the culture. We must understand the whole culture before we can understand the evolution of bows. If we aren't going from a archaeological perspective then we need to go from performance. To judge performance we would have to build hundreds of bows of each kind and compare them. Steve is the only person I know who has done that kind of testing.

[n2huntn]

Mr. Tim Baker, considered by some to be an authority. Quoted in Tbb as having built every conceivable type of bow from every conceivable material. Is he still around?

[walkabout]

actually i emailed tim awhile back about some questions on grain violation. he is still around , dont know if he still haunts the boards or not.

[sailordad]

Mr. Tim Baker, considered by some to be an authority. Quoted in Tbb as having built every conceivable type of bow from every conceivable material. Is he still around?

yes maybe as an authority on bowmaking
however i would not consider him an authority on cultural archeology
and thats what the topic was about,why was the design of a holmie/mollie bow dropped or changed and no longer used
not whether or not it was an efficiant bow design.

[gothmog]

I think that is exactly the fundamental difference we were debating earlier.

[profsaffel]

Ah, Rich. The only person I know on these boards that can be the direct cause of a heated debate in a thread without even posting in it. And all he is really guilty of is making lots of good bows. Such a trouble maker...   

Stay thirsty my friends.  Keep making bows, Rich.


In case speculation is still worth mentioning, I'd like to propose the idea that maybe the flatbow design is much easier to the bowyer than the moll design, which to a person that does not know how to make them, would be intimidating.

[CraigMBeckett]

Half eye,

Interesting picture, do you know anything about the bow? Have you actually seen it? Nothing else in the picture looks old is the bow an actual artifact or a reproduction? I have to say that I have travelled and worked in areas of what was the Soviet Union, now independent countries, not Russia, and found that some museums had reproductions of artifacts on display, some of which were not native to the area. Things could have improved in the last few years but then again!!!!!!

So sorry to be a doubting Thomas but the bow looks to be in too fine a condition to be what is claimed.

Can anyone from Russia or who has visited the country confirm the picture is of an actual artifact or provide links to contemporary drawings of bows of this shape.

Craig.