The composite bow
Wood, horn and sinew laminated together store far more energy than wood alone.
- When
- Known to
- ± 200 years
- Era
- Bronze Age, Holocene
A composite bow places horn on the belly, which resists compression, and sinew on the back, which resists stretching, around a wooden core. The result is short enough to shoot from a chariot or horseback and far more powerful than a self bow of the same length. It appears in the Near East in the second millennium BCE and, paired with the chariot, defines Bronze Age warfare. It takes a year or more to make and is ruined by damp.