this bow was found in a tomb in Gansu. It was buried in the tomb for ceremonial purposes. This is deduced from the fact that its only made of woodcore and its missing the basic horn, sinew, fish glue components of a full Chinese recurve bow. HOWEVER, it is aesthetically representing the design of bows from this era and also implies what most Chinese archeaologists/amateur bowyers have suspected-that Chinese made static recurve bows (recurve bows with non flexible tips) since time immemorial





broad end of bow limbs (the static tips are at the edge of pictures)

notice the dragon and phoenix images. dragon and phoenix are the most important of the Chinese animal totems. the dragon representing the race of the central plains and the phoenix representing the Dong Yi (the proto Chinese coastal people who are also related the central and southern Chinese aboriginals and have no relations to koreans)



image of the reconstructed version

forgot to add

this painting was found in the same tomb

thanks for the pictures. There are other examples of organic materials from bows that have survived..including recurves..from Han.
Some of those were commented on as 'models' also, ie. only for the tomb and not functional.
The two images I have are slightly different but there was a range of bows used it appears....in the Warring States periods materials varied from state to state.

The tomb images seem to show the pre-occupation of the nobility with hunting.
Both hunting and horse-back archery (including the rear firing shown here) are often depicted on the stone lintels from Han tombs.
Animals being pursued by groups of horsemen with showers of arrows in the air...and occasionally chariots...seem to be a common motif and they are always quite lively looking.
Here is one I did take a picture of...note the chariot riders hunched over while racing at speed. I really liked this one in particular!
At the front of the group on this lintel are deer & stags fleeing..but they didnt show clearly and so arent shown here.

they probably survived this long simply because they were for ceremonial purposes.

but we can still infer functional bow designs/aesthetics from the models though. some historians have argued static recurve bows have existed since Shang times while others insist they did not have static tips until the Ming dynasty. This is mostly assumed from the fact that most pre-Ming Chinese bows that have been found preserved are non static

this gansu ceremonial bows sheds light on the fact that static tips existed at least as far back as Han.

do you have any more pictures like the one you just posted
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anyway, i'm collecting materials right now to build my own bow. i'm gonna start in the spring

the bows i usually buy from Kassai Lajos or Grozer can easily subsitute for any Chinese bow design of any dynasty but i want one to the exact specifications.