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Bow made from horn, wood, and sinew laminated together

A composite bow is a traditional bow made from horn, wood, and sinew laminated together, a form of laminated bow. The horn is on the belly, facing the archer, and sinew on the outer side of a wooden core. When the bow is drawn, the sinew (stretched on the outside) and horn (compressed on the inside) store more energy than wood for the same length of bow. The strength can be made similar to that of all wood "self" bows, with similar draw length and therefore a similar amount of energy delivered to the arrow from a much shorter bow. However, making a composite bow requires more varieties of material than a self bow, its construction takes much more time, and the finished bow is more sensitive to moisture. Archaeological finds and art indicate composite bows have existed since the second millennium BC, but their history is not well recorded, being developed by cultures without a written tradition. They originated among Asiatic pastoralists who used them as daily necessities, classically for mounted archery, although they can also be used on foot. Such bows spread among the military (and hunters) of civilizations that came into contact with nomad tribes; composite bows have been used across Asia from Korea to the Atlantic coasts of Europe and North Africa, and southwards in the Arabian peninsula and in India. The use of horn in a bow was even remarked on in Homer's epic The Odyssey, believed to have been written in the 8th century BC. The details of manufacture varied between the various cultures that used them. Initially, the tips of the limbs were made to bend when the bow was drawn. Later, the tips were stiffened with bone or antler laths; post classical bows usually have stiff tips, known as siyahs, which are made as an integral part of the wooden core of the bow. Like other bows, they lost importance with the introduction and increasing accuracy of guns. In some areas, composite bows were still used and were further developed for leisure purposes. Early modern Turkish bows were specialized for flight archery (shooting for distance). Composite bows are still made and used in Korea and in China, and the tradition has been revived elsewhere. Modern replicas are available, often made with fiberglass bellies and backs with a natural or man made core.

The wooden core gives the bow its shape and dimensional stability. It is often made of multiple pieces, joined with animal glue in V splices, so the wood must accept glue well. Pieced construction allows the sharp bends that many designs require, and the use of woods with different mechanical properties for the bending and nonbending sections. The wood of the bending part of the limb ("dustar") must endure intense shearing stress, and denser woods such as hard maples are normally used in Turkish bows. Bamboo, and wood of the mulberry family, are traditional in China. Some composite bows have nonbending tips ("siyahs"), which need to be stiff and light; they may be made of woods such as Sitka spruce. A thin layer of horn is glued onto what will be the belly of the bow, the side facing the archer. Water buffalo horn is very suitable, as is horn of several antelopes such as gemsbok, oryx, ibex, and that of Hungarian grey cattle. Goat and sheep horn can also be used. Most forms of cow horn are not suitable, as they soon delaminate with use. The horn can store more energy than wood in compression. The higher arrow velocity is only for well designed composite bows of high draw weight. At the weights more usual for modern amateurs, the greater density of horn and sinew compared with wood usually cancels any advantage. The civilizations of India used both self bows and composite bows. The Mughals were especially known for their composite bows due to their Turko Mongol roots. Waterproofing and proper storage of composite bows were essential due to India's extremely wet and humid subtropical climate and plentiful rainfall today (which averages in most of the country, and exceeds well over per year in the wettest areas due to monsoons). The civilizations of China also used a combination of self bows, composite recurve bows, and laminated reflex bows. Self bows and laminated bows were preferred in southern China in earlier periods of history due to the region's extremely wet, humid, and rainy subtropical climate. The average rainfall in southern China exceeds , averaging in many areas today.

Bows of any kind seldom survive in the archaeological record. Composite bows may have been invented first by the nomads of the Asiatic steppe, who may have based it on earlier Northern Asian laminated bows. However, archaeological investigation of the Asiatic steppe is still limited and patchy; literary records of any kind are late and scanty and seldom mention details of bows. These finds are associated with short arrows, long, and the bows themselves may have been correspondingly short. The Andronovo Culture, descendant of the Sintashta culture, was the first to extend from the Ural Mountains to Tian Shan, and its successor cultures gave rise to the Indo Aryan migration. It has been suggested that the Srubna culture (contemporaneous with, and a neighbour to, the Andronovo culture) used composite bows, but no archaeological evidence is known. Composite bows were soon adopted and adapted by civilizations who came into contact with nomads, such as the Chinese, Assyrians, and Egyptians. Several composite bows were found in the tomb of Tutankhamun, who died in 1324 BCE. Composite bows (and chariots) are known in China from at least the Shang Dynasty (1700–1100 BCE). There are strong indications that Greek Bronze Age cultures were using composite bows on a large scale. By the 4th century BCE, chariotry had ceased to have military importance, replaced by cavalry everywhere (except in Britannia, where charioteers are not recorded as using bows).

The mounted archer became the archetypal warrior of the steppes and the composite bow was his primary weapon, used to protect the herds, in steppe warfare, and for incursions into settled lands. Classic tactics for horse mounted archers included skirmishing: they would approach, shoot, and retreat before any effective response could be made. The term Parthian shot refers to the widespread horse archer tactic of shooting backwards over the rear of their horses as they retreated. Parthians inflicted heavy defeats on Romans, the first being the Battle of Carrhae. However, horse archers did not make an army invincible; Han General Ban Chao led successful military expeditions in the late 1st century CE that conquered as far as Central Asia, and both Philip of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great defeated horse archer armies. Well led Roman armies defeated Parthian armies on several occasions and twice took the Parthian capital.

Composite bows can be used without difficulty by infantry. The infantry archers of classical Greece and the Roman Empire used composite bows. The military of the Han Dynasty (220 BC–206 AD) utilized composite crossbows, often in infantry square formations, in their many engagements against the Xiongnu. Until 1571, archers with composite bows were a main component of the forces of the Ottoman Empire, but in the Battle of Lepanto in that year, they lost most of these troops and never replaced them.

From about the 4th century BCE, the use of stiffened ends on composite bows became widespread. The stiffened end of the bow is a "siyah" (Arabic, Persian), "szarv" (Hungarian), "sarvi" (Finnish; both 'sarvi' and 'szarv' mean 'horn') or "kasan" (Turkish); the bending section is a "dustar" (Arabic), "lapa" (Finnish) or "sal" (Turkish). For centuries, the stiffening was accomplished by attaching laths of bone or antler to the sides of the bow at its ends. The bone or antler strips are more likely to survive burial than the rest of the bow. The first bone strips suitable for this purpose come from "graves of the fourth or third centuries" BCE. These stiffeners are found associated with nomads of the time. Maenchen Helfen states that they are not found in Achaemenid Persia, in early Imperial Rome, or in Han China. However, Coulston attributes Roman stiffeners to about or before 9 CE. He identifies a Steppe Tradition of Scythian bows with working tips, which lasted, in Europe, until the arrival of the Huns, and a Near East or Levantine tradition with siyahs, possibly introduced by the Parni as siyahs are found in Sassanid but not Achaemenid contexts. Siyahs have also been described on the Arabian peninsula. Composite bows were adopted by the Roman Empire and were made even in the cold and damp of Britannia. They were the normal weapon of later Roman archers, both infantry and cavalry units (although Vegetius recommends training recruits "arcubus ligneis", with wooden bows).

A new bow type, in which bone reinforcements cover the handle of the bow as well as the tips, may have developed in Central Asia during the 3rd to 2nd century BCE, with earliest finds from the area of Lake Baikal. Fittings from this type of bow appear right across Asia from Korea to the Crimea. Such bows with reinforcement of both grip and siyahs have been called “Hun,” "Hunnic", or “Hsiung nu” composite bows. The Huns and their successors greatly impressed their neighbours with their archery. Germanic tribes transmitted their respect orally for a millennium: in the Scandinavian Hervarar saga, the Geatish king Gizur taunts the Huns and says, "Eigi gera Húnar oss felmtraða né hornbogar yðrir." (We fear neither the Huns nor their horn bows.) The Romans, as described in the Strategikon, Procopius's histories, and other works, changed the entire emphasis of their army from heavy infantry to cavalry, many of them armed with bows. Maurikios's Strategikon describes the Byzantine cavalry as bow armed cursores and lance armed defensores.

The Qum Darya bow was superseded in the modern area of Hungary by an 'Avar' type, with more and differently shaped laths. The grip laths stayed essentially the same except that a fourth piece was sometimes glued to the back of the handle, enclosing it with bone on all four faces. The belly lath was often parallel sided with splayed ends. The siyah laths became much wider in profile above the nock and less rounded, giving a bulbous aspect. The nock was often further away from the upper end of the siyah than on Qum Darya type examples. Additional laths were usually added to the belly and back of the siyah, thus enclosing both ends of the stave on four faces. This made a total of up to 12 laths on an asymmetrical bow with a stiff, set back handle. Examples measured in situ suggest bow lengths of When unstrung, the siyahs reversed sharply forward at an angle of 50 60 degrees. and flight archery remained a popular sport in Istanbul until the early 19th century. Most surviving documentation of the use and construction of composite bows comes from China and the Middle East; until reforms early in the 20th century, skill with the composite bow was an essential part of the qualification for officers in the Chinese Imperial army. The composite bow was adopted throughout the Arab world, even though some Bedu tribesmen in the Hijaz retained the use of simple self bows. Fragments of bone laths from composite bows were found among grave goods in the United Arab Emirates dating from the period between 100 BC and 150 AD.

Later developments in the composite bow included siyahs made of separate pieces of wood, attached with a V splice to the wooden core of the bow, rather than strengthened by external reinforcement. String bridges are not present in artwork in the time of Genghis Khan or before.

All Eurasian composite bows derive from the same nomad origins, but every culture that used them has made its own adaptations to the basic design. The Turkish, Mongolian, and Korean bows were standardized when archery lost its military function and became a popular sport. Recent Turkish bows are optimized for flight shooting.

The Perso Parthian bow is a symmetric recurve under high tension when strung. The "arms" of the bow are supposed to reflex far enough to cross each other when the bow is unstrung. The finished bow is covered by bark, fine leather, or in some cases shark skin to keep out moisture. Because the cultures associated with Chinese society spanned a wide geography and time range, the techniques and equipment associated with Chinese archery are diverse. Historical sources and archaeological evidence suggest that a variety of bow designs existed throughout Chinese history. For much of the 20th century, only a few Chinese traditional bow and arrow making workshops were active. However, in the beginning of the 21st century, there has been a revival in interest among craftsmen looking to construct bows and arrows in the traditional Chinese style.

The Mongolian tradition of archery is attested by an inscription on a stone stele that was found near Nerchinsk in Siberia: "While Genghis Khan was holding an assembly of Mongolian dignitaries, after his conquest of Sartaul (Khwarezm), Yesüngge (the son of Genghis Khan's younger brother) shot a target at 335 alds (536 m)". The Mongol bowmaking tradition was lost under the Qing, who heavily restricted archery practice; only practice with blunt arrows at shorted distances was allowed while most other forms of practice, including mounted archery; was forbidden. The present bowmaking tradition emerged after independence in 1921 and is based on Manchu types of bow. Mounted archery had fallen into disuse and has been revived only in the 21st century. Archery with composite bows is part of the annual festival of the three virile sports (wrestling, horseriding, archery), called "Naadam".

The Hungarian bow is a fairly long, approximately symmetrical composite reflex bow with bone stiffeners. Its shape is known from two graves in which the position of the bone plates could be reconstructed. Modern Hungarians have attempted to reconstruct the composite bows of their ancestors and have revived mounted archery as a competitive sport.

A traditional Korean bow, or gakgung, is a small but very efficient horn bamboo sinew composite bow. Korean archers normally practice at a range of approximately 145 metres.

Modern replicas of traditional composite bows are commercially available; they are usually made with fibreglass or carbon on both belly and back, easier to mass produce and easier to take care of than traditional composite bows. Other less satisfactory materials than horn have been used for the belly of the bow (the part facing the archer when shooting), including bone, antler, or compression resistant woods such as osage orange, hornbeam, or yew. Materials that are strong under tension, such as silk, or tough wood, like hickory, have been used on the back of the bow (the part facing away from the archer when shooting).