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The Turkish Bow - Its Range
Full information to the same effect, with excellent diagrams, may be
found in a Latin MS. on Turkish archery by J. Covel, D.D., Chaplain to
the Embassy at Constantinople 1670-1676.1
Another treatise (in Turkish) entitled ' An Account of some famous Archery
Matches at Baghdad (1638-1740), dedicated to the Governor of that city
by the author, M. Rizai,2 may also be consulted, as it gives
the exact ranges of the longest-flying arrows.
It should be remembered that many years ago flight-shooting was a very
popular recreation of the Turks, that every able-bodied man was a practised
archer, and that every male child was trained to use a bow from the earliest
possible age.
The origin of Turkish and other highly finished composite bows, and
the approximate date when they were first used in sport and warfare, it
is now impossible to determine. Bows that are undoubtedly of this kind
and which are of excellent shape and design, are depicted on some of the
most ancient pottery existent, and are also referred to in some of the
oldest writings we possess.
For a full account of Ottoman archery and the extraordinary feats of
Turkish bowmen, see pp. 27, 28, 29, 30, The Crossbow.
1 MSS., B.M., 22911, folio 386. 2
Sloane MSS., B.M., 26329, folio 59.
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