Arrowhead
1 u. 2 - Beginner arrows made of wood with sheet metal point,
3 - cedar wood shaft with field point,
4 - field point with "insert" on fiberglass
shaft, 5 - field point on aluminum shaft,
6, 7, 8, 9, 13, 14 - "bullet" points,
7 u . 11 - different disc tip "insert" for aluminum / carbon arrow shafts ,
10, 11, 12 - cone tip "insert",
11, 13, 14 - carbon shafts with different diameters,
15 - brass point in front of fiberglass
shaft , 16 - a destroyed aluminum arrow shaft after a stone
hit , 17 - a “blunt” point
The tip of various types of arrow is known as the arrowhead . Arrowheads have the task of producing a certain effect at the target location and protecting the direction finder body so that it can be reused.
Arrowheads in the 21st century
In archery the main function of arrowheads in the 21st century is to protect the arrow and to ensure safe hits on the targets. There are also arrowheads that are used for bow hunting . There is a great variety in design and shape.
archeology
The arrowheads are the tips of various types of arrow ammunition, namely bow arrows , crossbow bolts , crossbow gun bolts, catapult bolts , blowpipe arrows and wing-stabilized projectiles fired by firearms . If it cannot be clearly decided how a point was accelerated, projectile points are also used.
By far the greatest variety of arrowhead shapes is found in bow arrows that are used by archers, the variety is less in crossbows and catapults, as the bolts have to fit into the channel of these devices without the arrow / bolt resting on an arrowhead that is too thick . Blowpipe and firearm arrows , the tips of which can never be wider than the tube-like barrel from which these arrows are fired, leave the least freedom in shaping .
Functions
Until around the turn of the millennium, archaeologists and historians classified arrowheads according to styles that were ascribed to different social or cultural groups. Since then, analyzes of different cultures in the most diverse areas of distribution have shown that functional criteria were being ignored. Since then, documentaries have universally shown that when it comes to arrowheads for large targets over 40 kg, people differentiated between broadheads and warheads. Small targets were only shot at while hunting, mostly with tips made of organic material.
Penetrator arrowheads, which penetrate the body of a prey or enemy, are known above all :
- Broadheads for killing a prey or for shooting in poison arrows / narcotics ,
- War points for wounding or killing an enemy or for shooting poison arrows / narcotics.
An indication, but not conclusive evidence, of military use are barbs on the arrowhead, which make it difficult to pull the arrow out and can cause further injuries. Above all, with broadheads, care was taken to ensure that they were firmly attached to the shaft so that the arrow with the tip could be pulled out of the prey and reused. In the case of war tips, this was precisely not desired, the tip should detach from the shaft and remain in the wound, so that an injury in peripheral regions of the body also increased in severity.
There are also numerous special forms, such as falarika / incendiary arrows to set the enemy infrastructure on fire, whistling arrows to signal to your own or enemy troops or piston-like arrowheads (blunts) for killing or stunning the smallest prey or for shooting enemies unconscious.
Classification
Arrowheads can be classified and named according to the following three characteristics (material, shaft, appearance of the tip) and according to their function.
material
- Organic
- Wood , horn , bone , tooth material.
- Inorganic
- Flint , obsidian , various metals such as bronze , iron or steel .
Shaft
- No shaft
- The material of the tip and shaft of the arrow are identical because they are made from one piece, e.g. B. Blowpipe arrows made of split bamboo or central ribs of palm leaves etc. Alternatively, the tip is glued or tied directly into a gap in the arrow shaft. The natives' blowpipe arrows typically do not have metal tips.
- Angel or Erl
- At the rear end, the arrowhead ends in a narrow, flat strip, the flat tang or the flat tang, which is inserted into a gap cut into the arrow shaft and glued and / or tied in it, e.g. B. Flat points and many European flint points.
- Steckangel, Steckl or Spitzerl
- At the rear end, the arrowhead ends in a thin, usually conical, square pen, the Spitzerl, Steckerl or Steckangel, which is inserted into the cavity of a tubular shaft or a drilled hole in a wooden shaft, e.g. B. Most Asian arrowheads ( bamboo arrows ). Some modern arrowheads have a screw tang, it has a screw thread and is screwed into the arrow shaft, which has an internal thread.
- Tulle tip
Iron spout tip, crossbow - At the rear end the arrow head ends in a conical socket, which is placed on the arrow shaft (possibly also glued). This is only possible with metal arrowheads, e.g. B. with medieval arrowheads and crossbow bolts as well as Roman catapult bolts. The spouts remain open on one side, which is what makes their clamping effect on the arrow shaft possible.
Shape of the tip
- Unwedded shape
- The tip tapers to the front with a needle point, its cross-section is round, triangular, square or octagonal. The round cross-section is nowadays used by archers as the “tip of the target” in order to damage the targets as little as possible. The triangular or square shape in cross-section is called Bodkin after the English word . It penetrates sheet metal, which is why it was previously used against armored targets. Examples of this are the medieval English Bodkin point , many crossbow bolts and the most common form of Roman catapult arrows.
- Leaf tip, winged shape
- The best-known arrowhead shape, it tapers in a triangular shape towards the front, the razor-sharp blades on the outside are called wings, the tip itself is called a leaf. It was and is mostly used as a hunting and war arrowhead. Their function is that when the prey or enemy penetrates the sharpened wings cut a wide firing channel through the victim's body, similar to a sword stab, which usually causes the victim to die. The winged arrowhead usually has only two sharp wings like a small spearhead, but there are also three- and four-winged arrowheads, with 30% and 50% greater effect.
- In the case of the leaf arrow tips, the three ways in which the wings merge into the shaft can still be distinguished, this transition is called the arrow base . If the wings suddenly end at the arrow base and their trailing edge is at a 90 ° angle to the shaft , one speaks of a straight arrow base . If, on the other hand, the ends of the wings are pointed (barbs), this is referred to as a retracted arrow base . If the wings gradually taper towards the back of the shaft , this is called the wing base or the arrow base drawn down .
- Sheeter
- The cross cutters are a special form of the arrowheads , they usually have two tips instead of one and are ground in the area in between. They usually have a crescent-shaped or Y-shaped forked blade, more rarely the cutting edge is straight, the blade is ax-headed. Three-winged and four-winged shapes are also used in cross cutters, for example in ancient China.
- Blunt tips
There are different forms of blunt tips (blunt). Blunts usually have a flattened head, judo points also have side claws. Howling tips usually have a rounded head.
Classification of medieval arrowheads
The tips of British and Northern European design from the Middle Ages are typed after the archaeologist Oliver Jessop, who developed the typology from John Bryan Ward-Perkins to arrow heads for the collections of the London Museum .
In 1996 Oliver Jessop presented a new arrowhead classification under the publication title A New Artefact Typology for the Study of Medieval Arrowheads , which was the first-class typology that Ward-Perkins had published over 50 years earlier in the London Museum Medieval Catalog No. 7 from 1940, based on British excavations and museum exhibits in London with partly inaccurate dates and indications of the origin of the finds. Ward-Perkins presented a classification of 20 basic types (Type 1 to Type 20) based on external appearance. Jessop's system, on the other hand, is based on an analysis of the function of different types of arrowheads and divides them into four categories, to which he assigns 28 basic shapes. Richard Wadge describes the classification as largely accepted by now.
"Tang"
The letter "T" stands for engl. Tang, here as a shaft without a cavity, a designation according to the design. These arrowheads are mostly from the 9th to 10th centuries. Characteristic is the continuous shaft or handle (dt. Arrow tongue) which was attached to the arrow shaft itself. These arrowheads were mostly used both in war and hunting.
Basic shape designations:
- T1, T2, T3
Multipurpose tips
MP stands for MultiPurpose, a designation after the general purpose. These forms, used from the 11th to the 15th centuries, were also mostly used in both war and hunting; they are characterized by a hollow sleeve at the tip itself that could accommodate the wooden arrow shaft, which made the arrow more stable and aerodynamic.
Basic shape designations:
- MP1, MP2, MP3, MP4, MP5, MP6, MP7, MP8, MP9, MP10
War arrowheads
M stands for military
These forms, used from the 10th to the 15th century, are compact, seem to have been mainly used for war purposes and are also characterized by a sleeve for the arrow shaft. Shapes M5 to M10 are designed in such a way that they penetrate protective equipment particularly well.
Basic shape designations:
- M1, M2, M3, M4, M5, M6, M7, M8, M9, M10
Hunting arrowheads
The hunting tips (H = Hunting) have a design that was particularly suitable for hunting, the H5 was a soft tip that probably didn't damage smaller prey too much.
Basic shape designations:
- H1, H2, H3, H4, H5
Jessop / Ward-Perkins concordance
Some common types cited as references from Jessop and the London Museum Medieval Catalog :
| Jessop | Ward-Perkins | description | sketch |
|---|---|---|---|
| MP1 | Type 2 | ||
| MP2 | Type 3 | ||
| MP3 | Type 1 | ||
| MP4 | Type 4 | ||
| MP5 | |||
| MP6 | |||
| MP7 | Type 13 | ||
| MP8 | |||
| MP9 | compact shape of M6 | ||
| MP10 | Type 5 | ||
| M1 | |||
| M2 | |||
| M3 | |||
| M4 | Type 16 | Bodkin tip | |
| M5 | |||
| M6 | |||
| M7 | Type 7 | ||
| M8 | |||
| M9 | |||
| M10 | Type 8 and 10 | ||
| H1 | Type 6 | ||
| H2 | similar to H1, V-shape | ||
| H3 | has varieties | ||
| H4 | Type 14 and 15 | ||
| H5 | |||
| T1 | |||
| T2 | |||
| T3 | |||
| T4 |
Modes of action
How an arrowhead acts on a hit target material depends not only on the energy when it hits it (bow draw weight, arrow weight, shooting distance) but also on the shape of the tip itself; the type of shaft is of little importance, the cross-sectional load is important .
The simplest, wingless tip shape, a rounded disc tip or a simply sharpened arrow shaft, works on the same principle as a small-caliber pistol bullet, but at a lower speed: the tip, which is circular in cross-section, penetrates a hit material, initially displacing it. If the material of the target no longer elastically yields to the projectile, i.e. cannot be displaced any further, it breaks or tears at the weakest point, this creates space for the arrow to penetrate further. So, such simple tips work like a nail , awl, or needle . In this case, the penetration depth and penetration power of the arrow also depend on the tear resistance of the material hit. A tear-resistant material demands more energy from the arrow to tear it apart than a less tear-resistant one, so the arrow with an unfledged tip will penetrate less deeply. Bulletproof vests, for example, are extremely tear-resistant and usually cannot be penetrated by such arrows.
With the winged arrowheads, which have razor-sharp blades, the arrowhead also displaces the material hit in order to pave its way; The difference to winged arrowheads with these tips is that they do not have to tear the material hit. They cut the material with their blades and this requires less force than tearing the same material.
For example, in order to tear a thread with a tensile strength of 50 N, a force of 50 N must be applied; If the thread is cut, however, less force is required. The sharper the cutting tool, the less force has to be used.
Therefore, winged arrowheads with sharp blades give an arrow more penetrative power than unwinged ones; the sharper the blade, the greater the depth of penetration. The shape of the tip plays an insignificant role here. The sharper the blades of the arrowhead, the less energy the bullet uses to cut a firing channel through its target.
The tear strength of the material hit is no longer important here. For the penetration power of the arrow, only its sharpness, the cut resistance of the target material, its hardness and of course the material of the arrowhead are relevant.
Of the special shapes of the arrowhead, multi-point variants for bow fishing , whistling arrowheads and piston-like bird tips are known.
The multi-pointed arrows are intended for fishing, they increase the likelihood of hitting a targeted fish.
Arrowheads whistling usually do not harm themselves; These arrowheads only consist of a kind of whistle like the mouthpiece of a flute , which is attached to the arrow shaft at the front. Due to the high speed of the flying arrow (approx. 200–350 km / h), this whistle is blown by the airstream and generates a loud whistle, howl or hiss. Depending on the setting of the whistle, this tone can be heard from a long distance and was often used as a signal transmitter in the past.
The piston-like bird tips mostly consisted of a cylindrical piece of wood with a hole at the rear end to accommodate the arrow shaft. The front end could be angular or rounded. Usually such tips were teardrop-shaped because of the great air resistance. They were mainly used to hunt small prey in trees: if an archer / crossbow with a sharp, winged arrowhead shot a marten or bird sitting in a tree, the animal that was shot would be impaled on the tree. The hunter could then only reach the prey and the valuable arrow by climbing. But if the hunter used a piston-like point, the arrow has the effect of a club or a boxing glove . The prey is slain and falls from the tree, as does the arrow, which does not get stuck in the wood. In addition, such blunt tips were also important in order not to damage the valuable fur of the animal (especially in weasels , squirrels and martens). : In the 11th century it was legal in England to hunt small game with a bow and arrow. This was also possible with blunt tips. But if you used sharpened tips with which larger game could be shot, you were hanged. In the field of sports, especially in roving, i.e. archery at objects in the great outdoors, blunt tips are also used nowadays. So stay z. B. (Rubber) blunts usually do not stick in wooden stumps. Judo point tips also have claws that are supposed to prevent the arrow from boring under the sward or a layer of leaves and no longer being found there. When you put it back in a quiver, however, these claws can also damage the fletching of other arrows.
Manufacturing
Various techniques were used to make arrowheads, depending on the material available:
Arrowheads made of wood, bamboo and horn are the oldest in evolutionary terms. They were usually carved with a knife (e.g. from flint). These tips could have very sharp edges, especially those made from horn , bamboo, and hardwoods. In the blowpipe arrows of the Amazon people, the tip is traditionally sharpened with the lower jaw of a piranha . The front end of the arrow shaft is pulled through between two teeth of the fish's jaw with constant rotation. Since the piranha teeth have sharp edges, they cut small chips from the hardwood until the arrow is needle-sharp.
Arrowheads made of bones and antlers, on the other hand, were usually ground into the correct shape with sandstone. These materials were too hard for accurate carving. In the case of the bone tips, the spout shaft came up first: the thick tubular bones of the larger animals have wall thicknesses of 3 cm and more, enough material to cut out an arrowhead and drill a hole for the arrow shaft at the rear end. Antler tips probably had a longer lifespan because they were less brittle than bone tips, but had to be fastened with a flat tang because the antlers had a thinner wall than bones. However, both materials have already achieved considerable blade sharpness.
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In the regions where flint (Flint) occurs, this eventually prevailed as Arrowhead material. A considerable amount of effort was required to manufacture the small flint tips: First, a sufficiently large flint had to be found that was suitable as a raw material. First of all, the rough stone was smashed and the sharp fragments, which were usually numerous, selected. A pointed end of antlers (intermediate piece) was now, a few millimeters away from the edge of a suitable stone, placed on this surface like a chisel and then hit the antler chisel with a stone acting as a hammer. If the impact force of the hammer stone and the angle between the antler and the flint stone were measured correctly, a triangular tongue, a so-called blade, jumped off the edge of the flint stone. A new edge was created at the point of interruption, at which the procedure could later be repeated. The split blades served as arrowhead blanks. In order to convert them into usable arrowheads, they were held in place with a piece of leather (so as not to cut your fingers). With a pointed piece of antler, the thin edge of the triangular splinter was pressed from top to bottom, against the hand towards the leather. This step is called retouching. During retouching, the blank was alternately placed on one side or the other in order to maintain symmetry until the tip had reached its typical triangular shape and the correct size. Thus, in some early cultures, the back end of the point was turned into a fishing rod . If necessary, barbs were also incorporated in this way. All sharp edges of the tang were blunted last so that they would not cut the arrow's wrapping on impact, which would have split the arrow shaft. The main disadvantage of flint points was their brittleness; if you missed the ground or hit a tree, the point usually broke. When it hit a bone in the body of the prey / enemy, this also happened, but there was a sharp break edge, which barely slowed the projectile. Flint arrowheads can therefore be described as the first self-sharpening ammunition in the world, which, in addition to their greater sharpness and weight, made them superior to wooden, horn, bone and antler tips. A lower air resistance due to the size and a shift of the arrow's center of gravity forwards also resulted in a higher accuracy.
The best quality flint on the American prairies was found in what is now northern Texas . The Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument near Amarillo preserves a site on the Canadian River that dates back to 11,000 BC. BC and 1870 was used. Arrowheads made from the signature Alibates flint can be found in the Great Plains and the Southwest .
See also
literature
- Steve Allely, Tim Baker, Paul Comstock: The Bible of Traditional Bow Making . Volume 1. Hörnig, Ludwigshafen 2003, ISBN 3-9808743-2-X .
- G. Fr. Asbell, Tim Baker, Paul Comstock: The Bible of Traditional Bow Making . Volume 2. Hörnig, Ludwigshafen 2004, ISBN 3-9808743-5-4 .
- Tim Baker, Paul Comstock, Gabriela Cosgrove: The Bible of Traditional Bow Making. Vol. 3. Hörnig, Ludwigshafen 2005, ISBN 3-9808743-9-7 .
- Steve Allely: The Bible of Traditional Bow Making . Volume 4. Hörnig, Ludwigshafen 2008, ISBN 978-3-938921-07-4 .
- Holger Eckhart: bow and arrow. An archaeological-technological investigation of the Urnenfeld and Hallstatt period findings. In: International Archeology. Volume 21. Verlag Marie Leidorf, Espelkamp 1996, ISBN 3-924734-39-9 (contains a large catalog with sketches of Central European arrowheads, from urn fields to Hallstatt times ).
- Otto Kleemann: The three-winged arrowheads in France. Study on the distribution and historical statement of the bronze arrowheads (= treatises of the Academy of Sciences and Literature. Humanities and social science class. Born 1954, Volume 4). Publishing house of the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz (commissioned by Franz Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden).
- Medieval catalog. (= London Museum catalogs. 7). Reprint. Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London 1954, pp. 65–73, with panel XV and figures 16–17. Also cited: Ward Perkins. - Includes typing of the arrowheads.
- Oliver Jessop: A New Artefact Typology for the Study of Medieval Arrowheads. In: Medieval archeology. Volume 40, 1996, pp. 192-205 (PDF; 2.6 MB). ISSN 0076-6097 - Contains new typing for British arrowheads.
- Hubert Sudhues: wound ballistics for arrow injuries. Dissertation, Institute for Forensic Medicine, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, 2004.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Thorsten Trede: Textbook of bow hunting . Ed .: Carsten Bothe - Campfire Cooking School. Carsten Bothe - Campfire Cooking School, Braunschweig 1999, ISBN 3-932848-16-0 .
- ↑ Chris Loendorf, Lynn Simon, et al .: Warfare and big game hunting: flaked-stone projectile points along the middle Gila River in Arizona . In: Antiquity, Vol 89, Issue 346 (August 2015), pp. 940-953, 942-944
- ↑ O. Jessop, University of Durham (PDF file; 2.50 MB)
- ↑ Richard Wadge: Medieval Arrowheads from Oxfordshire. In: Oxoniensia , Oxfordshire Architectural and Historical Society, 2008, pp. 1-18.
- ^ Saxton Pope: Hunting with the bow and arrow. The James H. Barry Co., San Francisco 1923.
- ^ W. Ben Hunt, John J. Metz: The Flat Bow. 1936.