The New Warfare5 Detail from stone relief of Ramesses III, Medinet Habu.is, unfortunately, a matter of dispute. Some toxophiles con-
clude that the composite bow was known as early as the begin-
ning of the fifth millennium, while others find it appearing
first in the Middle Bronze Age. Perhaps it is safest to say that
although experiments with a composite bow may have oc-
curred periodically from the chalcolithic period onward, it did
not come into common use until the middle of the second mil-
lennium."
Hurrian texts from Nuzi, in northeastern Iraq, detail the
equipment of Nuzi chariots ca. 1400 B.C.^ 6 There the chariot
- For the early date, see D. Collon, "Hunting and Shooting," AS
33 (1983): 53-54; Collon notes a fifth-millennium pot from Arpachiyah, in
northern Iraq, depicting a bow that Dr. G. D. Gaunt, of the Society of
Archer-Antiquaries, identifies as a composite bow. I find it difficult to be-
lieve that an Arpachiyah farmer-warrior of ca. 5000 B.C., before the availa-
bility of metal tools, could have constructed a weapon as complicated as a
composite bow. For a date ca. 1600 B.C. for the appearance of the compos-
ite bow, see McLeod, "Unpublished Egyptian Composite Bow," 397. An
intermediate date was championed by Yadin, Art of Warfare, i: 47: on
Naram-Sin's victory stele "we have the very first representation of the com-
posite bow in the history of ancient weapons." The enormous discrepancy in
scholarly opinions on this subject reflects the difficulty in distinguishing, in
artistic representations, a self bow from a composite bow. For a balanced
presentation of the chronological problems, see Moorey, "Emergence,"
208-10. - T. Kendall, "The Helmets of the Warriors at Nuzi," in Studies
87