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No expert I, Max, but it certainly sounds extremely unlikely. I believe that wood and horn were the common materials amongst the ancient civilisations of the Mediterranean, perhaps decorated with precious metals in ornate cases. The epithet ~~~~~ no doubt referred to the outer decoration of the bow, as silver could not enter into the active part of its structure. That the Greek bow was commonly a composite, or at any rate a horn one, is evident from the epithet ~~~~~ , which is constantly applied to it by Homer. This word signifies the recurving peculiar to the horn bow when un strung, which is due to the horns regaining their natural shape, and it is best translated by the word reflex, which is the tech nical term describing a bow which, when unstrung, bends from the centre in the opposite direction to that in which it is drawn.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~marcelo/archery/library/books/badminton/docs/chapter04/chapter4_2.html
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Looking at the title, I thought you were posting about sagging armco barriers ... I dunno about the Med eans' bows, but in some wealthy bronze/iron age civilisations people showed off their wealth by sheathing their bows in beaten sheets of bronze or copper and/or gold with lots of intricate metalwork designs. These were usually either for ceremonial purposes or for the hunt. But the basic construction remained, I believe, wood or horn (for smaller bows). I could be more specific if I could be bothered sorting through 15 boxes of books in the garage. But I can't! 
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Dear Max: I don't think the Medes had technology to make spring steel, which I think was first made rather late in European history. Medieval crossbows were make of spring steel. Here's a revolting tale of the death of kings:
two english kings Rufus and Richard killed by bolts Edmund II (ironside) killed by springbow in privy - "entered
his fundament and pierced his lung"
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"Median metal bows?" ... I dunno about the Medeans' bowsI thought so too, Kiwi, and not seeing your post I was about to make your same point. But upon LIU I found to my surprise that Max is correct (I should have known! ). The ancient county in question was Media, for which the adjectival form is Median; the later (as well as the more familiar Mede) also being a noun form. http://www.bartleby.com/61/84/M0188400.html
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I have read that the ancient crossbows were very effective, but quite slow to draw. I can imagine that on horseback the Parthians could have used them where a longbox would be almost impossible. "The Parthian shot." The medieval bows made like automobile leaf springs could go through any armor, but took so long to wind up, that the English longbow man who allegedly could shoot twelve arrows a minute (hard to believe) was more effective.
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I believe the longbow had a much greater range, as well. Battle of Agincourt, I think? Our Welsh scholar may be much better positioned to speak than I. http://www.archers.org/longbow.htm focuses on the longbow as a major breakthough [pun unavoidable] in military science. Its social effects were, however, even more far-reaching [pun unavoidable]. The immense power of the longbow made it very difficult to use, and required "training at a very early age, traditionally at the age of seven." Thus the bowman -- now just his bow -- was a valuable military asset, to be protected and rewarded. For the first time, commoners had value as individuals. --------- Another site indicates that the longbow is the source of our V-for-Victory gesture and for "crossed fingers": The longbows were drawn using the first and second fingers of the right hand. And so feared were the English Longbowmen that, when captured, the French would cut those two fingers off to render the bowman useless should he escape.
When the English archers held up those fingers upright and apart to taunt the French before a battle they were actually saying "See! I still have them!" and the "V" sign rapidly became a very insulting gesture..
On the other hand, the "crossed fingers" was a sign of hope and good luck exchanged between Englishmen before a battle, meaning that these fingers and, therefore, they themselves would survive.
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The constant practice and strength required to draw longbow cause bones of left forearms of the archers to become thickened, so that skeletons of archers on ancient battlefields can be readily recognized.
As far back as the Assyrians, longbow archers wore a covering over left wrist, because the least carelessness could result in bowstring causing grievous damage to volar (inner) surface. Allegedly the Amazons were so named because they amputated right breasts to avoid injury from bowstrings. End of trivia.
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I would think this highly unlikely, Max. The use of metal would add nothing to the effectiveness of the bow. The English archers used longbows made of yew wood and they were powerful enough to penetrate the finest plate armor, as the French learned to their cost at the battles of Crecy and Agincourt.
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On the other hand, the "crossed fingers" was a sign of hope and good luck exchanged between
Englishmen before a battle, meaning that these fingers and, therefore, they themselves would
survive.
So we uncovered the historical origin of "crossed fingers" in this little excursion...intriguing! Thanks, Keiva.
And also revalidated the two-fingered version of flipping-the-bird, which you once asked about.
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as the French learned to their cost
Query: since the French learned the value of this weapon, why did they not in subsequent generations adopt the use of the longbow?
The French could have easily understood and duplicated it; the technology was readily available. How extraodinary that a people, vanquished by a superior weapon but having the technological sophistication to produce it for itself, did not do so. Why, historically, did they not?
And can anyone present historical cases of like inaction? I am aware of only one.
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Max, here's a pretty comprehensive breakdown of the Median army's weaponry by Herodotus. Scroll down to "Equipment," though the rest of story is an intriguing read, too. Large bows are mentioned, but no references to their being made of metal. Found this by tracking down leads through the Archaeology Magazine site search. I may be back with more... http://members.ozemail.com.au/~ancientpersia/org.html
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long bows
And this, Max, from "The History of the Long Bow" article. I never imagined that archers could launch arrows in a fusillade of this magnitude:
In a battle against the French at Crécy in 1346 the English archers as a whole probably fired off close to half a million arrows, at up to 70,000 a minute. Their formation was staggered, like the edge of a serrated knife, so that all of the archers could see where they were shooting. This deadly hail of arrows spelt disaster for the French.
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I think that a possible explanation of French failure to match English archery is that it would have required the French aristocracy to empower their peasants in a way they were unwilling to do.
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It would also have meant admitting that perfidious Albion had *ever come up with an idea to rival that of the magnifique French! This stubborn weakness in later wars was to also hold them back in such patently ineffective troop movements as the massed column so loved by Napoleon, and so regularly shredded by the spread lines of English guns... but Napoleon had fielded the world's first mass armies, so what were a few thousand more dead peasants...? La gloire, la belle France!Could have *something to do with the fact that the French have never won a single war in what, about 500 years? 
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Keiva:
What is little known about the medieval battles between the English and the French is that the French were justifiably terrified of the efficacy of the crossbow. Shakespeare immortalized the battle of Agincourt in Hank 5. Most of the French army was wiped out with the loss of few if any Englishmen (and none of any account). See in this regard Kenneth Branagh's awesome film Henry V.
ANYWAY! The French feared the longbow so much they began to return captured bowmen minus the middle finger of the right hand, so they could no longer pluck the string on the bows, which were usually made of yew.
The English rank and file soon marched into battle with their middle fingers raised to show they were still a force to be reckoned with. Rather than a rebel yell, of course, they called out repeatedly, "Pluck yew, pluck yew, pleck yew."
I LOVE history, even when it's made up.
TEd
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I went to our local archery club's open day many moons ago. An Englishman was there and had brought a yew bow and arrows made from the same materials as those used by the bowmen at Crecy and Agincourt. He was amazing. He fired his first arrow from the usual distance for archery competitions (don't ask me numbers, here), and hit the target more-or-less in the centre. The arrow went damned near all the way through the target (which had a large bale of old hay behind it). The arrow's trajectory was nearly flat. By comparison the archers using modern bows and arrows were having to fire much more up in the air to hit the target.
After that, he fired from much further back.
He was able to fire eight arrows a minute, and he only missed the target once. The arrows made a different noise in flight to modern arrows, too.
Impressed the hell outta me, that! I can imagine what thousands of them at once might have done to the French ...
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Dear TEd: Naughty of you to set hoax bait for our trusting souls. But I won't say pluck yew.
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Seems we stumbled across a linguistic twist here, we did...we still do that once in awhile, you know! a section from the first article: http://members.ozemail.com.au/~ancientpersia/org.htmlMercenary troops were more characteristic of later Achaemenid Persian armies but even in the early 5th century, Greeks were being employed in the service of Persian commanders. The term medizing came to describe such troops who were seen to be pro-Persian or in Persian service. Medizing comes from the word Mede which was the general term used by the Greeks to describe all Persian/Medean peoples.Has anybody heard the word medizing used in an English context, or is that just a period term translated for this article? It's not in my handy desk-dictionary, so I'm interested in whether anyone has this offhand before I go a-searchin'...it's new to me. (oh, and there's an Archery section at the bottom of the same article that actually describes the construction of the Medean bows...I just didn't get that far the first time )
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Back when I was doing Ancient History A level in the mid 1970s, medize came up quite frequently for Greeks who'd gone over to the Persian side. It's the only context I've seen or heard the word.
Bingley
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CK:
Yeah, they are impressive. But there's a simple physical answer for the flatter trajectory (not to mention the sound of the arrows). The arrows go about three times as fast as arrows from a more modern bow.
The long bow is just that -- long. It could also be called a strongbow. Modern bows are short and have a lighter pull. 50 to 75 pounds of pull is in the ballpark. The longbow could require 150 pounds of pull. The end result is far higher acceleration for the arrow, so for a given trajectory the arrow from the longbow will go much much farther.
Here's an example: If I have two shooters standing side by side, one with a longbow and the other with a rifle, and at the same moment they both release a projectile from the same height and on a path horizontal to the ground, which one will hit the ground first? At first it seems counterintuitive, but both the arrow and the bullet will hit the ground at exactly the same time (discounting any lift derived from the projectile's physical attributes.)
Why? Because there are only two vectors operating on the projectile: forward motion and the downward pull of gravity. The pull of gravity is exactly the same. But since the bullet is going a lot faster than the arrow it will travel a lot further before hitting the ground. Believe it or not, if you drop a bullet at the same time as you fire the rifle, both bullets will hit the ground at the same time.
As to the battles between the French and English, somewhere I have read a book about the economics of the two opposing armies. The French fielded a small force of knights and their retainers, while the English fielded huge levees of freemen armed with bows. The French guys had to be supported full time by taxes levied on the masses, so there was an economic limit on how big their standing armies could be. The masses in England were the standing armies, so to speak. The training of an archer takes many years, for example just to build up the strength needed to pluck that yew. But the training could be conducted part-time, just as the US Reserve forces do today. These masses still did their main jobs, but were made available for duty by their higher-ups in the feudal system.
TEd
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Dear TEd: If you dropped an arrow, and a bullet (the ball only) from the Leaning Tower of Pisa, which would hit the ground first?
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And dr. bill, do you recall what device the original experimenter used as his timer?
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Are we supposed to account for air resistance?
Old story of Which falls faster, a pound of lead or a pound of feathers? The lead falls like...well, like a pound of lead. The feathers flutter down slowly. Unless you're in a vacuum, in which case they both fall at exactly the same rate. Many Science Museums (okay, one that I know of, anyway) have a neat little display to illustrate this.
Aerodynamics is important, in air :-)
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Old story of Which falls faster, a pound of lead or a pound of feathers?
Old story of Which weighs more, a pound of gold or a pound of feathers?
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Which weighs more, a pound of gold or a pound of feathers?
Or
Which weighs more, an ounce of gold or an ounce of feathers?
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or the one even relitively smart people fail to get,
Which wieghs more--a pint of heavy cream or light cream?
light cream, of course, weights more! heavy cream is the top most layer that is skimmed off, highest in fat, it is lighter than light cream, which contains more water!
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Which weighs more, gold or feathers?
Shouldn't we address this one to Helen?
I should check, but as I recall Troy ounces are bigger but there are only 12 to a pound, which makes gold-by-the-ounce heavier than feathers-by-the-ounce, but gold-by-the-pound-(Troy) is lighter than feathers-by-the-pound-(avoirdupois). Is this a good argument for using metric system, or what? Gold-and-feathers-by-the-gram(me) weigh exactly the same!
Edit: Yes. A Troy ounce is bigger, but an avoirdupois pound is bigger. The conversion is
one ounce Troy = 480 grains
one ounce avdp = 437.5 grains and
one pound Troy = 5760 grains
one pound avdp = 7000 grains
from http://www.homeoint.org/cazalet/weight/ and any number of other sources
P.S. I note that they are all given in Troy grains !
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