Buryat bow from the funds of the museum of history and culture of peoples of Siberia and Russian Far East of IAET SB RAS (Novosibirsk)

The publication presents the results of the morphological analysis and provides the cultural and chronological assessment of the traditional bow (catalogue code МИКНС ОФ 4256) from the collection of the Museum the History and Culture of the Peoples of Siberia and the Russian Far East of IAET SB RAS (Novosibirsk). The original look of the bow at the finish stage of its manufacturing process has been reconstructed. The object originates from the area of residence of the Western Buryats (Bokhansky District of Irkutsk region) and was donated to the museum by a Mongolia specialist, Doctor of Philological Sciences N.O. Sharakshinova. Despite the lack of information about the place of manufacture, the specimen has been identified as an original compound and composite bow of the Buryat production, which differs from the products made in neighboring regions and described by other researchers. The bow was likely intended for hunting activity, as indicated by its morphometric characteristics. The identified set of constructive and morphological features suggests certain parallels originating from the Buryat settlement areas: on pre-revolutionary postcards, in family collections, and collections of the Russian Ethnographic Museum (St. Petersburg) and the National Museum of the Republic of Buryatia (Ulan-Ude). It has been established that the museum specimens were manufactured through other techniques but they showed the similar functional characteristics and close outlines with the bow under analysis. This indicates that the bow represents one of the versions of the design of the Buryat traditional bow. Based on the results of the analysis of the subject and established parallels, the chronological range for the existence of the bow has been determined as the mid-19th- early 20th century.