Turkish archery the last bowyer and famous calligrapher, Neçmeddin Okyay; it has since been revived. For many years the excellence of Turkish bows could be seen from historical records. In 1910 an archery contest was held on the beach at Le Touquet, France, where Ingo Simon was able to shoot an arrow 434 m using an old Turkish composite bow requiring a force of 440N or 99 lb. The Turkish bow is a recurved composite bow used in the Ottoman Empire. The construction is similar to that of other classic Asiatic composite bows, with a wooden core (maple was most desirable), animal
Chinese archery out before the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE). In contrast to Korean and Japanese archery (whose traditions have been preserved through direct transmission), the circumstances of 19th and 20th century China made it difficult for Chinese archery traditions to be directly transmitted to the present day. Military use of firearms began in the Ming dynasty (1368–1644 CE), and general use of gunpowder weapons as early as the Song dynasty (960–1279 CE). Despite this adoption, bows and crossbows had remained an integral part of the military arsenal because of the slow firing rate and lack of reliability in early firearms. This situation