bow

The bow as an instrumental accessory rather than as an instrument (i.e., musical bow) is of Asiatic origin, as stated above, documented by al-Farabi in the tenth century, and depicted in a Mozarabic Beatus commentary produced in Spain between 920 and 930 (Bibl. nac. MS 58, Madrid). Here several large, sharply curved bows of the type known as round bow are bent into a semicircle. Horsehair as a material is first mentioned in the East during the same century...