Ближний Восток и его соседи

g 177 h Archaeological Evidence for Mamlūk Archery 38. While most of the broken arrow shafts in the Euphrates Hoard (see above) are actually from crossbow bolts, the isolated arrowheads seem to be more mixed. They include heads which were probably from a relatively light arrow to be shot from a hand-held bow (right and second left), and more massive, four-sided "quadrilateral" crossbow quarrels (left and second right). (Author’s photograph; reportedly now in the National Museum store, Doha, Qatar). 39. A similarly mixed array of arrowheads and crossbow boltheads were excavated in the Asi'l-Hadath cave refuge on the western side of Mount Lebanon. All date from the 1283 AD siege, but the presence of a large socketed arrowhead (topmost) might indicate a survival of essentially European archery technology resulting from the Cru- sader occupation of this area which for many decades formed part of the County of Tripoli. The local Maronite Christian inhabitants who were besieged by Mamlūk forces in this final redoubt had, of course, often been close allies of the Crusaders. (Photograph courtesy of Fadi Baroudy, Abdo Badwi, Paul Khawaja & Joseph Moukarzel).