Parthian horse archers

[MeinPanzer]

I'm currently doing some research about the battle of Carrhae. Unfortunately I'm not very familiar with Parthian weaponry, so I would be grateful for some help in this respect. I'm particularly interested in their archery equipment now.

In general, your best bet for evidence pertaining to Parthian arms and armour from around the time of Carrhae would be the finds from Old Nisa, an early Parthian fortress, which date to the 2nd-1st c. BC.

Do we know anything about Parthian arrows apart from the descriptions in Plutarch and Cassius Dio? Do we have any archaeological finds?

Numerous arrowheads were found at Old Nisa, both stored in storerooms and in other parts of the site. These are for the most part simple generic trilobate tanged iron arrowheads, while a small percentage also included hollow cast bronze trilobate heads. These are largely the same as those in use throughout Central Asia during the last three centuries BC.

As for the rest of the construction of Parthian arrows, little can be said. I don't know of any examples which actually preserve the wooden shaft, let alone fletching. However, a fresco from Old Nisa shows a fleeing nomad who has been shot by pursuing Parthian victors, and the arrows which stick into him had red fletching. They seem generally to have been short, which is fitting considering the small composite bows which the Parthians employed.

How many arrows would an average Parthian horseman have in his quiver (please disregard the camels with spare arrows for now)? Do we have any evidence for this? Well, I know that Al Tabari claims that Persian soldier carried 30 arrows during the reign of Khosrau I. (well allegedly, I admit I haven't read the passage as I don't currently have Al Tabari's work available) and Maurice's Strategicon claims that the Roman/Byzantine (whatever you prefer) soldier would have some 30-40 arrows in his quiver. The Romans of that time were probably heavily influenced by Sassanians, who in turn may have been influenced by Parthians, but this seems rather too far fetched with regard to an event of 53 B.C. Do we perhaps have any Parthian quiver, from which it would be possible to deduce how many arrows could have been carried in it? Or are there any closer parallels for numbers of arrows carried by archers of various ancient nations?

Unfortunately, this question is nearly impossible to answer based on archaeological evidence. The problem is that within graves of cultures where archery is widely practiced and weapons are buried with the interred the amount of arrows left in a burial often has little correspondence to the amount of arrows a warrior could have carried in everyday life. Oftentimes only one or a handful of arrows are provided on the basis of pars pro toto. However, I am not intimately familiar with excavations of Parthian burials which included weapons. I think when large quantities of arrows are included in burials such as those of steppe nomads, they rarely amount to more than 40 or 50, so this may be taken cautiously as an upper limit. 30-40 is probably a reasonable estimate.

This is a representation of a Parthian gorytus (bowcase/quiver) from Old Nisa:

http://antiquemilitaryhistory.com/images/gorytus.jpg

If we estimate that each of those four pockets could hold maximum 10 arrows, then 40 sounds about right.

I know about the Parthian bow from Yrzi. I have Brown's article in Seminarium Kondakovianum. Is there any other relevant literature about Parthian bows that I should check?

I think that the majority of evidence for Parthian bows derives from depictions on small scale objects, like coins, terracotta figurines, etc. They generally show short, asymmetrical B-shaped composite bows much like those that were in use in the steppes between the 5th and 3rd c. BC. It seems like this was the type which was still in use in the 1st c. BC