even touch. The grip area is not recessed like other Asianic bows and is fairly flat on the belly, while the front of the grip bulges outwards. The dramatic curvature of the bows makes stringing them very different from straighter bows found in Europe. There is an old saying in Turkey that there are "120 ways to string a bow," though the most common methods involve sitting on ground with one's feet pressed against the grip. Heavier bows usually require the use of a long, looped strap to pull the limbs back and hold them while the string is seated. In the modern world, the Turkish bow is now predominantly used for sporting purposes. Authentic horn and sinew bows are still made but are both extremely costly and difficult to store outside certain environments and climates. For this reason, the majority of historically-styled bows of this type are made with some combination of fiberglass, hardwood (for the kasan) and resin, and with some being entirely resin. Zihgir Zihgir is the Turkish word for the thumb ring used to draw the bow in the Ottoman Empire. Turkish thumb rings were made of wood, metal, ivory, bone, horn or leather. These rings signified that the person wearing them was a warrior. In time they became a symbol of prestige in Ottoman society, and some later examples have so much ornamentation on the surface from which the bowstring slides that they could not be used to shoot with. Surviving examples are often made of precious metals and richly decorated. Some are carved from precious stones. Siper and Majra The siper and majra are devices used to draw arrows past the bow's front limb where the arrow would normally rest. The siper is a type of shelf strapped to the archer's bow hand, which allows the archer to use arrows several inches shorter (and therefore lighter) in order to get the maximum amount of force behind the arrow. They are most commonly used for Flight Archery, to achieve the greatest distance. The Majra is a thin piece of wood with a channel cut in it and small loop for the archer's draw hand. The device allows the archer to pull back arrows that are much shorter than were intended for the bow. There is some debate among historians if this device was designed to shoot arrows that were too short for the enemy to