December 5, 2020
DIRTY JULIUS:
Ancient Slingshot Was as Deadly as a .44 Magnum: An excavation in Scotland shows that Roman soldiers used lead ammo with lethal accuracy. (HEATHER PRINGLE, MAY 24, 2017, National Geographic)
ON A FORTIFIED hill in Scotland some 1,900 years ago, a Roman army attacked local warriors by hurling lead bullets from slings that had nearly the stopping power of a modern .44 magnum handgun, according to recent experiments.The assault seems to have been deadly effective, for the local warriors were armed only with swords and other simple weapons, says John Reid, a researcher at the Trimontium Trust and one of the co-directors of the archaeological fieldwork at Burnswark, south of Edinburgh. "We're fairly sure that the natives on top of the hill weren't allowed to survive."
This remains the best illustration of the David v. Goliath principle:
Posted by Orrin Judd at December 5, 2020 8:15 AM