How to: Build a replica Cannon Part Six

The Tackle

In Parts One, Two and Three of this "How to:" series we established the background and how we went about building our scale replica cannon. In Parts Four and Five, respectively, we looked at how we recreated the projectiles and gunners' equipment needed to perform mock "firing" drills. The final stage is to recreate the tackle used to haul the cannon inboard for loading and outboard for firing through the ship's gun ports.

Typically tackle is a mechanism consisting of ropes, pulley blocks, hooks, or other things for lifting heavy objects. The final challenge, therefore, is to recreate the typical arrangement of ropes, which comprise the gun tackle, train tackle and breeching lines.

Gun Tackle  The gun tackle (or "outhaul" tackle) was a system of two or more pulleys with a rope or cable threaded between them. The pulleys were assembled to form blocks and the blocks paired so that one is fixed by a hook to a ring bolt on the bulwark, while one moves with the load and is hooked to a ring bolt on the gun carriage. The rope is threaded through the pulleys to provide mechanical advantage that amplifies the force applied to the rope.

The gun tackle was used to haul the gun out to the battery (firing) position after it was loaded. For larger guns the tackle consisted of a single block hooked to the gun carriage and a double block hooked to the bulwark. Smaller guns might just use two single blocks. The line leading from the block attached to the bulwark had to be long enough for the gun crew to grab.

Train Tackle  The train tackle (or "inhaul" tackle) was similar to the gun tackle. It hooked to a ring bolt at the rear of the gun carriage and to another ring bolt mounted in the deck some distance behind the gun. The train tackle was used to haul the gun back inboard to the loading position. When not in use it was stowed with all the other gun handling gear, often on the bulwarks between the guns.

Breeching Lines  The breeching lines were attached to ring bolts on the bulwarks and to the cascabels at the rear of the cannon. For earlier guns the lines were wrapped around the cascabel or, in some cases, they were attached with a cut splice that fit around the cascabel. Later guns had a breeching ring cast into the barrel above the cascabel, and the breeching line passed through it.

The breeching line stopped the recoil of the gun when it was fired, preventing it from crashing about the deck. It was roughly 1/3 the diameter of the shot, and was long enough (3 times the length of the cannon bore) to allow the cannon to move about a foot or two inboard of the bulwark to give the gun crew room to swab and load the cannon.

Neither breeching nor tackle could be blackened or treated in any other way that reduced their flexibility. Ropes had to be of manila or another pliable material. Consequently, jute rope of an appropriate diameter (25 mm) was duly purchased.

Block Pulleys

Wooden block pulleys are available to purchase online but finding ones of the appropriate size and quantity proved difficult given the scaled down nature of the cannon. It was decided, therefore, that the block pulleys could be fabricated in house. Usefully there are several YouTube videos showing how to make a block pulley, for example this one by Mark Thijssen or this one by Mr Chickadee who uses a more traditional rope strop.

Given that the block pulleys are largely for show rather function, it was decided to make them from plywood to the design shown below:

This six-part series has briefly explored the history of naval guns used by the Royal Navy in the 18th- and 19th-centuries. It has looked at the gun firing drills and the equipment needed to serve a long gun during the Age of Sail. In Parts Two and Three we proposed a design for making a lightweight cannon barrel and a gun carriage to support it. Part Four explored the types of projectiles discharged from period naval guns, their intended use, and how we attempted to recreate them. The gunners' equipment was recreated in Part Five, and finally we looked at the gun tackle needed to haul cannon inboard for loading and outboard for firing through a ship's gun ports. So, with the project finished, Tastes Of History was delighted to learn that at least one person was inspired by the series to build their own replica (pictured).

Dispelling Some Myths: 'ancient Roman trebuchet'?

A recent search of the internet for information on Roman artillery machines returned, amongst other results, a website with a page entitled ‘The Roman Trebuchet Catapults’ [sic]:

We have no idea of the premise behind this website. It is very basic in design, or perhaps just in its infancy, and seems focused on being an outlet for a slideshow presentation on ‘Slavery at the Time of the Roman Empire’, authored by Garrison Hibbs and Joseph Rethemeyer. Together with the website content, the slideshow is also very simplistic, including little in the way of detail, and appears aimed at a young audience. If we had to guess, it seems most likely this an American high school project made available online. That said, if this is a first attempt to publish to the internet or is a work in progress, then that’s great. The authors are to be commended for their entrepreneurial spirit and we are only too keen to encourage the development of their future talent. With that in mind, however, if anyone openly publishes information for others to discover that is misleading, then it deserves to be challenged (as part of the peer review process). What follows, therefore, are some observations on the 'facts' cited.

The first thing to address is the page's subtitle ‘Ancient Roman Trebuchet Catapult’. For now, we can safely overlook the word ‘catapult’ as the Roman Army did indeed deploy catapultae (sing. catapulta, ‘bolt-shooters’) alongside ballistae (sing. ballista, ‘stone-throwers’) in various guises to defend towns and cities, or for use in offensive siegeworks, or on the battlefield. As many as sixty of these artillery machines may have formed part of each legion’s arsenal.

No!  All well and good, but the second thing to consider is the historical context and specifically what time period is being addressed. True history begins with the adoption of writing systems to record events, people, places, etc. Everything before written records is ‘pre-history’. Even so, history covers an immense span of time that only grows longer with every passing day. As a subject for study, therefore, it has become convenient to divide history into the discreet, definable periods with which we are more familiar, such as the Iron Age, the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons, the Normans, and so on. The point of drawing attention to this ‘pigeon-holing’ of history is important because the author(s) specifically used the term ‘ancient Roman’ in their title. This is important because it more precisely defines at which point in the 1,000-year history of the Romans we are focused.

The Roman empire began in 27 BC and survived into the mid-15th century AD in the East, which is almost a millennium after it had collapsed in the West. The fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman sultan Mehmed the Conqueror in AD 1453 officially marks the empire’s end. Significantly, no historian today would define the 1400s as ‘antiquity’, and most would accept that the ‘ancient Roman’ world ended long before the empire’s final collapse. Yet there is still a problem agreeing when or at which point in its long decline represents the ancient empire’s physical demise.

Put simply, empires do not collapse overnight. Rome, for example, fell in a stages. The Sack of Rome by the Goths in AD 410, which saw many of the city’s finest buildings damaged, was followed by the invasion of the Vandals, who plundered the temples and took captives. The final blow came in AD 476 when a Germanic soldier, Flavius Odoacer, led a successful coup to depose the last western Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus. So, for the purpose of history writing, and for convenience, it has become reasonable to date the end of ‘antiquity’ to the turning point year of AD 476.

No!  As highlighted in the screenshot (above), the page states: ‘The exact beginning of trebuchets is not known but we do know that they first started appearing around the 12th century.’ Having just defined that ‘antiquity’ effectively ended in the 5th-century, then using the terms ‘ancient Roman’ and ‘trebuchet’ in the same sentence is an obvious, and misleading, error. So if not ‘ancient’, were trebuchets known to the later Romans of the eastern or Byzantine Empire? It seems that they were, and a lot earlier than the 12th-century.

The Strategikon is one of the most extensive extant treatises on military tactics and strategies before the early modern period and is the basis for much of what we know about the 6th-century Roman army (Olster, 2013). Significantly, it refers to a more advanced kind of artillery, recently arrived in the Mediterranean world. The text uses the classical term ‘ballista’, but this new weapon was neither a torsion nor a tension powered weapon. Rather it was one operated by traction to launch projectiles using manpower pulling on ropes at one end of a rotating beam to propel a projectile placed in a sling at the other end, thereby satisfying the Stratigikon’s description of the weapon ‘revolving at both ends’ (Dennis, 1984, 139).

What is described therefore is a traction trebuchet, also known as a ‘mangonel’ [1], pictured right. Such weapons first appeared in China in the 4th-century BC before being carried westward by the Avars. The technology was adopted by the Byzantines in the late 6th-century AD, as the Stratigikon confirms, and by their neighbours in the following centuries.

Although it required more men to operate, it was also less complex and faster to reload than the torsion-powered onager [1] that it replaced in early Medieval Europe. The author of the Strategikon does not tell us when this new kind of artillery was introduced into the Byzantine Empire, but as the treatise was written sometime after AD 580 and before AD 610 (Olster, 2013), a 6th-century date does seem likely. Moreover, the historian of Emperor Maurice's reign, Theophylaktos Simokatta, provides information on when it came into use:

‘Bousas, a Byzantine soldier captured by the Avars, taught them how to construct a siege machine, for they were ignorant of such machines. And so he prepared the helepolis to shoot missiles. With this fearsome and skilful device the Avars attacked many Byzantine cities, levelling the fortress of Appiareia in 587 and ten years later attacking Thessaloniki, which successfully resisted.’

From this description, Bousas, and other Byzantine artillerymen, must have learned how to build and operate these weapons some years before AD 587. More importantly, we learn the name the Byzantines gave the new weapon: Helepolis.

In time the traction trebuchet was replaced as the primary siege weapon by the counterweight trebuchet, also known as the counterpoise trebuchet. This later, often larger and more powerful, weapon uses a counterweight to power the arm’s swing. It appeared around the Mediterranean in the lands controlled by Christians and Muslims in the 12th-century. Ironically, given the trebuchet's origin in the Orient, the counterweight trebuchet design was carried back to China by the Mongols in the 13th-century.

And No!  Finally we return to use of the term ‘catapult’. Technically trebuchets and catapults are not the same thing. How they operate can largely be differentiated by how the machine stores energy and how that energy is subsequently used to project a missile. Before the advent of gunpowder, there were three principal ways of achieving a mechanical advantage in launching a projectile:

Tension: The most familiar tension weapon is the bow. From the Stone Age onward, arrows shot from bows have been advantageous in outranging spears/javelins, throwing sticks or simple rocks to engage targets safely from distance whether in the hunt or on the battlefield. To shoot, the archer holds the bow at its centre with one hand and pulls back (draws) the arrow and the bowstring with the other (typically the dominant hand). This flexes the two limbs of the bow rearwards, which perform the function of a pair of cantilever springs to store elastic potential energy. Typically while maintaining the draw, the archer aims the shot intuitively or by sighting along the arrow. When the archer releases (looses) the draw, the limbs' stored energy is released and converted into kinetic energy transmitted via the bowstring to the arrow, propelling it forward with high velocity.

Torsion: The power of a bow is measured by its draw-weight [2]. For example, bows shot by historical re-enactors typically have draw-weights of between 50 and 70 lbs. In comparison, some of the Tudor warbows recovered from Henry VIII's flagship, the Mary Rose, have draw-weights in excess of 120 lbs marking them as clearly more powerful. There is, however, a limit to the draw-weight that can be pulled by the archer’s muscles alone. The introduction of torsion weapons sought to overcome this limitation, yet how and when this transition occurred remains a mystery. What is clear is that torsion - the twisting of an object by applied torque - offered much greater efficiency over tension based weaponry.

The bow was discarded in favour of ‘two wooden frames around each of which was wrapped strand after strand and layer after layer of sinew-cord’ (Marsden, 1969, 17). The two resulting bundles of sinew, each with its own frame, formed the springs. Into the middle of each of these springs was inserted a solid, tapering wooden arm. The arms were connected by a strengthened bowstring. As the bowstring is drawn rearward, typically by some form of mechanical device such as windlass, ratchet and pawl system, the arms apply torque to the sinew-cord springs overcoming inertia and thereby storing elastic potential energy. When the bowstring is released, the springs rapidly unwind to resume their resting position, accelerating the arms in a forward rotating arc. This in turn accelerates the bowstring forward imparting kinetic energy to propel the missile. Ballistas, catapults and scorpions, and other single-armed missile projectors such as the onager, all use torsion power.

Traction: The earliest trebuchet, however, as described in the Strategikon, were powered by traction whereby manpower pulling on ropes at one end of a lever used the mechanical advantage of said lever to throw a projectile. Once again, the range of traction trebuchets was limited by the strength of the men pulling the ropes. Not only that but the difficulties of coordinating the pull of several men repeatedly and predictably eventually made the adoption of the counterweight trebuchet preferable even though these machines were much larger, more complicated to engineer, and thus more expensive to field. The counterweight trebuchet’s advantage, however, was using gravity to provide the throwing power.

Potential energy is stored by slowly raising an extremely heavy box (filled with stones, sand, or lead) attached to the shorter end of the lever, typically a wooden beam hinged about an axle (the fulcrum of the lever). When released, the box descends rapidly prescribing an arcing path and the force so generated causes rotational acceleration of the beam around the axle. These factors multiply the acceleration transmitted to the throwing portion of the beam and its attached sling contain the projectile. As the beam arcs forward, the sling initially follows the same path but as the beam reaches it apogee, the sling continues to accelerate transmitting the increased speed to the projectile. The length of the sling increases the mechanical advantage, and also changes the trajectory so that, at the time of release from the sling, the projectile is traveling in the desired speed and angle to give it the range to hit the target. Adjusting the sling's release point is the primary means of fine-tuning the range, as the rest of the trebuchet's actions are difficult to adjust after construction.

The rotation speed of the throwing beam increases smoothly, starting slow but building quickly. After the projectile is released, box and the arm continue to oscillate, until the weight of the box acts as a brake to slow the rotation and bring the beam to rest, typically upright. This is unlike the violent sudden stop inherent in the action of other catapult designs such as the onager (see right), which must absorb most of the kinetic energy into its own frame, and must be heavily built and reinforced as a result. This key difference makes the trebuchet much more durable, allowing for larger and increasingly more powerful machines.

A conclusion of sorts?  As stated earlier, this is not intended to be a dismissive critique of somebody else’s work. Rather, we hope it sets the record straight and explains why, in history terms at least, to connect ‘ancient’ and ‘Roman trebuchet’ is inaccurate and misleading. Moreover, it is hoped that readers can understand that while bows, catapults and trebuchets are all missile projectors, they use very different technologies to achieve the desired effect.

As ever, feel free to comment, like and share.

References:

Dennis, G.T. (transl.), (1984), Maurice's Strategikon, Handbook of Byzantine Military Strategy, Philadelphia, p. 139.

Olster, D., (2013), ‘Strategikon of Maurice’, Wiley Online Library, Available on-line: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah03227 (accessed March 27th, 2022).

Endnotes:

1. Two common misconceptions about the mangonel are that it was a torsion siege engine and that it is synonymous with the earlier onager.

2. A bow’s draw weight, also known as poundage, is a measurement used to determine how much force is required to flex the bow and draw its bowstring a standard length of 28 inches. Traditionally, the bow would have been held on a tiller and pound weights hung on the bowstring until it was drawn the required 28”. In this manner, a bow with a 70-pound draw weight takes 70 pounds of force to reach the standard draw length.

How to: Build a replica Cannon Part Five

The Gunners' Equipment

In Part One, where we established the background to building our replica cannon. In describing the firing drills a number of pieces of equipment were needed for the crew to serve the gun. In Part Five, therefore, we explore how to recreate the gunners' equipment. Each item will be addressed in the order a gun crew would use them, starting with the sponge.

The Sponge was a long staff, often combined with a rammer, that has a piece of sheep's fleece or lambskin wound about its end. Kept wet, this is used to scour the cannon after it had fired and before it was charged with fresh powder. The cleaning extinguished any spark or fire remaining in the piece to avoid the premature ignition of the powder charge. Sponges were the most commonly used cannon cleaning items.

To recreate a sponge we used a 20 mm diameter (Ø) pinewood dowel for the staff. The dowel was given a dark mahogany stain to complete the look. As an interim measure, the staff was inserted the full length of a masonry paint roller. The roller was fixed in place with a screw in the end of the dowel. This solution is less than perfect and will be replaced when a more realistic alternative becomes available.

The Wad-screw or Worm was formed of two points of iron in the shape of a corkscrew. It was used to extract the wad out of the gun. It is also used when the cannon had to be unloaded or dirt removed.

Although not to the correct scale, we chose to recreate the worm by using the appropriate corkscrew shaped tool from a vintage wooden chimney sweep's set, as shown below.

The Lantern or Ladle served to carry the powder into the barrel where a bagged powder charge was not used. Without the ability to turn wood, sourcing an appropriately sized and shaped ladle has proven difficult. As it would be an interesting object to display, when one is purchased or fashioned, then we will publish an update.

When performing "gun drills" in schools, we did not think using loose powder was a practical measure. Instead, we decided that, when practising the firing sequence, it would easier for schoolchildren to load bagged charges of "gunpowder". Individual cylindrical bags were thus made of sewn canvas stuffed tightly with kapok. Each bag measured 200 mm long by 100 mm Ø.

The Powder Container was used to ferry gunpowder from the ship's magazine to each gun. Such magazines were built below the water line so that, in the case of fire or other emergency, the magazines could be flooded. Unsurprisingly, an open flame was never allowed inside the powder magazine.

In the Age of Sail the ferrying of gunpowder was typically performed by boy seamen aged between 12 to 14 years. Such "powder boys" or "powder monkeys" were selected for their speed and height. Being shorter, they could move more easily in the limited space between decks and could protect themselves behind the ship's gunwale from enemy sharpshooters.

To minimize the risk of fires and explosions, loose gunpowder or powder cartridges were carried in sealed containers. In the first quarter of 19th-century the Royal Navy used staved wood buckets covered in canvas inside and out. Some of the surviving examples are decorated with a painted and gilt accented Royal coat of arms. Although the one shown right is missing its lid, its leather carrying handle is still attached.

As of posting, the intention remains to fashion a barrel-like powder bucket to carry six of the bagged charges previously described. From information on the originals, the dimensions vary, but the example buckets we have seen are generally between 410 mm and 440 mm (16" and 18") tall, with a diameter of approximately 200 mm (8"). Given that the result will be covered in canvas, the barrel body will be recreated using a 200 mm diameter plastic drainpipe. Flexible plywood will be used to make the three wide hoops similarly disguised beneath the canvas cover. Adding a lid and leather handle will finish the look [note 1].

The Rammer was a round piece of wood, commonly called a "box", which served to drive home the powder and ball to the breech. It was fastened to a stick twelve feet long, for the pieces from twelve to thirty-three pounders, and ten feet long for the eight and four pounders.

For simplicity, we chose to recreate a combination sponge and rammer. So, to the opposite end of the sponge staff, a turned wooden mortar was repurposed to create the aforementioned box. A 20 mm Ø hole was bored through its base to accommodate the sponge's wooden dowel. The mortar bowl was then sealed using a plywood blanking disc cut to size and glued in place. The box was stained to match.

The Priming Iron is a pointed iron rod, used to clear the touch (vent) hole of burnt powder or dirt. It is also used to pierce the cartridge so the priming powder when lit ignites the main charge.

We used a 1.5 mm mild steel rod, painted black to look like iron. One end was given a blunted point, while the other end was looped to which a leather wrist strap was added.

The Primer contained at least one pound of gunpowder. It was used to prime the vent hole with gunpowder which, when lit, ignited the main charge in the cannon's breech. For our purposes, priming the vent can be simulated by using a pre-owned powder horn, albeit without the powder.

The Botefeux was used to hold a winding of match with which to fire the cannon. This may be a stick two or three feet long with a split to hold one end of the match.

The Quoin is used to elevate or depress the cannon. Typically, therefore, the quoin is a wooden wedge that lowers the barrel the further it is pushed forward.

The version shown right is a simple 5 mm plywood box cut, glued and pinned to create the wedge shape. The handle is a short piece of dowel topped with a wooden drawer knob. The "quoin" was painted to match the colour of the gun carriage.

Next... In the final part of the build, we explore how to recreate the gun tackle. Please bear with us as this may take some time to come to fruition...

Notes:

1. This article will be updated as new elements are fashioned or alterations made.

Whistling Death!

Burnswark Hill Approaching across the gentle surrounding Dumfriesshire countryside it is hard to miss the brooding eminence of Burnswark Hill. Rising to nearly 305 m (1,000 ft) it is one of the most prominent landmarks of the Solway basin (see below).

Crowning the table-top summit are the remains of the ramparts protecting a 17-acre hillfort. This hillfort is, in turn, flanked to the North and South by two Roman camps, both of which are unusual in design. The northern camp has an elongated form atypical of the standard Roman army practice, while the south camp, more conventional in shape, was furnished with three wide gateways facing up the hill. Each of these is protected by a large tumulus-like earthwork collectively known as the "Three Brethren". After extensive excavations in 2016, Dr John Reid of the Trimontium Trust commented: "This configuration of Roman camps straddling a hillfort is unique in Britain, and attempts to understand its significance have provoked considerable controversy for over half a century" [1].

Practice camp or siege work? For the best part of two hundred years the Roman earthworks were identified as siege camps. In the 1960s a new theory proposed that the camps were "practice" works and thus provided tangible evidence for the Roman army’s famous training regime. As Reid points out: "It is not difficult to see how this practice theory arose. Many archaeologists in the 1950s and 1960s were ex-military men with a grounding in the Classics and close associations with the training activities of the British Army" [1].

To provide one famous tangential example. not necessarily invested in the Burnswark story, consider that iconic British archaeologist of the twentieth century, Sir Mortimer Wheeler. Recognised as one of our most important archaeologists, he had specialised in the Romano-British period before being commissioned into the Royal Artillery for the duration of World War One and later World War Two. During the inter-war years, however, Wheeler turned his attention to the late Iron Age hill-fort of Maiden Castle near to Dorchester in Dorset, where he excavated for four seasons from 1934 to 1937. The interpretation of the site was clearly heavily influenced by his military background and, being adept at generating publicity, his views remained the dominant ones for many years. In time, however, many of Wheeler's specific interpretations of Maiden Castle and of other archaeological sites were discredited or reinterpreted. Yet, Wheeler's championing of archaeology, encouraging public interest in it through the medium of television and radio, makes it easy to see how the training camp interpretation of Burnswark proposed by similar ex-military men became fact in both popular and academic literature.

Sling-shot bullets Over the years the arguments in favour of both training and actual warfare have steadily multiplied but, as is so often the case, many observations have proven susceptible to conflicting readings [1]. Leaving aside such arguments, it is significant for present purposes that numerous lead sling-bullets, stone ballista-balls, and other elements of corroded Roman military hardware had been recovered in earlier excavations at the site [2]. Prior to the 2015 Burnswark Project, of the 130 lead sling-bullets previously recovered, only two main types were recognised: Type I, essentially a lemon shape (above, middle row), and Type II resembling an acorn (above, top row) - a symbol the Romans considered lucky. These two types are common finds at Roman army battle sites in Europe. The Type I's are typically the largest weighing up to 60 grams (2 ounces) [3].

Of these, the rarer acorn-shaped bullets were almost exclusive to a 50-mile radius around Burnswark Hill [1]. These beautifully cast bullets weighed an average of 50 grams. They were predominantly recovered from the East and central South facing hillfort gateways, with a handful also found in the southern Roman camp [1]. In 2017, National Geographic [4] reported on the excavations at Burnswark and that "recent experiments conducted in Germany showed that a 50 gram Roman bullet hurled by a trained slinger has only slightly less stopping power than a .44 magnum bullet fired from a handgun." Other tests have shown that, in the hands of an expert, a heavy bullet or stone hurled from a sling could reach speeds of up to 100 mph (160 kph) [3] and "revealed that a trained slinger could hit a target smaller than a human being from 130 yards [120 metres] away" [4].

Whistling death As impressive as these statistics are, the Burnswark Project had identified a remarkable third, previously unrecognised, slingshot subgroup. Weighing about 30 g (1 oz), each of the bullets had been drilled with a hole, approximately 5mm (0.2") in diameter and about 5mm deep. Theories on what the hole was for abounded until the field-testing of replica slingshot produced another, equally remarkable, explanation for these cavities.

Two extraordinary facts concerning these small bullets with holes (now dubbed Burnswark Type III's) also emerged. First, being smaller they could be successfully slung in groups of three or four to create a form of grapeshot [3].

The current thinking is that Type III's were used in this manner in close-quarter skirmishing with an enemy (Reid 2016). More intriguingly, the mysterious holes proved to confer an aerophonic quality producing a "whistling" sound in flight. To be slightly more accurate, the replica lead shot made a mechanical buzzing sound eerily reminiscent of an agitated wasp. The simplest explanation for this design modification is that it represents an early form of psychological warfare. As Reid said: "To put it another way, the Roman attackers valued the terror that hearing the incoming bullets would instil in the defenders." Subjected to a hail of these sling-shot bullets, defenders on the hillfort's ramparts would be encouraged to take cover or else risk severe injury or death. With the enemy pinned down physically and psychologically, then the Roman troops could assault and storm Burnswark Hill.

Replicas Inspired by the find we commissioned Dan Towse of Bespoke Pewter to replicate the Burnswark Type III bullet from the interim report on the Burnswark Project published in 2019. From this the average weight and overall dimensions were deduced. Two versions were made, one in lead and a second in lead-free pewter. Each resulting bullet was approximately 23 to 24 mm long but differed in weight. The lead shot are ca. 26 g (0.9 oz) each, while the lead-free pewter are ca. 17 g (0.6 oz).

Unfortunately we are not experienced slingers and will need time to develop the skills needed to repeatedly hurl projectiles in a consistently safe manner and direction. So, as yet we have not been able to experiment with the replicas so do not know whether the "buzzing" effect can be reproduced. In time, and with much practice, we will update this post with what we find out.

Notes:

1. Reid, J.H., (2016), "Bullets, ballistas and Burnswark", Current Archaeology 316.
2. The first was conducted in 1898 on behalf of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and involved surveying the earthworks and "turning over" the site. The second major exploration came in the 1960s, and was directed by the much-respected archaeologist George Jobey. In the 1978 publication of his work, Jobey came down firmly on the side of a practice work.
3. . Metcalfe, T. (2016), "Whistling Sling Bullets Were Roman Troops' Secret 'Terror Weapon'", Live Science, retrieved December 12th, 2020.
4. Pringle, H. (2017), "Ancient Slingshot was as Deadly as a .44 Magnum", National Geographic, retrieved December 12th, 2020.
5. Reid, J.H. & Nicholson, A., (2019), "Burnswark Hill: the opening shot of the Antonine reconquest of Scotland?", in the Journal of Roman Archaeology 32, pp. 459-477.