Image Credit : STILEarte
Posted on 01/14/2024 11:47:25 AM PST by SunkenCiv
A lead sling bullet inscribed with the name of Julius Caesar has been discovered in the countryside of Montilla, located in Andalusia, Spain.
The discovery is the first example of a sling bullet to bear Julius Caesar's name abbreviated with CAES, along with a second inscription with the place name of IPSCA, a Roman city that stood on the border of what is now the territory of Baena...
During antiquity, the sling became a common weapon used in Ancient Greece and the Roman period, with the Roman Army adopting slings to be used by skirmishers...
It is possible that the sling bullet found in Montilla originates from the conflict between Caesar and the Optimates during the Second Hispanian campaign of Caesar's Civil War.
At the time, Ipsca was an Iberian oppidum and later a Roman municipality located 12 miles from Montilla, along with the Roman municipium of Ulia only 8 miles north of where the sling bullet was found.
The discovery may also indicate the possible site of the Battle of Munda, the location of which has long been a subject of debate, with the environs of Montilla being one of the top candidates.
A study of the sling bullet has been published in the scientific journal Zephyrus.
(Excerpt) Read more at heritagedaily.com ...
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/whistling-sling-bullets-were-roman-troops-secret-weapon/
Some 1,800 years ago, Roman troops used “whistling” sling bullets as a “terror weapon” against their barbarian foes, according to archaeologists who found the cast lead bullets at a site in Scotland.
Weighing about 1 ounce (30 grams), each of the bullets had been drilled with a 0.2-inch (5 millimeters) hole that the researchers think was designed to give the soaring bullets a sharp buzzing or whistling noise in flight.
The ancient Greeks and Romans produced lead bullets for use in slings in mass quantities, sometimes in molds and sometimes just by digging a figure into sand and pouring molten lead into it. The messages that ancient Romans put on lead sling bullets ranged from naming the leader of the sling unit, the commander of the troops or messages invoking a god or wishing injury upon or insulting the targets, according to the Collector Antiquities blog.
The other GGG topics added since the previous digest ping, alpha sort:
https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?entryid=2485
Others are rather richer in flavour, like the one, fired from Octavian’s side, which bluntly asks: Lucius Antonius the bald, and Fulvia, show us your arse [L.
Ammunition
Sling-bullets of baked clay and stone found at Ham Hill Iron Age hill fort.
The simplest projectile was a stone, preferably well-rounded. Suitable ammunition is frequently from a river or a beach. The size of the projectiles can vary dramatically, from pebbles massing no more than 50 g (1.8 oz) to fist-sized stones massing 500 g (18 oz) or more. The use of such stones as projectiles is well attested in the ethnographic record.[3]
Possible projectiles were also purpose-made from clay; this allowed a very high consistency of size and shape to aid range and accuracy. Many examples have been found in the archaeological record.
The best ammunition was cast from lead. Leaden sling-bullets were widely used in the Greek and Roman world. For a given mass, lead, being very dense, offers the minimum size and therefore minimum air resistance. In addition, leaden sling-bullets are small and difficult to see in flight; their concentrated impact is also a better armour-piercer and better able to penetrate a body.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sling_(weapon)
As a stone inscriber from way back I’d say someone took his time with these . They look like “raised letter” inscriptions where you knock back the background rather than cutting the letters themselves into the stone.
It’s a lead bullet, so the maker probably inscribed the lettering into the sides of the mold.
It’s too bad ol’ Julius didn’t use thar against the Senate.
What caliber????....
So, that’s where the phrase “I have a bullet with your name on it.” comes from!..........
Mighty interesting. I had no idea lead bullets have been around that for that long of a time. Didn’t teach us this in school.
It’s analogous to the “hijack this” messages on our smart bombs. :^)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_and_Roman_artillery
There was also a whistle that was carried by Roman cavalry to disorient and terrify adversaries, and a broken partial example was found I think in Scotland. It’s around here somewhere, lurkin’ in the FRchives.
A very human thing to do. Today they write things on bombs, Russians launched a deadly drome of Kiev on Christmas—On the wing someone wrote “Merry Christmas” in Russian (and some other stuff that wasn’t translated).
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