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Mystery Of The Whistling Bullets: Roman Sling Bullets 200 AD

submitted by Mordhaus

8 years 3 months 2 weeks ago

When Dr. John Reid, Chairman of the Trimontium Trust, contacted us and asked for our help in order to shed some light on an ancient mystery, we immediately agreed!

Dr. Reid and his team did some excavations at the 1800 years old battle site at Burnswark in Scotland, where a full Roman legion laid siege to a Caledonian hilltop fortification and eventually stormed the place.

Dr. Reid's team found hundreds of lead sling bullets in the small patches they excavated, which means that there were thousands upon thousands of such shots fired in that battle.

The curious thing is that about 20% of the bullets were very small (only about 20 grams) and had a hole drilled into them, 4 mm in diameter and 6 mm deep. What was the purpose of that hole?

Dr. Reid believes that it was done in order to make them whistle in flight so to irritate the opponents, but he wasn't really able to shoot the bullets at the speed the ancient slingers mastered.

He came to the right place! We did our part and contributed to the body of scientific work. And had plenty of fun!