Hello,

perhaps somebody could provide some help in my question on slinging.

i am interested in Ancient Near Eastern warfare and found a text of an Assyrian ruler of the 8th/7th century BC.
It contains a passage usually understood as referring to slings.
According to the common view at this passage, slingers wore rings or bracelets of gold at their wrists or hands to which one end of the sling was attached. It has been thought that these bracelets or rings were used in order to avoid that the sling slipped out of the hands of the soldier when firing.
The crucial point in this question is that the term usually interpreted as sling could possibly designate something else.

Are there any parallels known? I would be happy if anybody could substantially comment on my question.

Thank you very much.

i suppose there could be some kind of mace or club that was attached by a rope to these rings, which could have interpreted as a sling

 Samael, I'd love to know the source of your reference. It sounds like a plausible thing. Iv'e had more than one sling fly out of my hand. Never had that problem with wrist loops.
 However, I don,t know about them being made of gold. Too fragile and expensive, especially since slingers of the time were of a low rank in the military, usually drawn from the common people. Most were lucky if they got a small wicker shield to defend themselves with.
Could they have been gold colored, like brass or bronze?? That makes more sense. Even a leather wristband would have worked.
    I can just see the slingers wrapping the slings around their forearms after battle, while the regulars had to lug out shield and sword.

If one was slinging small shots I think that a fabric loop would be more practical, however if one was slinging heavy stuff a flexible loop would tend to close under tension which may be awkward so maybe rigid  rings were used.  Hammer, shot put, discus all had martial origins, it seems logical that some sort of heavyweight hand sling was also used.