This is discussed in a fantastic article by P Ducrey and C. Brelaz
Réalités et images de la fronde en Grèce ancienne, in Les armes dans l'Antiquité
De la technique à l'imaginaire, Études rassemblées par Pierre Sauzeau & Thierry Van Compernolle, 2008

Cup in the British Museum. Ca. 500 ? Oddly, slinger is helmeted and greaved. Even seems to be walking away fro direction of shot. NB on the arm, the hanging bag (a pouch for the sling, wonders the editor ? rather a bag for stones).

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Another pic. Not v. good, I know.

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Thats an unusual pose.
Corinthian helmet pushed back on his head and small bag hanging from his right arm.
Difficult to tell but do you think he is slinging left handed?

Very interesting.

Sure the photo is not laterally reversed? Even if so, the pose seems weird. Is the hand that holds the retention cord behind the man's neck?

And the bag... almost looks like some kind of mitten.  :-/

Interesting...

It seems to be a left handed slinger, if the picture is not areversed copy. The throwing hand seems to be in front of the face because the coat slung around the arm is partly in front of the body.
The sling length is from the right hand until a little bit behind the eyes. Thats related to the anatomical size the same lenth as at the Makron painting Thearos showed us in former topic. So the length of the stretched arm plus the way until behind the eye seems to be kind of a standard sling length in ancient Greece. For me myself this would mean to make a sling with a length of 80 to 85 cm.
The unusual position of the slinger (seemingly aiming behind himself) is not that far away from the slinger painted by Makron. Is it possible that slingers turned around the body in the moment of highest accelerration and that they started in this "twisted" position? Should be proved by experiment.

funda iucunda  

It makes a lot more sense flipped around.

I reckon the target is to the right, in the direction of the sling, and he is about to take a step backwards in the direction of the target with his left foot which will turn into a half-pirouette bringing the right shoulder around for more power.

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Sorry to bring up an old thread, but I didnt see anyone apart from the original author comment on the helmet. Not only is it something that would limit sight, but this ancient greek (corinthian I think someone mentioned) also has the horse hair crest ontop. Unless it was just an artist taking artistic liscense and just putting that there because he thought it looked pretty (happens a fair bit in history), this would make the greek style of throw near to impossible. I think others where right when they said it looks like he is about to take a step with his left leg, and throw in a similar style to the discus I think.
What are peoples thoughts on 'greek style'? Do we think it actually was the stylr used bny the greeks or just a modern throw with an incorrect name?

Nemo

Thats a good point.

The 'Greek style' is a modern throw developed by David Taylor in response to the 'sling held above the head' pictures of Greek coins.

http://slinging.org/index.php?page=slinging-styles---david-taylor

With that helmet on, any kind of overhead rotation is impossible.

There is one text description of Greek slinging but it isnt contemporaneous, it is by the Roman writer Virgil about the mythic period of Greek/Trojan/Etruscan history:


Quote:

Mezentius, dropping his spears, whirled a whistling sling on its tight thong, three times round his head, and split his adversary’s forehead open in the middle

http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/VirgilAeneidIX.htm

Yeah, David, but if I remember that quote, he was supposed to have slung the glande so hard and so fast, it melted in mid air.

The artist is struggling with a couple of problems: the way in which a slinger's weight is away from the direction of his slinging; the problem of how to represent things that pass in front of faces (e.g. bowstrings or javelins or spears)-- often they're made to look like they pass behind the head; the problem of how to differentiate between right and left. Not very successfully solved, perhaps, in this one. The pouch on the arm is v. odd indeed. -- looks like a flute case to me.

Thearos wrote on Aug 8^th, 2010 at 10:54am:

The pouch on the arm is v. odd indeed. -- looks like a flute case to me.

Might be. A marching band of flute-playing slingers... Maybe that's why their reputation among the other soldiers was not the best.  ;)

Assuming the slinger is right handed, and that he is pirouetting, would he be twisting clockwise for a sort of backhand release? I'd like to test this style of holding the sling, but how do you think he is actually meant to be slinging? It looks like the exact opposite of a sidearm style I use around tall grass, so the image messes with my sensibilities.

Another obstacle is the coat wrung around both arms. It looks very elegant, but during action it would slip down and hamper the warrior.

funda iucunda

If it were not impossible, I would say he looks like he's using a... SLINGSHOT!  :o :o :o

Maybe he's getting off a "Parthian shot" as he's getting the hell out of Dodge, sling held behind his head.