Slinging.org Forum - How did the ancient sling ?

Mark-Harrop

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Re: How did the ancient sling ?
Reply #15 - Aug 12^th, 2014 at 6:43am

I think you just like to argue Professor… Grin

Ancient texts and images mean little…we know what works now and nothing has changed. The ancient Greeks thought lambs grew out of the ground too…on a stalk from their navel. Roll Eyes

All of your ancient texts colds also be describing the fig-8….the uninitiated might see it as one rotation, or it could also be described as three…the drop, behind the back and the throw…around the head.

Keep practicing that super-hurricane…and lets see a video. Until then… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNHM4AL7LdU

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Thearos Interfector Viris Spurii Offline Take that Posts: 3410	Re: How did the ancient sling ? Reply #16 - Aug 12^th, 2014 at 8:40am I think not, that's not what the Latin says. You could learn it, too. Takes a few years. Best start young.
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Re: How did the ancient sling ?
Reply #17 - Aug 12^th, 2014 at 9:07am

Just to be sure: we do not know how the ancients slung-- fig-8, why not ? "Byz" ?

But I have laid out evidence (4 Latin passages, 1 image, and the implication of the Y position) that makes it certain that the ancient DID sling helo-- the universal old-world style. So when I sling that way, I'm sure I'm slinging like some ancients did-- probably most. (In addition, I do think it's a better way).

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Re: How did the ancient sling ?
Reply #18 - Aug 12^th, 2014 at 12:48pm

Mind that Virgil is a poet, and Vegetius a military writer in late Roman times. Still, they seem to reflect a general idea of rotations above the head. BUT of course, this might just be a widespread mistake (just like people probably had hazy notions of e.g. sailing or rowing).

All the same, I'm reminded of another profs vs enthusiasts debate: Greek vases often show people using spears overarm in close combat, reenactors insist this is too difficult. I would stick to the axiom historical martial arts guys developed: if there is clear evidence for something, suspend judgment before rejecting it based on your own "experience of what works".

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Mark-Harrop

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Re: How did the ancient sling ?
Reply #19 - Aug 13^th, 2014 at 4:21am

I know you are hung up on the helicopter…thats OK.

I can tell you though, many martial arts are just that…art. Like paintings on a vase, engravings or cave art.

We used to invite martial arts "masters" to our unit to demonstrate their supposedly lethal techniques, then put them to the test in the real world. The "death touch", one inch punch, firing chi-balls at opponents…we tried them all. It's not hard to flush out the B.S. from effective technique, all it takes is some experimentation.

The ancients would have used different styles depending on a lot of variables. How they were trained, how well they could throw, what other techniques they had been exposed to, the tactical situation, what type of ammo, the formation they were in…
To imply that all Greeks used one style all the time, based on the translations of a few observers or a painting on a vase is a little short-sighted.
I know how soldiers think and I know how they train. Not much has changed.
Also, who did they get to pose for these vase paintings? Even in the modern military when the Public affairs people show up to take pictures of training, they often get "staged" pictures. You can't use these as an accurate representation…because often, the "experts" are off actually training and have no time for that nonsense…so they grab a clerk and say "hold this gun like you are in combat".
I suspect it was probably similar in the old days…"here Clerkaclese, hold this sling like you are in combat and stand still for an hour.
Renactors don't train to kill each other either. Its a social cosplay event with a historical theme. If they were out to kill each other you would see a change in tactics. I like what they do and enjoy watching them but you shouldn't use them as a historically accurate source of TTPs.
I feel pretty confident that no combat slingers were lobbing, they were slinging hard with deadly force. Since humans, either standing or mounted on horses present a target that is more vertical than horizontal, it would have been important to maximise you accuracy in the vertical plane, hard and fast.
The harder you try and sling sidearm, the wider your spread will be horizontally. You have a much greater chance of getting a hit on a vertically biased target slinging hard with a 3/4 overhand release. This is why trebuches use a vertical release, it makes them easy to aim…just line up the arm with the target.
You can't fight logic and demonstrated proof to fit a painting on a vase. None of those ancient writers or poets had any personal experience with the sling, and the scrolls of Heroslinaclese have yet to be unearthed.

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Thearos

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Re: How did the ancient sling ?
Reply #20 - Aug 13^th, 2014 at 5:21am

The ancient evidence is pretty clear. The cup by Makron shows a very precise detail about the orientation of the hand: it is cocked with thumb down and closed palm up. An experienced slinger immediately knows that this can only evolve into a helo or multi-rotational style. The other poses shown in vase painting are also helo-optimized. Note that there are other styles possibly represented, too: a possible fig-8, a likely Byz. The textual evidence is also unequivocal: Virgil's didactic and epic, which likes to get details right, and Vegetius (twice), a technical writer. Yes, these sources need care.

Historical Martial Arts: I am referring to the historians and scholars who try to reconstruct fighting arts from the past, using visual and textual evidence, and archaeology. They are very close to experimental archaeology, and think about this stuff a lot. One thing that is clear is how good visual evidence often is (at least in the Middle Ages)-- once you have naturalistic art, you ignore it at your peril.

Note that I am comparing Mr Harrop to a reenactor: the guys with spears and shields who say "but it CAN'T work ! The grip is too weak !" when the profs say "spears were used overhand, here is the evidence".

So when faced with clear historical evidence, what do you do ?

1. You follow it uncritically.
2. You use it critically
3. You reject it based on your common sense of "what must work".

1. is not good, but not a reason to go for 3. 2 is the hardest, and the best. The point here is that I work on the sources (and have constantly updated the forum with info), and I have enough slinging experience not to be browbeaten.

My recent attempt to sling "Palestinian" style brought home to me the importance of slinging "heavy" in war. Not short sling and light (that's good for hunting birds), but long and heavy-- you're trying to take out people who have body armour shields and head protection. So some kind of lobbing is likely, especially at the sort of distance that protect slingers from archers and from infantry rushes (>100m ?)

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Thearos Interfector Viris Spurii Offline Take that Posts: 3410	Re: How did the ancient sling ? Reply #21 - Aug 13^th, 2014 at 5:50am Shorter-- 1. There is clear evidence for the ancient Greeks and Romans using helo (and a bit for fig-8 and Byz). 2. Is there any reason for rejecting this evidence ? No. 3. Does helo work ? Yes.
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Mark-Harrop

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Re: How did the ancient sling ?
Reply #22 - Aug 14^th, 2014 at 5:22am

Historians and scholars make the absolute worst re-creators of "martial arts"…TV and Youtube is rife with their ham-fisted attempts to demonstrate the "proper" technique of something they clearly don't understand or don't have the athletic ability to employ effectively.

All of my efforts with the sling have been geared toward using it as a weapon. I see throwing large stones as a step back from the ultimate evolution of the sling, using lead bullets. I sling rocks or tennis balls simply because I can't sling lead all the time. If it were up to me, I would have an unlimited supply of lead and sling nothing else.

Judging by the historical accounts, one might think slinging lead was a rare occurrence…but the sheer number of lead sling bullets that have been found around the world tells a different story…and the sheer lack of any accurate descriptions of how it was done tells another.

I am critical of any account written by someone who was an observer and not a doer.

Even today, with modern military field manuals, movies and youtube videos, you do not get the entire picture of what transpires on the modern battlefield and what TTPs actually work in the real world…or how much training it takes to make a cohesive and effective fighting force.

…and this whole "style" thing. Every "style" works…some work better than others for a given situation, like slinging from massed formations, or downward from high on a wall, or from behind a tree.

You have spent a great deal of effort promoting your views. I'm not concerned with old cups, vases or paintings. They are just static attempts to capture something dynamic that the artist didn't really understand. Translations are great but have to be viewed in the right context…and weighed against other translations to determine their accuracy. If a historian gets simple things like lead melting in flight wrong, we must assume they got other important facts wrong as well.

I'm not a historian or academic…just a "master at arms" who likes to sling…and push the boundaries of what we think we know. I try never to get saddled by someone else's dogma, thats how skills become stagnant.

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Re: How did the ancient sling ?
Reply #23 - Aug 14^th, 2014 at 10:03am

Being critical of sources is good (the historical martial arts people are pretty good at that). But taking sources into account is also good. Being intolerant of discussion of sources is just sad, and school-masterish. In other words, I am not hung-up on helo, but on getting at historical truth, through analysing the evidence (rather than bluster and common-sense, though bio-mechanics and experience do help-- which is why I sling).

Lead bullets: perhaps they were very common; literary sources do in fact mention them from time to time. They're not found all over the place, but in odd clusters in the record-- for instance Cerigo-Antikythera, Numantia, Rhodes (Kameiros) Perugia. These are usually linked to specific events. Of course, this could just mean that these are particular moments of retrievability for very widespread artefacts; my own interpretation is they were mass produced for specific events (usually sieges). (Otherwise, sling bullets are in fact quite rare in the archaeological record-- I think: I'm willing to be shown wrong, if you have lots of references; but I've gone through a lot of the archaeological literature).

For instance, a bit batch of them found in Attica can be related to specifically a camp of Ptolemaic soldiers sent as aid int he 260s. Does this show rarity and link with big war, or that lead was very common but just appears in the record when conditions are favourable ?

I also noted how very carefully made lead bullets were-- and how markings on them are probably linked to "big logistics"-- i.e. big war.

The above is not dogma, it is my reading of the evidentiary record. I.e. it is reporting the shape of the evidence, as seen in published evidence. I am giving my interpretation, and also laying out the reason for my interpretation.

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Thearos Interfector Viris Spurii Offline Take that Posts: 3410	Re: How did the ancient sling ? Reply #24 - Aug 14^th, 2014 at 10:17am The "lead melting in flight" thing was a widespread belief in antiquity-- probably from observing that lead bullets, when recovered, were squished and hot.
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Re: How did the ancient sling ?
Reply #25 - Aug 14^th, 2014 at 10:30am

Anyway, to continue our free seminar series-- the question is really how to interpret sources. We can start with visual evidence. What reason do we have to trust or distrust ? The cup by Makron shows very precise detail of the hands. On the other hand, other vases show e.g. people with spears held over-hand and passing behind the head, so not as to obscure the face.

I am holding that the Makron cup is realistic, or readable in terms of Realien, but that the "spear-behind-the-head" representation has to be corrected in terms of artistic conventions. This is criticism. Mr Harrop's position, "all of this is just untrustworthy images" is oddly exactly those of post-modern trendies ("it's all discourse").

A very similar problem is that of warriors represented with realistic equipment (as we can tell from archaeology), but naked. Did the Greeks fight naked ? Unlikely. So does this mean that everything is fantasy ? If so, why is the STUFF represented so accurately ?

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Re: How did the ancient sling ?
Reply #26 - Aug 14^th, 2014 at 12:45pm

It's not hard.

1. If you're interested in the past, you're a historian; if you want to find out about the past through carefully looking at the evidence, you're a scholar; if disagreement with arguments makes you bluster and rage, you're a schoolmaster.

2. Greek vases were produced for, and probably by, people who had combat experience, seeing how widespread the latter was in citizen states which were often at war. I.e. painter and client had seen the elephant, and probably seen slingers (though not slinging elephants).

3. If you want to sling like a Greek slinger: look at the Makron vase (hands and body weight), then sling helicopter. It works, it's the traditional Medit. way, and it's based on ancient evidence.

Voilà !

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« Last Edit: Aug 15^th, 2014 at 9:12pm by Thearos »

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Mark-Harrop

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Re: How did the ancient sling ?
Reply #27 - Aug 20^th, 2014 at 10:27am

Just a quick point about red vase paintings…and why they shouldn't be used as a tutorial on ancient slinging technique.

Did the Greeks ride roosters?
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/images/h2/h2_1981.11.10.jpg

Ummm…what technique is this?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/Colmar_Painter_-_Running_Warr...

Maybe this guy is about to sling his own feces?
http://www.thehistoryblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Late-Archaic-kylix-Ambr...

Odd technique this… http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Amazone_Staatliche_Antikensam...

Don't think I would want to fight this guy though…
http://www.theoi.com/image/T60.5Satyros.jpg

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Thearos Interfector Viris Spurii Offline Take that Posts: 3410	Re: How did the ancient sling ? Reply #28 - Aug 20^th, 2014 at 11:03am Yes, one has to analyse the images carefully. The "Centaur" argument is just plain silly. Iconography 101 ! People here may be thankful to Mr Harrop-- they're getting free seminars. I'm thankful for the occasion to try out arguments. Mr Harrop… it's not so clear what he gets out of it.
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Re: How did the ancient sling ?
Reply #29 - Aug 20^th, 2014 at 12:15pm

In the Makron cup, notice the gesture: tensing the cords and seating the stone. Any slinger recognises this. It's not a photograph, but realistic.

(I could, of course, give lots of pictures of things on r-f vases that are realistically shown, with parallels from archaeology and real life, but that would waste bandwidth. I also should admit that I have not watched any vids of Mr Harrop slinging, but from Jaegoor's critique, it sounds like the familiar "boom-boom" whanging of the recreational slinger, overstressed shots, uncontrolled body-weight, and overworked joints).

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