From looking at archeological data by the Israel Antiquities Authority and spending a couple of days looking for Historical papers on the subject, it seems there is no answer as to the specific make of the slings.
There is a lot of archeological evidence of sling-stones, yet the slings themselves did not seem to survive.

Because there is no surviving archeological or historical record, it is possible to speculate based on a couple things:

1. Slings found in Tutankhamun's grave have a woven pouch, so the woven pouch might have been more common locally. Since the levant was very influenced by Egyptian culture, the design of the sling may have been influenced as well.

2. In the same vain, Greek and Akkadian culture were also highly influential , so it may be worth seeing if there is any literature on that topic.

3. (this is the most far-fetched one) Most modern day slings in the region have a closed pouch (either woven or a piece of leather/fabric) and not a split one, so that may indicate that ancient slings had one as well.

TL;DR No one knows, but I think a leather/woven pouch is the most probable guess. as to the rest of the sling construction we have even less of a clue.

The reasonning is far too fragile. I think we don't know.

jeffbonds wrote on Aug 24^th, 2024 at 5:35am:


And why not this one ? Only leather. 0 archeological sling in Israel, so any sling is possible.

What the Bible says ?
David is still a child and he keeps the sheep.
But I have a question. Why my bible (in French) talks about flat stones, while a bible (in English) speaks of round stones ? Is there a translation error or does the word aramaic have a vague meaning ?
I don't know.

xud9a - call me zud 👍 wrote on Sep 2^nd, 2024 at 2:31pm:

Half agree with you. 

The question isn't fundamental but do we know the words for sling and slingstone in Aramaic ?
Does anyone know the oldest version of the text ? To have a more scientific translation.

Anyway, we have others ways of approaching the issue to answer for Jeff Bond's question.

There is a strong correlation today across the world between shepherds and wool slings. It is not 100% , the best known exception being the Spanish shepherds who use plant fibres.

Yeah, this isn't scientific per-se, but the hot climate combined with woolly sheep that need to be sheared for their sakes would lead to an excess of wool to be used in blankets, clothing, headwear, and slings. At least that is the case for shepherds. City folk back then who couldn't raise many sheep, if any, would likely have linen at their disposal - slings being one such disposal. Easier to process flax in a city than to keep a sheep, and easier to maintain, too 

As for pouch, whether split or woven: who knows? I sure don't. We can assume their slings were similar to Egyptian slings as stated above, but we can assume many things, and whether they're fact or fiction, none can say. One could guess, as per 1 Samuel 25:29 that the pouch of slings was as the palm of one's hand - the Hebrew word translated as "hollow" or "pocket", "כַּף", means flat and hollowed, usually used to say "hand" in the sense of the hand being open and flat, ready to give or take. So, one could guess that perhaps the typical sling of that era was enclosed, either via weaving or by leather.

Regardless, it's not hard to imagine that slingers throughout time can personalize their slings, so maybe while Abigail is used to closed pouch slings from Nabal's shepherds or whomever else, it might not have been the typical. Just some speculation 

https://slinging.org/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1407576041
We had a long discussion about the slings quoted by Homer. For linguistic reasons, it is possible that they were made of goat hair.
During archeological excavations in "the mines of King Solomon", clothing of poor people made from goat wool was found.
David Morningstar wrote on Sep 5^th, 2024 at 7:41am:

For these three reasons, I would go for a sling entirely in goat hair.