Archaeologists work to unearth sling stones used in ancient wars during ongoing excavations at Cavustepe Castle, built by Urartian King Sarduri II, in Gurpinar district of Van, Türkiye, Aug. 28, 2025.AA Photo
Posted on 09/18/2025 8:28:55 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Türkiye Today reports that continued excavations at the site of Cavustepe Castle revealed a remarkable cache of projectiles ready for use by Urartian soldiers around 2,700 years ago. The recent investigation focused on a storage facility and area known as the "upper fortress." As the team began removing layers of sediment from within one structure, they uncovered a collection of egg-sized slingshots. Some had been gathered from a nearby riverbed, while others had been made from clay. While individual slingstones have sometimes been discovered at other Urartian sites, Van Yuzuncu Yil University archaeologist Rafet Cavusoglu said, this find is exceptional because such a large assemblage has never before been uncovered all at once. Given the findspot near the defensive walls, it is likely the ammunition was deliberately stockpiled in preparation for battle. Urartian slingstones could strike targets more than 650 feet away with surprising accuracy and were even capable of piercing armor. To read about projectile weapons throughout history, go to "Weapons of the Ancient World: Siege Weapons."
(Excerpt) Read more at archaeology.org ...
Archaeologists work to unearth sling stones used in ancient wars during ongoing excavations at Cavustepe Castle, built by Urartian King Sarduri II, in Gurpinar district of Van, Türkiye, Aug. 28, 2025.AA Photo
Marvelous. Would never have guessed that as a significant weapon.
Oh, yes. Slingshots were widely used across Europe and the Middle East in ancient times, well into medieval times.
Immer tubes must have been hard to come by.
When slingshots are made illegal, …
The slingshot of today is of 2 types, one with an actual sling (rope and pouch, like they use in middle east, and which ,illed goliath the giant), a d the other type is a handheld y stick or or device with rubber stretch bands and a small pouch for smaller ammo. Both are deadly, and an awesome survival tool, thouhg i onky have experi3nce with the latter type. The ammo is 8 or 9 mm steel ammo or for practice clay ammo of same size whixh is biodegradeable, but s5ill can be used for hunting dmall game with. Videos on youtube show hunting ducks, geese, rabbits, squirrels etc.
The survivl contrst show featured one co testant who brought a slingshot with him... smart move as ammo is all over the place and youll never run out like you will with arrows or fishing line and hooks on the show. And the reach is ulwards of 40 yeards or better depe di g on skill. The fella that brought the s,ingshot was very very good with it. So good he did trick shots 9n his youtube channel.
Another fella on youtube goes by name of slingshotsniper is really good too. Hits a matchhead or even a fly at long distances- hkw he can even see them, i dunno, but he does. Shows the whole shot in slo mo to prove he hit it. He is scary good with a slingshot.
But for taking larger animals, the rope sling is very effective. Soome great videos on youtube about those too.
Lol, there musta been tons of suv tires in landfils arou d because co2 was higher in the past according,to ice core samples.
My pleasure. Nice pix!
I didn’t use the original article, claims it’s sometimes called a “Palestinian sling”.
I got one of those wrist brace slingshots and cannot hit shiite with it.
I am also lousy with a shotgun on moving targets, so it may be a failing I have without defined sights.
Posession is a violation of NJ law! True!
They are so effective that is why they are in wide use today.
Sorry I graduated away from such when I acquired my first 22rf rifle.
Primitive weapons are fun but are no where effective as any good firearm.
I was nwver good with the wrist brace and tube elastix ones either- the flat band ones though are a whole different animal. Wzy better. The a8m8ng tskes practice, but basiczlly you use the upper fork, and align the corner of it on or near the target, depending on how,the bands are aligned on the forks. , slight adjustments might be needed nere and there. I can hit a 3 inch circle at about 30 yards pretty consistantly now, but it took a long time to dial in. Biggest thing is to do the exact same thing every time, ie pull band the same distance, rest it on same part of cheek hold the slingshot hand the dame every time, hold 5he ammo 8n the pouch 9n top and not in front of the ammo (that took a lot of pracrice to do), dont deviate, as that will throw off the shot.
I had to really slow down and concentrate on each thing every time b3fore i started to get consistant.
Id much rather have rifles too- definately. I have a pellet rifle that is about as powerful as a .22, and can take down deer and hogs (though i dont use i5 for those)- i also have .22 rifle and other rifles for hunting deer. But for driv8ng off pest c4eatures from garden, and taking out the occassional squirrel if need be, il. Reach for the sling shot as its silent, and ammo is dirt cheap. If i had to take soemthing w8th me 9n a survival stint where i couldnt take a rifle, id definately take the sling shot, and maybe make a larger rope sling for larger animals. At latle (sp?) Is another pretty effective weapon. (I think one or 2 survivor contestants used them)
I used to play around with cord-and-pouch type slings quite a bit when I was young. Never very accurate with them but I could cast a good round stone about 200 yards. The nice thing about a cord sling is that you can easily make one from all sorts of things. I still have a sling somewhere that I made from parachute cord and a piece of boot tongue, though my shoulder doesn’t like hard throwing at all these days.
Of course, I had rubber band slingshots too. Those were better for accuracy at closer distances.
A long time ago Car & Driver magazine ran a piece about some farmer in England who built a big trebuchet on his property. The article had some photos of a small car being thrown.
Nit-picky point: You don’t “fire” a trebuchet. It’s strictly mechanical, no explosives or combustion. Same with a bow, crossbow, slingshot, etc.
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