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[11] [12] Catapults were invented by the ancient Greeks [13] [14] and in ancient India where they were used by the Magadhan King Ajatashatru around the early to mid 5th century BC. [ 6 ] Greek and Roman catapults
This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 6 January 2025. Siege engine using long arm to throw projectiles For other uses, see Trebuchet (disambiguation). Replica counterweight trebuchets at Château de Castelnaud Counterweight trebuchet used in a siege from the Jami' al-tawarikh, c. 1306-18 A trebuchet [nb 1] is a type of catapult that uses a ...
The first Mediterranean people to use advanced siege machinery were the Carthaginians, who used siege towers and battering rams against the Greek colonies of Sicily. These engines influenced the ruler of Syracuse, Dionysius I, who developed a catapult in 399 BC. [4]
Projectile weapons were used by the ancient Egyptians to weaken the enemy before an infantry assault. Slings, throw sticks, spears, and javelins were used, but the bow and arrow was the primary projectile weapon for most of Egypt's history. A catapult dating to the 19th century BC. was found on the walls of the fortress of Buhen. [38]
The Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans Under the Command of Titus, A.D. 70, by David Roberts (1850), shows the city burning. Early thermal weapons, which used heat or burning action to destroy or damage enemy personnel, fortifications or territories, were employed in warfare during the classical and medieval periods (approximately the 8th century BC until the mid-16th century AD).
Incendiary and flaming weapons were used in warfare for centuries before Greek fire was invented. They included sulfur-, petroleum-, and bitumen-based mixtures. [3] [4] Incendiary arrows and pots or small pouches containing combustible substances surrounded by caltrops or spikes, or launched by catapults, were used in the Greco-Roman world.
Diodorus [4] XIV.41.3, [5] says that these were the first catapults, and describes the impression new weapons made during the siege of Motya by Dionysius. Torsion siege engine pieces were probably invented in Macedonia, shortly before the times of Alexander III.
In 1999, John France concluded that it was traction trebuchets that were used during the First Crusade. [23] Similarly, Paul E. Chevedden considered the onager's days to be numbered by the 6th century, by the end of which "a new stone-projector, the traction trebuchet, had appeared in the Mediterranean." [24]