119
Late Roman legionary re-enactor with plumbata, lead-weighted darts that replaced the javelin
(lemmy.world)
this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2024
119 points (100.0% liked)
Historical Artifacts
431 readers
214 users here now
Just a community for everyone to share artifacts, reconstructions, or replicas for the historically-inclined to admire!
Generally, an artifact should be 100+ years old, but this is a flexible requirement if you find something rare and suitably linked to an era of history, not a strict rule. Anything over 100 is fair game regardless of rarity.
Generally speaking, ruins should go to !historyruins@lemmy.world
Illustrations of the past should go to !historyillustrations@lemmy.world
Photos of the past should go to !HistoryPorn@lemmy.world
founded 4 months ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
How would they throw the darts? Like I threw lawn darts as a kid, trying to get them as high as possible in a parabola, or would they throw them shuriken style, right at the charging hordes?
Questions like that are often hotly debated in experimental archeology! My thinking is high, in a parabola, as they were meant as harassing weapons, but as far as I know there's no consensus.
I mean, they are versatile, so they probably had different tactics that suited various engagements.
You throw them in a straight line at short range, mostly at the horses of cavalry charging at you.
We don't have a clear answer on this. There was a video I saw once that you might be able to find on YouTube still where a guy experimented with them and tried different methods. Frankly didn't really solve the question for me. They all seem somewhat viable. Underhand straightforward seem to work all right. Kind of overhand like a javelin sort of worked although maybe not the best. They also tried kind of loping overhand so it came down on top of the target sort of like you're implying. Considering the weight of them I think that might make the most sense.