Ancient slingers added insult to injury, researcher says

[Spookie Monster]

Ancient slingers added insult to injury, researcher says

Centuries before Allied bomber crews would send gleefully personalised ordnance to Adolf Hitler, ancient skirmishers mastered the art of enemy taunts by slingshot, according to a researcher.

Sling bullets recovered from the battlefields of Egypt, Greece and Rome often carry inscriptions designed to add insult to injury, archaeologist Amanda Kelly told an Irish Institute of Hellenic Studies lecture.

...

She cited examples of Athenian sling bullets that read "Take that" or Cypriot versions saying "This is yours."  More advanced taunts speak of male genitalia, impregnation and other sexual references.

Shot from the island of Corfu bore an inscription asking that they "be lodged well" in their intended targets while Thracian bullets promised "pain".

Not too surprising, I guess -- humans haven't changed very much over the millennia -- but interesting anyhow.  It might be cool to add depth to a character in a roleplaying game by having him or her inscribe some bullets, arrows, or bolts!

Spel

There are never going to be enough bullets...

[Sabby]

Shhh! Don't give the CoD players ideas... when the servers go down, they'll need some new way to express themselves, and I don't want this being it Dx

[Polymorph]

Hah, all they need now is to find a sling bullet owned by an ancient Baldrick.

EB "What are you doing Baldrick?"

B "Well they say that everyone has a bullet with their name on it, so I'm engraving my name on this bullet. Then I'll have the bullet with my name on it and I'll never shoot myself"

EB "What a pity."

[kylie]

     Interesting how it takes "advancement" to make the comments sexual. 

     One exceptional field where someone with a public pen apparently decided, it takes "more" rather than "less" to be carnally in the know.   

     But who would it be writing "guidelines" for these articles, Teach for America?  Just imagine it...  "Oh, my, Level IV-E rhetoric, a sexualized 3-word insult!  Why that's worthy of AP Literature!"     Of course, plenty of sympathy around. ::) 

[Tiberius]

You know the Mongols didn't use stones in their slingers, they used human heads! O.o Scholars have recorded that the invading armies of Genghis Khan when he besiged Beijing lobbed tens of thousands of heads over the city walls to intimidate his enemy

[AndyZ]

There's a game where a group of Greek-inspired gun mages would write "To the Fairest" on their bullets to make the bullets bounce around to everyone.  Reminds me of that.