Thrown Weapon

A light spear designed for throwing

The javelin is a light spear, about 150 to 200 cm long, designed to be thrown. Unlike an ordinary spear held to thrust, its shaft is thin and light and its balance is set so that it flies far and true. Its most famous variant is the Roman pilum, whose thin soft-iron shank below the head was designed to bend under its own weight once it stuck in an enemy shield, making it hard to pull out: a lodged pilum dragged the shield down and forced the enemy at last to throw it away. The javelin is a universal weapon that arose independently among the civilizations of nearly every continent, and it was usual, just after the throw, to switch to a sword or another spear and carry on the fight.

An ancient projectile weapon hurling stones by centrifugal force

The sling is an ancient projectile weapon that hurls a stone or a lead bullet by centrifugal force from a small pouch made of leather or cloth. Two cords are fixed to the sides of the pouch, and as one whirls it overhead or to the side and lets go of one cord, the projectile flies off at a fearsome speed. The structure is utterly simple and costs almost nothing in materials, yet a stone cast by a skilled slinger reached a speed able to shatter a skull. The slingers of the Balearic Islands in particular, today's Spanish Mallorca and Menorca, were the finest elite slinging troops of the ancient world, serving as mercenaries in the armies of Carthage and Rome. It is widely known too as the weapon with which David felled the giant Goliath in the Hebrew Bible, and with lead bullets, the glandes, its range and power greatly increased.

A throwing weapon that entangles legs with weighted cords

The bola is a throwing weapon of two or three heavy stone or metal weights joined by cords, which on being thrown spins through the air and wraps around the legs of its target to bind its movement. Its chief trait is that it is a capturing weapon, made to seize rather than to kill. It is a hunting weapon developed by the indigenous peoples of South American Patagonia, used mainly to hunt fast grassland animals such as the rhea, the South American ostrich, and the guanaco, a wild relative of the llama. It later grew more famous as the gauchos, the South American cowboys, used it to drive cattle. Each weight is about 200 to 500 g and the cords about 60 to 100 cm, and it was used as a weapon of war too, fielded by the army of the Inca Empire.