A sling is a projectile weapon typically used to hand-throw a blunt projectile such as a stone, clay, or lead "sling-bullet". It is also known as the shepherd's sling or slingshot (in British English, although elsewhere it refers to a distinct "Y" shaped projectile weapon). Someone who specializes in using slings is called a slinger.
A sling has a small cradle or pouch in the middle of two retention cords, where a projectile is placed. There is a loop on the end of one side of the retention cords. Depending on the design of the sling, either the middle finger or the wrist is placed through a loop on the end of one cord, and a tab at the end of the other cord is placed between the thumb and forefinger. The sling is swung in an arc, and the tab released at a precise moment. This action releases the projectile to fly inertially and ballistically towards the target. By its double-pendulum kinetics, the sling enables stones (or spears) to be thrown much further than they could be by hand alone.
The sling is inexpensive and easy to build. Historically it has been used for hunting game and in combat. Today the sling is of interest as a wilderness survival tool and an improvised weapon.
The sling in antiquity
Archaeology
Whereas stones and clay objects thought by many archaeologists to be sling-bullets are common finds in the archaeological record, slings themselves are rare. This is both because a sling's materials are biodegradable and because slings were lower-status weapons, rarely preserved in a wealthy person's grave.
Modified stones suggested to represent ammunition for slings (slingstones) have been reported from the Near East at least as early as the 6th millennium BC, during the Pottery Neolithic, from cultures such as the Wadi Rabah culture in the southern Levant.
The oldest-known surviving slings—radiocarbon dated to —were recovered from South American archaeological sites on the coast of Peru. The oldest-known surviving North American sling—radiocarbon dated to c. 1200 BC—was recovered from Lovelock Cave, Nevada.
One of the oldest slings in the Near East is the "Manchester Sling" from the Twelfth Dynasty of ancient Egypt, c. 2000-1800 BC, a completely preserved sling constructed entirely of plant fibre. Another sling was found in the tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamun, who died c. 1325 BC. A pair of finely plaited slings were found with other weapons. The sling was probably intended for the departed pharaoh to use for hunting game. Another Egyptian sling was excavated in El-Lahun in Al Fayyum Egypt in 1914 by William Matthew Flinders Petrie, and is now in the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology—Petrie dated it to c. 800 BC. It was found alongside an iron spearhead. The remains are broken into three sections. Although fragile, the construction is clear: it is made of bast fibre (almost certainly flax) twine; the cords are braided in a 10-strand elliptical sennit and the cradle seems to have been woven from the same lengths of twine used to form the cords.
Ancient representations Representations of slingers can be found on artifacts from all over the ancient world, including Assyrian and Egyptian reliefs, the columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius, on coins, and on the Bayeux Tapestry.
The oldest representation of a slinger in art may be from Çatalhöyük, from c. 7000 BC, though it is the only such depiction at the site, despite numerous depictions of archers.
Written history
Many European, Middle Eastern, Asian, and African peoples were users of slings. Thucydides and others authors talk about its usage by Greeks and Romans, and Strabo also extends it to the Iberians, Lusitanians and even some Gauls (which Caesar describes further in his account of the siege of Bibrax). He also mentions Persians and Arabs among those who used them. For his part, Diodorus includes Libyans and Phoenicians. Britons were frequent users of slings too.
Livy mentions some of the most famous of ancient sling experts: the people of the Balearic Islands, who often worked as mercenaries. Of Balearic slingers Strabo writes: "And their training in the use of slings used to be such, from childhood up, that they would not so much as give bread to their children unless they first hit it with the sling."
Classical accounts The sling is mentioned as early as in the writings of Homer, where several characters kill enemies by hurling stones at them.
Balearic slingers were amongst the specialist mercenaries extensively employed by Carthage against the Romans and other enemies. These light troops used three sizes of sling, according to the distance of their opponents. The weapons were made of vegetable fibre and animal sinew, launching either stones or lead missiles with devastating impact.
Xenophon in his history of the retreat of the Ten Thousand, 401 BC, relates that the Greeks suffered severely from the slingers in the army of Artaxerxes II of Persia, while they themselves had neither cavalry nor slingers, and were unable to reach the enemy with their arrows and javelins. This deficiency was rectified when a company of 200 Rhodians, who understood the use of leaden sling-bullets, was formed. They were able, says Xenophon, to project their missiles twice as far as the Persian slingers, who used large stones.
Various Greeks enjoyed a reputation for skill with the sling. Thucydides mentions the Acarnanians and Livy refers to the inhabitants of three Greek cities on the northern coast of the Peloponnesus as expert slingers.
Greek armies would also use mounted slingers (ἀκροβολισταί).Thomas Dudley Fosbroke, A Treatise on the Arts, Manufactures, Manners, and Institutions of the Greek and Romans, Volumen 2, 1835
Roman skirmishers armed with slings and javelins were established by Servius Tullius. The late Roman writer Vegetius, in his work De Re Militari, wrote:
Biblical accounts The sling is mentioned in the Bible, which provides what is believed to be the oldest textual reference to a sling in the Book of Judges, 20:16. This text was thought to have been written c. 6th century BC,Knoppers, Gary, "Is There a Future for the Deuteronomistic History?", In Thomas Romer, The Future of the Deuteronomistic History, Leuven University Press, 2000 , p. 119. but refers to events several centuries earlier.
The Bible provides a famous slinger account, the battle between David and Goliath from the First Book of Samuel 17:34–36, probably written in the 7th or 6th century BC, describing events that might have occurred c. 10th century BC. The sling, easily produced, was the weapon of choice for shepherds fending off animals. Due to this, the sling was a commonly used weapon by the Israelite militia.Yigael Yadin, The Art of Warfare in Biblical Lands (Jerusalem: International Publishing Company, 1963), 34–35 Goliath was a tall, well equipped and experienced warrior. In this account, the shepherd David persuades Saul to let him fight Goliath on behalf of the Israelites. Unarmoured and equipped only with a sling, five smooth rocks, and his staff, David defeats the champion Goliath with a well-aimed shot to the head, followed by a decapitation with Goliath's own sword.
Use of the sling is also mentioned in Second Kings 3:25, First Chronicles 12:2, and Second Chronicles 26:14 to further illustrate Israelite use.
Combat Ancient peoples used the sling in combat. Armies included both specialist slingers and regular soldiers equipped with slings. As a weapon, the sling had several advantages; a sling bullet lobbed in a high trajectory might achieve a range in excess of . Modern authorities vary widely in their estimates of the effective range of ancient weapons. A bow and arrow could also have been used to produce a long range arcing trajectory, but ancient writers repeatedly stress the sling's advantage of range. The ranges the sling could achieve with moulded lead sling-bullets was surpassed only by the strong composite bow with flight arrows. The sling was light to carry and cheap to produce; ammunition in the form of stones was readily available and often to be found near the site of battle.
Caches of sling ammunition have been found at the sites of Iron Age hill forts of Europe; some 22,000 sling stones were found at Maiden Castle, Dorset. It is proposed that Iron Age hill forts of Europe were designed to maximize the effective defence by slingers. The hilltop location of the wooden forts would have given the defending slingers the advantage of range over the attackers, and multiple concentric ramparts, each higher than the other, would allow a large number of men to create a hailstorm of stone. Consistent with this, it has been noted that defences are generally narrow where the natural slope is steep, and wider where the slope is more gradual.
Construction A classic sling is braided from non-elastic material. The traditional materials are flax, hemp or wool. Slings by Balearic islanders were said to be made from a rush. Flax and hemp resist rotting, but wool is softer and more comfortable. Polyester is often used for modern slings, because it does not rot or stretch and is soft and free of splinters.
Braided cords are used in preference to twisted rope, as a braid resists twisting when stretched. This improves accuracy.
The overall length of a sling can vary. A slinger may have slings of different lengths. A longer sling is used when greater range is required. A length of about is typical.
At the centre of the sling, a cradle or pouch is constructed. This may be formed by making a wide braid from the same material as the cords or by inserting a piece of a different material such as leather. The cradle is typically diamond shaped (although some take the form of a net), and will fold around the projectile in use. Some cradles have a hole or slit that allows the material to wrap around the projectile slightly, thereby holding it more securely.
At the end of one cord (called the retention cord) a finger-loop is formed. At the end of the other cord (the release cord), it is a common practice to form a knot or a tab. The release cord will be held between finger and thumb to be released at just the right moment, and may have a complex braid to add bulk to the end. This makes the knot easier to hold, and the extra weight allows the loose end of a discharged sling to be recovered with a flick of the wrist.
Braided construction resists stretching, and therefore produces an accurate sling. Modern slings are begun by plaiting the cord for the finger loop in the centre of a double-length set of cords. The cords are then folded to form the finger-loop. The retained cord is then plaited away from the loop as a single cord up to the pocket. The pocket is then plaited, most simply as another pair of cords, or with flat braids or a woven net. The remainder of the sling, the released cord, is plaited as a single cord, and then finished with a knot or plaited tab.
Impact Ancient poets wrote that sling-bullets could penetrate armour, and that lead projectiles, heated by their passage through the air, would melt in flight.Lucretius, On the Nature of Things-- "Just as thou seest how motion will o'erheat / And set ablaze all objects, - verily / A leaden ball, hurtling through length of space, / Even melts."Virgil, The Aeneid, Book 9, Stanza LXXV – "His lance laid by, thrice whirling round his head / The whistling thong, Mezentius took his aim. / Clean through his temples hissed the molten lead, / And prostrate in the dust, the gallant youth lay dead." In the first instance, it seems likely that the authors were indicating that slings could cause injury through armour by a percussive effect (i.e., the energy of a sling-bullet delivered at high velocity causing blunt trauma injury upon impact) rather than by penetration. In the latter case, it has been proposed that they were impressed by the degree of deformation suffered by lead sling-bullet after hitting a hard target.