Sassanid leverage artillery ?

[Koyuncu]

I agree. That is why I tried to find original image. It could help little more than this sketch.

Below drawing is from Wujing Zhongyao, a Chinese military book, compiled some times between 1040-44. Even thought it is a later representation still bears resemblance with the Piandjikent painting like inclined support frames, bulbous fulcrum and a sling with three ropes.



Strikingly first Western accounts about leverage artillery describe same machine. The famous account of Avar siege of Thessaloniki in 586 (or 597, still debatable) describes Avar artillery with following words;

These were tetragonal and rested on broader bases, tapering to narrower extremities. Attached to them were thick cylinders well clad in iron at the ends, and there were nailed to them timbers like beams from a large house. These timbers had the slings from the back side and from the front strong ropes, by which, pulling down and releasing the sling, they propel the stones up high with a loud noise. And on being fired they sent up many stones so that neither earth nor human constructions could bear the impacts.

All those only prove Chinese origin of the leverage artillery which is already well known but still we don't know the specifics about Sassanian contribution and usage if any.