Plumbata

[Bran ap Maclou]

Damien/Kervenec/Miles Sylvanus from Herculiani told me that he handed some in Serbia. According to him and some articles he read, the iron and lead are about 110-150g and the length between 8 an 16,5 cm

With our blacksmith we tried to rebuild some plumbatae with as less material than possible. So we used small pieces of trash steel, liquid lead, 33cm of a 1cm diameter wood branch and a two feathered rawhide tail. and that's absolutely all. A single man need about a quarter hour of work to produce one if all is well organised.

On this model we made two sharp plumbatae and two "blunt" for reenacting

First tests taught us that this is a one shot weapon whose wood break after the shock (so we later made a full pipe though not the historical fixing, it's better for the experiment needs).

The sharp ones cross a 8mm Pine board. The blunt ones are dreadful enough to cause a cerebral concussion despite the helmet.

A good thrower can be quite accurate at 50 to 60 m

So it is really a dangerous little "dart"

Here are the raw results of what we got just after the blacksmith
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26893065@N ... /?edited=1

If you have some informations on archaelogical weights and lenghts, I'm interested in, I try to make a board and graph on the question.

Bye

Grég