Historical Artifacts

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Just a community for everyone to share artifacts, reconstructions, or replicas for the historically-inclined to admire!

Generally, an artifact should be 100+ years old, but this is a flexible requirement if you find something rare and suitably linked to an era of history, not a strict rule. Anything over 100 is fair game regardless of rarity.

Generally speaking, ruins should go to !historyruins@lemmy.world

Illustrations of the past should go to !historyillustrations@lemmy.world

Photos of the past should go to !HistoryPorn@lemmy.world

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Specialized arrowheads for carrying incendiary material, Roman Empire, 1st-2nd century AD? (infosec.pub)

submitted 6 days ago by PugJesus@lemmy.world to c/historyartifacts@lemmy.world

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[–] PugJesus@lemmy.world 18 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Wait til the birds hear about the technique of tying flaming material to them and releasing them to return to their roosts.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@quokk.au 13 points 6 days ago (1 children)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bomb

He believed that if time-release incendiaries could be attached to bats, some kind of container holding them could be dropped over the city after dark and the bats would simply roost and burn Tokyo to the ground.[5] The plan was subsequently approved by President Roosevelt[6] on the advice of Donald Griffin.[7] In his letter, Adams stated that the bat was the "lowest form of animal life", and that, until now, "reasons for its creation have remained unexplained".[4]: 6 He went on to espouse that bats were created "by God to await this hour to play their part in the scheme of free human existence, and to frustrate any attempt of those who dare desecrate our way of life."[4]: 6 Of Adams, Roosevelt remarked, "This man is not a nut. It sounds like a perfectly wild idea but is worth looking into."[2][3]

It gets worse after that. Mercifully, they don't really go into the details in the article, which mainly involved the bats either still being hibernating or else with the bomb part too heavy, basically they were just dropping innocent bats out of planes to splat onto the ground in big numbers like Wile E. Coyote until someone put a stop to it all.

[–] Arghblarg@lemmy.ca 4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

they were just dropping innocent bats out of planes to splat onto the ground in big numbers like Wile E. Coyote until someone put a stop to it all.

Oh, the humanity... "As god as my witness, I thought ~~turkeys~~bats could fly!"

[–] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 7 points 6 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

The male Commander Shepard from Mass Effect 3 with a very distraught expression in reaction to hearing something disturbing.

[–] PugJesus@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago

Genghis to the wife he took from his newly conquered city: "We'll bang, okay?"

[–] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Is that historically accurate or just a legend?

[–] PugJesus@lemmy.world 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

There's some dispute over it. The 'tying brands to birds' trick is noted as a strategy by a handful of other historical figures noted for their ruthlessness - it's not entirely clear whether it's just terror propaganda or an actual technique that was used.

[–] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

I just don't see how that would work in practice. But then, I've never besieged a city, so what do I know.

[–] PugJesus@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago

I mean, the panicked animals returning to their usual haunts seems plausible. The intention of setting the place on fire is to spread chaos internally before/during a traditional assault on the walls. Generally there's an element of deception and bad faith in the stories, that the animals were requested as tribute for peace and then immediately deployed as a weapon of war.