Catapults in a siege

This lesson asks you to assess the impact on society and the environment of technological devices that use linear or circular motion, among them projectile weapons. The museum offers one account of catapults in a siege; the wider social and environmental assessment, and modern devices, are for your class. ¹

An assessment asks who is helped, who is harmed, and what else changes, in the short and the long term. Before you assess, write down what the account actually reports and what it leaves out.

Read one exchange between machines. In 674 AH the Tatars camped before al-Bira and set up a catapult against the fortress. Its operator was a Muslim ². The people of the fortress set up a catapult of their own and hurled it at the Tatar catapults, and its shot rose high above them ². A Tatar operator then said: "If God cut off an arm of yours, the people of al-Bira would be at rest from you, for your lack of skill." The Muslim operator took the hint, cut an arm from the leg of his catapult, and fired it, striking the Tatar catapult and smashing it ². The account reports two shots and one change between them. It gives no distances, no sizes and no weights.

The record rests on one source, a single page: Shadharat al-Dhahab, page 595 ². The page reports words said between operators on opposite sides, and the record does not say how the author came to know them. The wording of the sentence about the second shot is short, and it leaves unclear what exactly was fired. Ask what you would trust in such a report: that the shots happened, that the words were spoken, or that the change of the arm caused the hit?

The account says one shot rose high above the Tatar catapults and a later shot, after an arm was cut from the leg of the catapult, struck and smashed one. From this single report, can you say how the change altered the shot, and what would you need to measure to be able to say it?

• The mangonel duel of al-Bira, 674: the account in full, with its single source.
• Ya'qub ibn Sabir al-Manjaniqi: a maker of the catapult, who also wrote on the conditions of wars and the building of fortresses.
• The double-piston pump: a machine described in order to be built, with its parts and the way each moves.

Read about the catapult duel at al-Bira. Make two columns: effects the account reports, and effects you would need other sources to know.