Roman Clay Ammunition

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Völling[1] writes that far over 10000 clay projectiles of the Roman time have been published. Contrary to this archaeological evidence there is no literary evidence for this time of ammunition. He differentiates between sperical, biconic and egg-shaped projectiles. The archaeological samples come from military as well as civilian environment. The published weights range between 12.7g and 95g which is lighter than the weights of the lead glandes. Völling asumes that because of their reduced weight they are less suitable against armored troops. He believes that they were used e.g. for hunting because of local tradition.

Clay ammunition was mostly made from two-piece molds, probably like the molds used for production of lamps and figures. Spherical ammunition was also hand-rolled. The material they are made from ranged from plain clay to clay with filler. Clay ammunition has been burned in military or civilian potteries, but there have also been unburned projectiles been found.[2]

For a first reconstruction of clay ammunition the spherical projectiles have been chosen by Brüstle. For that task normal clay as can be found nearly everywhere in nature without filler has been used. That material can be burned around 900°C to get a relatively porous material with a specific weight of about 2g/cm3. So a sphere of 50g has a diameter of about 3.5g. (A sphere that size made of lead weights about 280g.) The production of hand-rolled clayballs was very easy. So together with the everywhere available material this is a very cheap ammunition.

Burning the clay has some advantages. The first advantage is that burned clay is a bit harder than unburned clay. The second advantage is is porosity combined with its stability against water. Experiments showed, that by soaking such a sphere the specific weight can be increased by about 20% by soaking them in water. The stability of burned clay against water also made storage in humid environments easier.

[1] Thomas Völling: Funditores im Römischen Heer. Saalburg-Jahrb. 45, 1990, 24-5 8.

[2] For more information see publications of Manfred Korfmann.