Medieval Torsion Catapults

[Koyuncu]

From, SIEGECRAFT, Two Tenth-Century Instructional Manuals by “Heron of Byzantium” Denis F. Sullivan

In the book Medieval Siege Weapons (2): Byzantium, the Islamic World and India AD 476-1526, David Nicolle, mentions some Arabic espringals using silk skeins in torsion springs. It is probable that this could influence Eastern Roman engineers to use them too.

I have zero knowledge about Greek language but if silk is used as bow strings maybe it was used in same way for machines. Then it is probable that this issue is actually a translation error.