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Shattered skeleton is first confirmed death from trebuchet

71 pointsby hermitcrablast Thursday at 12:47 PM51 commentsview on HN

Comments

nexus6today at 8:49 AM

“The breaks indicate a very large area of impact and devastation,” she says. “It’s likely the individual was killed by a siege engine.”

So it’s likely, which means it’s not confirmed as the headline implies.

N_Lenstoday at 2:25 AM

"What are you going to do, lob a stone at me from 300m away?" shouted the man on the parapet, moments before impact.

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CTDOCodebasestoday at 6:11 AM

Trebuchets were used in the Syrian civil war (2011-2024).

I would link a video but I don't think that is a wise idea for legal reasons. There were so many parties in that war and I'm not sure which ones were declared terrorist organizations.

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Levitatingtoday at 5:13 AM

"...uncovered the graves of nine skeletons dated to the early 1300s. Five, including Skeleton 150, dated to the 1300s."

That seems like a contradiction.

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cobbzillatoday at 4:27 AM

But have they identified the trebuchet that killed him?

We can rule out Warwolf [1] my favorite trebuchet, which never killed anyone.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warwolf

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JoeAltmaierlast Thursday at 1:57 PM

Interesting find! I wonder if the massive damage could also be explained by the falling wall (documented in the article).

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b3ingtoday at 3:48 AM

Hope he died quickly, instead of having to deal with the pain of multiple bones crushing

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smallnixtoday at 8:21 AM

Great Scott, I think we just hit someone!

petesergeanttoday at 8:46 AM

> indicates horrific demise

If I go, I would like to go from massive blunt trauma from behind that renders me instantly unconscious.

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helloworldtoday at 5:02 AM

Our modern weapons are far more destructive, but our propensity for violence and war seems to be an invariant across the millennia.

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TheWrongGuytoday at 6:09 AM

After all these years they finally got someone

shevy-javatoday at 5:26 AM

> 14th century

While this death may be the first confirmed from a trebuchet, is that really the first death by a trebuchet? Plus, I'd say catapults are almost identical to a trebuchet in workings, for the most part. I don't quite believe that this was really the first death by catapult.

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noobmasterthrowtoday at 7:31 AM

i read death BY trebuchet, i am disappointed.

27183today at 2:15 AM

dude got absolutely rocked

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s20ntoday at 5:41 AM

first confirmed case of MLG noscope