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Pilum injury.....sort of.....


Paal_101
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Well here you go guys, another example of a track and field event gone wrong. Over at RAT one of the guys posted this news item. This unfortunate woman was serving as a judge at a major track meet in Brazil when she took a javelin to the foot.

WARNING - while not bloody, this is not for the squeemish, although if you have an interest in ancient combat and by extension 0 AD you should be able to take it ;)

Imagine if you will that the woman was a Celt and the javelin was a standard issue Roman army pilum.

Obviously the wound is not lethal, but it certainly would render any combatant useless. Obviously one might still be able to crawl away, but unlike this particular javelin the pilum would be impossible to pull out thanks to the barbed head. The only way to remove it would be to fill off the head then pull it out. Certainly not an impromptu battlefield self-surgery. Plus to have someone falling with even a minor wound from a pilum would severely disrupt any organized advance, which shows why the Romans used it so successful against the Celts and Macedonians.

On a side note, does anyone else have similar pictures? While not inflicted with real ancient weapons of the proper dimensions, accidents like this are some of the best ways to understand why ancient armies used the weapons the way they did :D Morbid but true :P

Edited by Paal_101
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Kind of a weird topic, but yea, your right.

And keep in mind that was just one spear, imagine 1000 more pilums being thrown at an oncoming army.

I also remeber a video where the ref/judge was actually impaled by a thown javelin.

And a special on discovery on wierd accidents. One javelin actually hit a guy at the bottom of the jaw and came out the other side of his lower neck, and luckily for him, it missed all vital parts.

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