After many weeks of carving, measuring, hammering and dealing with minor catastrophes, our Roman onager is finally complete! The creation of this giant catapult was led by our residential archaeologist Ryan Watts with a team of staff and volunteers. It was successfully fired at the ‘Secrets of the Heath’ event in Petersfield, Hampshire last weekend.The name ‘onager’ comes from the Latin for ‘wild ass’, as the catapult has a very powerful kick! The catapult uses torsional force created by twisting 210m of rope, which stores energy ready to fire ammunition.
The Butser onager is portable and can be carried on the back of a trailer, ready to be driven to any nearby battlefield requiring reinforcements… After its successful weekend at Petersfield Heath, it has now been returned to the farm and can be found at the northern end of the site by the Roman villa.Visitors are welcome to come and see it, and in the meantime you can watch a slo-mo video of an unfortunate cabbage meeting its maker…(Best watched in HD)[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiyLHLGy5Ps[/embed]