00:00The Roman onager hurls heavy stone boulders, while violent recoil fractures its heavy timber frame.
00:06Engineers faced a brutal mechanical puzzle, trying to absorb thousands of pounds of sudden kinetic shock.
00:13Common sense says rigid steel anchors would hold the machine steady, but that strategy destroys the entire structure.
00:20Roman builders instead packed twisted ropes of animal sinew tightly inside a hollow wooden frame.
00:27This elastic torsion spring safely absorbs the dangerous snap whenever the Roman onager hurls heavy stone boulders.
