Week 1 Blog Post - Introductions
March 4, 2026
Hello everyone, and welcome to the first issue of Ballistas to Battle Rams. My name is Aadrit Talukdar, and I will be your historian/engineer guiding you through my research journey.
My project will focus on how siege weaponry has changed across time and the impacts that evolution made on war. Siege weapons, in this case, apply to both the defensive technology used to fortify cities and towns, as well as offensive technology used to take over those locations. I’ll be researching technology from the Classical Era of Greece (5th century BCE) to the fall of the Roman Empire (5th century CE).
I chose this topic as a blend between my two interests: classics and engineering. Taking Latin for 7 years is a testament to my love of ancient history and culture, while engineering projects have filled my middle and high school years.
Through this project, I hope to learn how ancient sieges used the technology of their time, and recreate some of that technology myself (albeit on a smaller scale). Through both literature and engineering studies, I hope to find connections between the events and results of warfare to the evolving weaponry used.
The next few weeks will be literature studies, so get ready to read about ancient wars throughout the ages. After I’ve highlighted key points of comparison, I will start building and modeling the technology based on written descriptions and diagrams I found earlier. Throughout the process, I will be getting closer to answering my research question.
Stay tuned for the next post!
Signing off,
Aadrit T.
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Very interesting source of inspiration, I love it. Project sounds interesting and your experience with building some of these will definitely be helpful. Siege weapons are an interesting angle to look at war, as the first thing most people will think about are the infantry/cavalry and different tactics used by troops, with artillery usually being overlooked. Do you ever have concerns about finding relevant sources? Since it feels like these weapons are mostly glazed over in war and all the emphasis is put on the military tactics? (Which is what most generals care about) Or will you have some sort of method that will allow you to investigate the effectiveness of these machines ON the tactics themselves? I feel like there are a lot of confounding variables here, but I could also be totally misunderstanding your project. Look forward to seeing development!
Hey Chris, thanks for your comment! I definitely do have concerns about sources, both because antiquity leaves little to read, and, as you mention, most emphasis is put into military tactics. However, within descriptions of sieges, there will be details on how the weapons are being used. It will take more literature research, but my goal is to reverse engineer these structures, as well as using archeological data on some of these technologies. While I foresee this project being difficult, I believe it is possible with the sources available.
This sounds like a really cool mix of engineering and history! I like that you’re going beyond just studying history and are actually trying to rebuild some of the technology yourself.
One thing I am curious about is how you will decide what siege technologies to focus on, especially since your time frame is a thousand years. Are you going to try to highlight the big weapons that were important in battle, or compare different types of technology across civilizations?
Your project investigates such a fascinating topic! I’m looking forward to seeing your analysis of key ancient wars and how they reflect broader patterns in technological innovation.