Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of ancient warfare answers. I think this is episode 12

and I am the assistant editor Murray Dam and this is the editor Jasper Oortosh and he's going to answer

the question this time round which is from Treb Curie and it is was the iron shank of the

Peelam designed to be soft and bend easily?

Why is it?

I always seem to end up with the questions that could, in theory, be answered with just no.

But that's a bit, I mean, we designed these ancient warfare answers episodes to be short, but not that short, because that would be a bit annoying.

So I would say, first of all, if you are interested...

I was going to say maybe then you could answer with, you could answer with why has the preconception that they were designed to bend.

Where's that come from?

Well, that's, you know.

That would take a little bit more time, maybe.

Some author, I was going to say, actually, if you're interested in the Pilem, then I would

very much recommend the Pellum, the Roman heavy javelin by Mike Bishop, a booklet published by

Osprey, which will pretty much answer any questions you may have about the Pilem until you get

to the metal molecular level. So the answer is no, because, you know, the PILM was designed

not to bend and be soft and bend easily.

It was, you know, first of all, we have to say there's all kinds of pila.

But when we think, I mean, then there's a type of pilam with a very short shank, which clearly was not

designed to bend anyway.

But if we're talking about the classic Roman imperial pilam that we all think of with a shank of,

you know, 30, 40 centimeters long and a Botkin style tip on it.

...