Carpenter Oak & Woodland has placed a full-size Roman ballista siege catapult for sale on internet auction site eBay.
The war machine was built as part of the BBC and Discovery Channel’s Building the Impossible series, which looked to discover if the Roman’s written account of the machine was accurate. It was proved to be able to fire a 40lb stone ball 115m.
Measuring 7.5m tall, 8.5m long and weighing 12 tonnes, the ballista has sat disassembled in Carpenter Oak & Woodland’s Scottish timber yard.
It is listed with a starting bid of £25,000, which includes restoration, delivery and assembly to anywhere in the UK.
“We have built three different war machines – and one of these, a trebuchet, resides now at Warwick Castle and is fired every day,” said commercial director Andy Parker.
“Of course, someone may want to use it to lay siege to a neighbour’s castle, though of course it isn’t a fireable weapon – even if it were, it would need around half a dozen skilled operators in order to do it, and all of those have been dead for 2000 years.”
Bids close at 2.25pm on October 10, and can be placed here.
