Counterweight trebuchet
Trabuquete de contrapeso
- Date
- c. 1187 · confidence medium
- Place
- Eastern Mediterranean (Byzantium / Syria, siege of Acre and Nicosia)
- Credited to
- Byzantine and Islamic engineers (Mardi ibn Ali al-Tarsusi, c. 1187)
- Field
- Conflict
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A siege engine with a pivoting arm and a large counterweight box, hurling stones of 100 kg up to 200 m. The most powerful siege weapon before the cannon.
Earliest mentions in Byzantium (Niketas Choniates, 1165) and in al-Tarsusi (1187); a possible origin in the eastern Mediterranean or Europe (Sicily).
What it led to
- thicker walls and round towers in concentric castles
- its transmission to China (1273, the Mongols' 'Muslim catapults' at Xiangyang)
- rapid obsolescence after the bombard (15th century)
Built on
- Traction trebuchetc. 400-300 BCE
- Chinese traction trebuchet (4th century, arriving via the Avars in 587)
- Roman ballista