Original subtitles

male narrator: The world's first

ballistic missile launcher...

[arrows whizzing]

The biggest chariot battle in history,

a nine-story killing machine,

a death claw for grabbing whole ships,

and the most explosive weapon of the ancient world.

Where will they be ranked on the only top ten list

thousands of years in the making?

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

History has shown

some of the greatest advancements in technology

have been driven by warfare.

[gunshot]

The devastating weapons of today's battlefields

wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the innovations

of the ancient world.

- Humans are good at a lot of things,

but one of the things we're the best at

is killing each other.

Humans fight, and humans always think of a better way

to more effectively fight.

That's where we get weapons.

♪ ♪

narrator: This week's "Ancient Top Ten":

the ancient world's most lethal weapons.

♪ ♪

The list is ranked by experts

according to which is the biggest game-changer

on the battlefield.

At number ten...

♪ ♪

A lethal weapon invented by one of the most ingenious minds

in history:

the Archimedes claw.

♪ ♪

When the Roman empire decided to attack

the city nation of Syracuse

on the Mediterranean island now known as Sicily

in 214 B.C.,

they came up against a formidable

ancient lethal weapon.

- Syracuse is in the path of an expanding Roman empire,

an empire that's gobbling up every city, state, and country

in the Mediterranean.

Rome is bringing with them a professional army

and 60 state-of-the-art warships.

narrator: Syracuse had harbor walls,

and the Romans could only invade by scaling these.

The Syracuseans knew this

and defended their city with aggression.

They would use this lethal weapon.

- The Romans tried a nighttime amphibious attack.

They thought they had the cover of darkness

as their advantage,

but then Archimedes' claw was brought into bear.

narrator: A number of these claws

were deployed along the city walls

to grab the Roman ships.

- The claw pulling the ships out of the water

while the crew slept.

Imagine how terrifying that experience would be--

to wake up feeling your ship

suddenly lifted out of the water.

narrator: For once, the Romans were on the receiving end

of a high-tech superweapon.

- The Archimedes claw meant that just a few men

could physically lift a ship--

a 60-ton ship--

up out of the water.

That is a remarkable thing.

narrator: Men would use ropes to raise the claw

with a system of pulleys and fulcrums,

allowing them to lift the weight

of an entire ship.

The tension on the pulley

would eventually reach breaking point,

causing it to pop out,

dropping and destroying the ship.

- In a panic to get away,

the ships actually smashed into each other,

causing more devastation.

It was mayhem.

narrator: We don't often know the super brains

behind the lethal weapons of the ancient world,

but we do for this one:

Archimedes.

He was such an incredible inventor

that he himself was the greatest secret weapon

of the city of Syracuse.

- The genius of Archimedes

is that he took basic principles of physics,

a lever and a fulcrum--

same thing you'd use to lift a rock--

only he supersized it.

narrator: The Romans had no idea how to conquer

or compete against the Archimedes claw.

♪ ♪

Just the name of Archimedes

was itself a weapon of terror.

He was the inventor of other incredible weapons,

such as a steam-powered cannon...

♪ ♪

And a solar-powered death ray.

- Today, a small army can beat a larger one

if it has a technological advantage.

This is what we call a force multiplier.

Now, a small city-state back in ancient times

managed to hold back the force of the Roman empire

using just such a thing.

narrator: Thanks to the Archimedes claw,

the city of Syracuse held out against the mighty Romans

for over a year.

Eventually, they were undone,

because at a crucial moment,

they left the claws unmanned.

- Now, we don't know if Archimedes' weapons

had more of a psychological or physical impact--

maybe a combination of both.

The point is, they gave Syracuse

such a leg up in this fight

that it gets on our top ten list.

narrator: Archimedes himself was killed in the aftermath

of the battle of Syracuse.

Sadly, the world lost one of the greatest inventors

it had ever seen.

His claw had been a lethal work of genius.

But where lethality is concerned,

sometimes smaller is better.

At number nine...

[rousing music]

The sharpened spikes known as caltrops

make that point.

- For centuries, caltrops were used

as a crippling defense against cavalry.

Today, they're used by modern military

to puncture the tires of enemy vehicles.

They're simple. They're effective.

This weapon will never grow old.

narrator: The caltrop is the godfather

of one of today's most prolific weapons:

land mines.

[powerful explosion]

[metal clattering]

- Caltrops are really easy to carry.

They're really quick to deploy.

They are the ultimate area denial weapon.

♪ ♪

narrator: An area denial weapon

prevents the enemy from entering a certain region.

They're a key factor in warfare

and can swing the course of a battle.

- The beauty of a caltrop is that any way you throw it,

there's at least one spike sticking up in the air,

ready to stop your enemy dead in its tracks.

One of the first recorded uses of caltrops

was by one of Alexander the Great's generals,

way back in the fourth century B.C.

They thwarted an attack by one of the most formidable weapons

of the ancient world.

- Caltrops stopped a battle charge

of 70 elephants dead in their tracks.

[elephant shrieks]

Because the animals couldn't move,

attackers came in and cut them down.

The elephants behind those

could hear the elephant screams.

They panicked, turned round,

and stampeded back through their own ranks,

crushing people to death.

[elephant roaring]

- Over time, every ancient weapon either disappears

from use, or it develops and evolves into something

much more advanced,

with one exception:

the caltrop, because even today

we're still using the exact same design

in modern warfare.

And anything that can survive unchanged

for thousands of years has to be in the top ten.

narrator: The caltrop has been used longer

than any other weapon on our list,

but our next lethal weapon got left behind

in the ancient world--

literally.

Coming in at number eight...

♪ ♪

It's the Helepolis, the largest siege tower

of the ancient world.

♪ ♪

Siege towers had been used in battle

since the 11th century B.C.

♪ ♪

The job of the infantry is to fight hand-to-hand combat,

but to do that, they have to be

where the enemy soldiers are.

Siege towers protect them while they're moved into a position

where they can get behind the city walls

and fight the enemy soldiers in hand-to-hand combat.

narrator: Once up against a city wall,

a siege tower could lower its drawbridge

so that the troops inside the tower

could rush the walls.

[men screaming]

When the Macedonians were attacking the city of Rhodes

in 305 B.C., they decided to build the biggest

siege tower of them all.

The Helepolis was born,

and it was massive.

- The Helepolis was a masterful feat

of ancient construction.

We believe it was about 140 feet tall,

which is nine stories,

and 65 feet wide,

and it would have weighed 180 tons.

It was a monster.

♪ ♪

narrator: Helepolis is Greek

for "taker of cities."

It had a giant, wooden frame on wheels,

covered with iron plates,

with men inside shooting giant catapults.

♪ ♪

- A massive 3,400 men were used

to control the Helepolis

and operate its many catapults.

I mean, this was a huge operation.

- It took 200 men working the gearbox

just to turn the wheels.

This was a mobile fortress.

narrator: It must have seemed unstoppable

to the people of Rhodes.

But there was a flaw.

The whole operation relied on it moving smoothly,

and for that, it needed firm ground.

- Basically, the only way to stop the Helepolis

was the flood the ground in front of the fortresses,

turning it into a soggy, muddy mess.

The Helepolis just couldn't handle that.

narrator: As the Helepolis edged forward towards Rhodes,

the situation got sticky.

As well as flooding the ground,

the defenders used a cunning, novel device

that is the forerunner to the anti-tank mine.

- They got big, earthenware jars

and buried them in the ground in front of the stronghold.

When the Helepolis rolled over the top of these,

it collapsed, creating craters.

And that stopped the siege engine in its tracks.

narrator: The Macedonians ended their siege of Rhodes

and withdrew,

leaving the Helepolis behind.

The victorious people of Rhodes

decided to put it to good use.

♪ ♪

- The Helepolis was so massive

that when the battle was over,

the victorious defenders were able to rip it apart

and use its scrap material to build

one of the seven wonders of the ancient world,

the Colossus of Rhodes.

♪ ♪

narrator: The huge, 100-foot statue

famously stood at the harbor of the city

in the third century B.C.

The Colossus of Rhodes would never have existed

without the Helepolis.

narrator: We're counting down the top ten lethal weapons

of the ancient world.

- [screaming] narrator: Coming up next

is a lightning-fast attack vehicle

at number seven...

[thrilling music]

The Egyptian war chariot.

[hoofbeats rumbling]

On the walls of the temple of Abu Simbel

in southern Egypt is a depiction

of the war chariot in action.

- For me, a chariot is an incredible weapon.

It allows an armored unit to move around on the battlefield

quickly and slay ground soldiers

from an elevated position of protection,

a devastating tool against any kind of unit.

♪ ♪

narrator: War chariots were all about shock and awe.

They were fast and mobile.

For over a thousand years,

they dominated the battlefield.

And it was the Egyptian war chariot

that was best.

- The Egyptian chariots were so well-designed,

they could zoom around the battlefield

up to 30 miles an hour,

putting themselves exactly where they need to be

to hand out death to the enemy.

[horses whinnying]

- These are the fastest weapons on the battlefield.

They'd appear out of nowhere--

could be deployed into any part of the battlefield,

surrounding the enemy or attacking from any direction.

♪ ♪

narrator: There were two men aboard,

a driver and an archer,

each free to concentrate fully on their own job.

- A right-handed archer on a horse

could only shoot to the left.

The advantage of a chariot over a horse

is that an archer with a longbow could shoot anywhere.

This made chariots deadly fast and precise.

- 100 chariots could fly around the battlefield,

letting off 1,000 arrows a minute in any direction.

That's devastating.

That's a similar rate of fire to the gun

on a modern Apache helicopter.

[helicopter blades whirring]

[dramatic music]

narrator: But what was so special about the design

of the Egyptian chariot?

- The chariot wheel was made of six spokes

and a rim made of flexible wood.

It meant the whole thing could travel fast

across even the roughest terrain.

We see those same principles being used

in shock absorbency and suspension

in the cars we see out on our roads today.

♪ ♪

narrator: Chariots gave an advantage to whichever side

deployed them.

But what if both sides had them?

[man screaming]

♪ ♪

It happened 3,000 years ago...

♪ ♪

The Egyptians against the Hittites

in the epic Battle of Kadesh.

- It's estimated that as many as 6,000 chariots

clashed at Kadesh.

This is more vehicles on a battlefield

than at any time in history.

narrator: It was the Egyptian chariot that proved superior.

They were better-designed and crafted.

And with just one driver and one archer,

they were lighter and more mobile

than the three-man machine of the Hittites.

- These were effective, very effective weapons,

and that's why they've got to be on this list.

narrator: Thanks to its chariot,

the Egyptian empire expanded

to become the mightiest of its time.

♪ ♪

And chariots were so revered,

the pharaohs demanded to take them with them

into the afterlife.

Tutankhamun, the most famous pharaoh of all,

was buried with six

incredibly preserved war chariots,

two of which were clad in gold

with shock-absorbing suspension systems.

[dramatic music]

Less mobile but more devilish

describes the next lethal weapon on our list.

At number six...

♪ ♪

Mysterious, deadly--

Greek fire.

[swords clashing]

In the seventh century A.D.,

the Byzantine empire was coming under constant attack

from the Arabs.

But Byzantium, also known as Constantinople,

had a secret weapon.

Somehow, they were able to project flames

at enemy ships,

creating an inferno

that couldn't be extinguished.

- Accounts of Greek fire show

that it was the ultimate weapon of terror:

a liquid that could burn on water.

Imagine being at sea in a naval battle.

The enemy is shooting jets of fire at you.

This stuff burns on the water,

it burns underwater, and it sticks to you.

Men are screaming all around.

This is the horrors of Greek fire.

[man screaming]

- As a weapon, fire is hard to beat.

It kills you, it hurts you,

and it instills fear in you.

And that is why Greek fire has to be on this top ten list.

♪ ♪

narrator: It could be shot in a lethal jet

up to 150 feet.

- In 678 A.D.,

it destroyed an enemy fleet

and killed up to 30,000 people.

narrator: And it was used in land battles, too,

to deadly effect.

- By taking Greek fire and putting it in small,

hand-held pots that exploded on impact,

they essentially created the world's first hand grenade.

It would be centuries before the world's battlefields

saw anything like this again.

[loud blast]

narrator: We've seen how devastating

Greek fire was,

but what secrets does this ancient napalm still hold?

♪ ♪

narrator: We're counting down

the ancient world's most lethal weapons.

At number six is the devastating Greek fire,

which is still surrounded by mystery.

[exciting music]

♪ ♪

Created by the Byzantine empire,

it was used to great effect

to defend their capital, Constantinople.

- Greek fire may be the best-kept secret

in military history.

This actual secret recipe

could only be put together in the capital, Constantinople.

It consisted of four components:

the mixture itself, the machine used to heat and pressurize it,

the machine used to fire it,

and the crew used to deploy it.

Now, unlike modern classified military information,

Greek fire is still a mystery.

narrator: The different stages employed men

who only knew the secret to their part of the process.

Once ignited, it was extremely difficult

to put out the flames.

- Greek fire could not be extinguished by water--

only by strong vinegar

and old urine and sand.

narrator: Many scientists have tried to recreate Greek fire--

tried and failed.

- We don't know the recipe for Greek fire,

but we do have an idea

of how they projected it at high pressure:

the force pump.

narrator: This force pump was invented by Heron of Alexandria

2,000 years ago

and has a pressurized siphon

that can project liquid fire--

a lethal jet of flame, over 30 yards,

burning at 800 degrees Fahrenheit.

♪ ♪

- Many view Greek fire as the inspiration

for the lethal flamethrowers and the horrors of napalm

in the 20th century.

[heavy explosion]

- Greek fire added centuries to a declining empire.

But every weapon has its limitations,

and Greek fire could only be used in a limited range

on a calm sea.

- A downside? Wind.

If the wind changed in the midst of using Greek fire,

then it's the Byzantines that would have suffered.

Talk about a plan backfiring.

narrator: In time, the Arabs adapted

to this terrifying weapon.

- Eventually, Byzantine's enemies learned to stay

outside of its range,

and they soaked felts and hides in vinegar

and put them onto their warships to protect them.

narrator: But for years, this lethal flaming concoction

kept Byzantium safe.

- The ingenuity of putting

these quite simple ingredients together

and that fact that we still don't know

the exact chemical composition of Greek fire

is what for me puts it in this top ten.

[flames rushing]

narrator: From a water inferno

to a fast-firing rain of death.

[bow creaking]

Shooting in at number five on the lethal list...

♪ ♪

The Chinese repeating crossbow.

- Over 2,000 years ago,

the Chinese invented a weapon that turned untrained soldiers

into lethal killers.

It was the first hand-held, rapid-fire weapon

in history.

narrator: The earliest known crossbows

are from China in the sixth century B.C.

The repeating crossbow evolved from this

and turned a simple weapon

into a mass killer.

- The ancient crossbow was all well and good.

But the physical effort required to re-cock it

meant you could fire one or two bolts a minute.

[trigger clicks]

Along comes the Chinese repeating crossbow,

which fires one bolt every single second.

narrator: On the battlefield,

it gave an overwhelming advantage,

creating a close-quarter killing zone

that belongs more on a modern battlefield

than an ancient one.

[gunfire]

- If you arm a regiment of 1,000 Chinese soldiers

with these repeating crossbows

which can each fire a bolt every second,

that's 60,000 bolts coming towards your enemy

in a minute--

60,000 in a minute!

narrator: This rate of fire wouldn't be seen again

for thousands of years.

narrator: The simple design

was just four parts:

wooden stock, bamboo bow,

wooden magazine, and the lever.

As the lever goes forward,

the string catches in a notch.

Pulling the lever pulls the string back,

and a bolt drops down from the magazine.

This peg pushes the string out of the notch,

the crossbow fires,

and the whole process starts again,

the magazine holding eight crossbow bolts.

As well as being easy to make,

the repeating crossbow was easy to use.

- The beauty of the Chinese repeating crossbow

is that it took untrained farmers

and turned them into killers.

narrator: The repeating crossbow has drawn comparisons

to a game-changing weapon of the modern age.

[dramatic music]

[gunfire]

- Look at one of today's most widespread weapons:

the Kalashnikov assault rifle, the AK-47.

This is something that is cheap and easy to produce,

but also, it's very easy to teach someone how to use it.

So instantly, a raw recruit can be turned into a killer.

narrator: But the real legacy of the repeating crossbow

rests with what it helped build.

In the third century B.C.,

the armies of Emperor Qin

used repeating crossbows to defeat

the warring factions in China.

He became China's first emperor,

whilst his warriors became immortalized

as the famous Terra-Cotta Army.

Together, they unified China for the first time...

♪ ♪

narrator: We're counting down

the most lethal weapons of the ancient world,

judged by experts and historians

according to how much of a gamer-changer they were

on the battlefield.

[exciting music]

At number ten was the ingenious Archimedes claw.

At number nine was a lethal weapon

still used today, the caltrop.

Number was the fearsome, giant siege engine

known as the Helepolis.

And at number seven, shock and awe--

the Egyptian war chariot.

Number six was the secret but deadly Greek fire.

And number five was the first repeating weapon in history,

the Chinese repeating crossbow.

[wood creaking]

Now we're into the top four,

and the next lethal weapon was the big artillery gun

of its time.

♪ ♪

Number four is the trebuchet.

- Most people think that the trebuchet

is a medieval weapon,

but actually, it's got its origins in ancient China.

- Ancient Chinese blueprints

show an incredible artillery weapon

dating back as far as the fourth century B.C.

narrator: This is a replica in the National Military Museum

in Beijing.

- The ancient Chinese trebuchet

could throw huge boulders up to 250 pounds

a distance of 200 feet.

[rumbling]

- The Chinese trebuchet

was lightweight and mobile

and could be moved around the battlefield as needed.

narrator: It was like a modern piece of mobile artillery.

- Now, this thing pushes the boundaries

of ancient engineering to create a ballistics revolution--

a flexible, portable killing machine.

That's the first trebuchet.

narrator: In one battle in China in 617 A.D.,

there were 300 trebuchets on the battlefield.

It was a highly effective weapon of terror.

- The ancient Chinese didn't just use

huge boulders as missiles in that trebuchet.

They also used to set fire to the projectiles

before throwing them at their enemies.

♪ ♪

narrator: Centuries later, the Mongols naturally took this

one stage further.

- [yelling indistinctly]

- Trebuchets weren't only used to throw stones and rocks.

They were also used to throw

plague- and disease-ridden bodies over city walls.

♪ ♪

This is one of the first examples of biological warfare.

narrator: Eventually, knowledge spread west.

By the time of the Crusades,

trebuchets were much bigger.

- The medieval trebuchets were massive--

over 50 feet tall.

And it could throw something the weight of a car

over 1/3 of a mile.

They used giant wheels to pull the firing arm into place.

narrator: The huge counterweight crashes down,

swinging the arm up with incredible power,

launching the 40-pound missile into the air

at 42 miles per hour.

- Unlike the Chinese trebuchet,

the medieval one couldn't be moved around the battlefield

quickly or easily, but the payoff

is in tremendous firepower, with a counterweight

consistently pulling down 4,000 pounds.

That's huge.

narrator: The trebuchet took siege warfare

to an all-new level.

It would be used in battle for centuries.

[intense music]

But another ancient missile launcher

would strike fear into the hearts of Rome's enemies.

At number three...

♪ ♪

The Roman ballista,

a lethal, wooden crossbow

usually mounted on a stand.

- The ballista fired bolts with incredible speed and accuracy,

firing up to 100 miles an hour.

That's like getting hit by a brick at that speed.

♪ ♪

- The ballista was so powerful

and so accurate that it could drive a bolt straight through

an enemy soldier, pinning him to a tree.

♪ ♪

narrator: Like a more modern artillery,

the ballista could point downward at an oncoming charge

or tilt up for long range lethality.

- It could fire a bolt 1,300 feet,

which was double the distance that the best archer

with the best bow and arrow could fire at the time.

♪ ♪

- You have a huge advantage over your enemy

if you can launch your artillery farther than him,

and that's exactly what the Romans had in the ballista.

It was the forerunner for the modern ballistic missile.

In fact, that's where we get the word "ballistic" from.

And so no list would be complete

without the inclusion of the ballista.

narrator: The typical Roman legion had about 60

of these lethal shooting weapons.

They could deliver a lethal rain

of 120 bolts a minute at enemy troops

a quarter of a mile away.

- The ballista gets its power from the twisted ropes it uses.

Now, sometimes these ropes would be made of hemp

or even human hair, but mostly of animal sinew.

And the Romans called these ropes "fiber tormenta,"

like tormented souls,

'cause as you cranked them round,

they would wail and groan under the pent-up power,

ready to unleash their missiles.

[wailing and groaning]

You would hear the screams of the ballista,

and you'd know it meant one thing:

your impending doom.

narrator: This claw grips the bowstring

like an archer's fingers,

and the mechanism is wound back.

The twisted ropes are like coiled springs

ready to burst.

The tension would be enough to tear the ballista apart

if left unleashed.

[dramatic music]

[cracking]

- There's nothing as effective on the battlefield

for over 1,000 years.

narrator: A ballista could launch bolts, arrows,

or even cannonballs.

The ballista makes the list

because it was, in terms of lethal weapons,

the complete package.

And the Romans may even have built them

on an impossibly large scale.

- There is a story that the Romans built a ballista

so big, it could fire a missile across the river Danube.

That's 2/3 of a mile.

That meant you could take out your enemy force

before you were ever in their range.

narrator: When mounted on a cart or a boat,

the Romans had a highly effective armored vehicle.

Able to fire in all directions,

could this be the world's first tank, 2,000 years ago?

♪ ♪

- The ballista was capable of firing

further and faster than anything else at the time

and with amazing accuracy.

♪ ♪

narrator: Coming up, the devastating weapon

behind the ancient world's largest land empire.

Then our number one most lethal weapon.

♪ ♪

narrator: We're counting down

the most lethal weapons of the ancient world.

At number two...

[dynamic music]

A battlefield necessity,

the composite bow.

- The basic bow and arrow:

it's been around for tens of thousands of years.

But along comes the composite bow.

Compare cowboy six-shooter with a modern magnum revolver.

This thing is a game-changer.

narrator: The composite bow was the favored weapon

of ancient Egyptian archers.

- The composite bow fired at 300 feet per second.

narrator: That's unbeaten in a hand-held weapon

until the nineteenth century.

♪ ♪

The composite bow was so powerful

because it was made up of several different materials.

Around a wooden core, curved by steaming,

there's a layer of slithers of horn.

Then the whole bow is wrapped in animal sinew

and glued together.

When the string is drawn,

the horn compresses, and the sinew stretches,

storing as much energy

as a much longer and heavier wooden bow.

- The bow packed a lot of power

into a very short frame,

which allowed it be used on horseback,

creating the horse archer,

which was devastating on the battlefield.

♪ ♪

narrator: The archers of classical Greece

used composite bows.

The ancient Chinese also used them to great effect.

♪ ♪

Then, when the Romans came across them,

it was a true game-changer.

In 53 B.C., the Romans were attacking Parthia

in modern-day Iran.

The Romans outnumbered the Parthians 50,000

to just 10,000.

They thought they couldn't possibly lose.

- But the Parthians have mounted horseback archers.

And up to this point, the Romans haven't seen

anything like it, and they're in for a big surprise.

[arrows whizzing]

- The Parthian horse archer composite bows

outranged anything the Romans had,

and they were literally able to fire thousands of arrows

into the Romans at will.

When the Romans tried to counterattack,

the Parthians would withdraw,

firing over their shoulder

and staying out of range of the Romans.

Then the Parthian heavy cavalry came in,

mopped up what was left, and that was that.

Only one in eight Romans escaped from this.

To me, this is the perfect blend of a great weapon

with even greater tactics

and deserves a high place on our list.

♪ ♪

narrator: After this terrible defeat,

the Romans took up the composite bow themselves,

only to be outdone centuries later

by the composite bow in the hands of the Huns

and their great leader, Attila.

[indistinct shouting]

♪ ♪

Nearly 1,000 years later,

the Mongols adapted the bow even further.

- The Mongol horde was armed with the composite bow,

which allowed them to dominate any battlefield.

♪ ♪

narrator: Their bows were held together

with fish glue and took 18 months to bond,

but the result was the best bow ever.

And with it, they took on the world.

♪ ♪

- The Mongolian bow was said to fire up to 1,700 feet.

That's just under 600 yards.

That's amazing!

narrator: The bow gave the Mongols power and speed.

50,000 horse archers forged their huge empire

in just 25 years.

♪ ♪

- With just bow and arrows,

the Mongols could cover 300 miles a day.

That's way more than the coalition forces in the Gulf.

narrator: Genghis Khan's armies are estimated

to have reduced the Earth's population at the time by 11%,

many dying at the tip of a Mongol arrow.

- It is estimated that they killed over 40 million people

in their conquest.

This horrific body count means that the composite bow

is one of the most lethal weapons in history.

♪ ♪

narrator: This replica made of modern-day materials

has just half the performance

of the ancient composite bow.

Even now, the ancient methods can't be bettered.

- Now to me, what makes the composite bow so great

is that like anything good,

it has continually improved over time,

especially by the nomadic people of central Asia.

With this great weapon,

they made one of the most devastatingly effective

conquering armies of all time.

These guys took a 2,000-year-old weapon,

continually improved it,

and conquered the world.

narrator: For its monumental death toll

at the hands of the Mongols,

the composite bow has earned its place

as runner-up on our list.

But the top slot in this ancient countdown

has gone to something even more lethal.

Number is still to come.

It's explosive and changed warfare forever.

♪ ♪

narrator: This is "Ancient Top Ten's" list

of the most lethal ancient weapons

ranked by experts and historians.

At number ten, we saw the terrifying Archimedes claw.

Number nine was a truly prickly situation:

caltrops.

At number eight, the abandoned siege tower,

the Helepolis.

Number seven, shock and awe--

the Egyptian war chariot.

At number six, we saw the mysterious and deadly

Greek fire.

Number five was the fast and furious

Chinese repeating crossbow.

And number four was the mighty trebuchet.

Coming in at number three

was the revolutionary super-weapon,

the ballista.

And our number two

is the tried-and-true composite bow.

But now, it's time

for the all-time ancient number one,

the biggest battlefield game-changer of them all,

and it's the Chinese again.

The number one, the most lethal ancient weapon on our list,

is gunpowder.

[victorious music]

♪ ♪

- Gunpowder:

it changes everything.

- Throughout history, the Chinese have been

at the forefront of military technology.

And this weapon has to be the most lethal of all.

It literally redefined warfare as we know it.

[roaring]

♪ ♪

- There's warfare before this invention

and then warfare after it.

Gunpowder was a true revolution in warfare.

Gunpowder has to be number one.

[explosions]

- It changes warfare.

It changes the power dynamic

of South Asia.

The Chinese were there first,

and it meant that they could dominate the region.

♪ ♪

narrator: The story of gunpowder begins

centuries before it was even thought of for use as a weapon.

- Gunpowder first appears in 142 A.D.

where Chinese alchemists were attempting to make

an elixir of life for their emperor.

They ended up making the exact opposite.

narrator: Today, the Chinese word for gunpowder

translates literally as "fire medicine."

The magic powder wasn't the answer to everlasting life,

but the invention was put to use.

- Surprisingly, one of the first uses of gunpowder

was not to create a world-conquering weapon.

It was used by the Chinese for entertainment

in the form of fireworks.

[fireworks bursting]

♪ ♪

narrator: But eventually, fireworks did inspire

the world's gunpowder weapon.

♪ ♪

It was in the tenth century A.D.

when China was divided into several kingdoms.

These separate kingdoms were constantly fighting

to control the entire country.

When one Chinese city was being besieged,

they took the fire medicine powder

and came up with this:

the fire arrow,

a lethal war machine that used exploding gunpowder

to launch flaming arrows out of bamboo tubes,

hundreds at a time.

[arrow whizzing]

♪ ♪

- Imagine you're part of an army of 100,000 soldiers,

and you're laying siege to a city,

but all of a sudden you hear-- inside the city walls,

there's this horrible roar.

And all of a sudden, there's catapulted

these fiery, rocket-propelled missiles.

♪ ♪

narrator: Launched by gunpowder,

the fire arrow had a range of up to 1,000 feet.

It's like a modern-day missile.

- The psychological effect of those first enemy troops

when they encountered gunpowder--

they're using bows and arrows and swords and clubs and spears,

and suddenly, devastating noises, flashes, and explosions

going off around them.

It would have been absolute carnage.

narrator: Not surprisingly,

China's warring kingdoms

all wanted a piece of the action.

- A few years after the first uses of gunpowder

on the battlefield,

it was being mass-produced in factories.

narrator: The Chinese worked hard on improving

the explosive mixture.

And a range of new, groundbreaking weapons

was quickly developed.

- Now, every fire needs oxygen to burn,

and the Chinese soon realized

that the more oxidant they added to the mixture,

the faster it would burn.

And this gave them an idea:

the world's first firearm,

the fire lance.

This was 1,000 years ago.

narrator: The hand-held fire lance.

This was a primitive shotgun.

Stones or pieces of metal were blasted out of a bamboo tube

by gunpowder.

♪ ♪

Used at close quarters,

it had devastatingly lethal results...

[blasting]

♪ ♪

An ancient 12-guage.

There were also primitive hand grenades,

flamethrowers,

and land mines,

all thanks to gunpowder.

This is the move from ancient warfare

to modern scientific warfare.

In fact, nearly all modern weapons

have evolved from this discovery.

- I don't think that anybody could argue

that this weapon deserves to be at the top of the list.

It not only redefined warfare,

it reshaped the planet.

Welcome to the age of gunpowder.

♪ ♪

Gunpowder changed history forever.

It started off as an attempt to prolong life

but ended up as a lethal weapon

responsible for countless millions of deaths.

Our world has been shaped by the wars and lethal weapons

of the ancients.

Repeating crossbows led to Kalashnikovs,

caltrops led to landmines,

and gunpowder led to every firearm around today.

Proof the legacy of lethality

is still felt in the world today.