Ближний Восток и его соседи

g 206 h David Nicolle Bunduq pellets 106. Perhaps the most unexpected finds amongst the late Mamlūk military materi- als from the Citadel of Damascus were five carefully made balls. Being of unfired clay, they were delicate and their survival without dissolving back into the material from which they were made was due to their chance location in a bone-dry environment within the Citadel. Syria as a whole is not, of course, a dry or rainless environment. I believe these to be exceptionally rare bunduq pellets to be shot from a qaws al-bunduq "pellet bow". This was a hunting rather than warlike weapon which appears, albeit rare- ly, in medieval Islamic art. It was normally used for stunning small birds which would then be slaughtered in a halāl or ritually correct manner so that they could be eaten. Documentary sources also make clear that hunting with a qaws al-bunduq was a popu- lar sport amongst the Mamlūk elite, as it was amongst many other sections of society in late medieval Syria and Egypt. (Syrian Department of Antiquities; IFPO photograph).