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Why Was This 2,000-Year-Old Sling Bullet Inscribed With the Word ‘Learn’?

The artifact is the first sling bullet of its kind unearthed at the ancient city of Hippos, though archaeologists have found dozens of other examples without inscriptions at the site

Ryley Graham | Correspondent

March 27, 2026

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Archaeologists working at the ancient city of Hippos are accustomed to unearthing traces of weapons and projectiles. Located in what’s now the Golan Heights, the city overlooking the Sea of Galilee was the site of several battles thousands of years ago.

But last year, a team from the University of Haifa was scanning near a riverbed at Hippos with metal detectors when they discovered a particularly intriguing artifact: a 2,000-year-old sling bullet inscribed with the word “learn” in Greek. The researchers, who published their findings this month in the journal Palestine Exploration Quarterly, think the word may be an abbreviated form of a phrase like “Learn your lesson.”

“This represents local sarcastic humor on the part of the city’s defenders, who wished to teach their enemies a lesson with a wink,” lead author Michael Eisenberg, an archaeologist at the University of Haifa, says in a statement, per a translation by Live Science’s Tom Metcalfe.

Sling bullets are almond-shaped projectiles, and the earliest examples were made from stone or clay. When the newly discovered artifact was created during the Hellenistic period, sling bullets were more commonly made of lead. Attackers would place the bullet in a leather pouch before flinging it at the enemy.

“We use metal detectors very frequently next to our excavation areas,” Eisenberg tells Phys.org’s Sandee Oster. “Sling bullets are among the easiest to find with a metal detector due to their lead mass.”

Researchers have found 69 bullets at Hippos, most dating to the second century B.C.E. But the “learn” bullet, which measures just over an inch, is the first inscribed example unearthed at the site. Elsewhere, sling bullets have been recovered with visible inscriptions, such as “Take a taste” or “Receive this.” But experts have never seen one with this particular phrase before.

“Perhaps the idea was [to tell the enemy], ‘Learn your lesson’ or ‘Next time, you should learn not to come here,’” Eisenberg tells the Times of Israel’s Rossella Tercatin.

While the word on the bullet translates to “learn,” ancient Greek grammar suggests a more complex interpretation, the researchers argue. The inscription is written in middle voice, a verb form between active voice and passive voice, in which the subject both performs and receives an action.

Perhaps the attackers were trying to “convey all the more strongly” that the victim should “‘draw his lesson’ for himself,” the researchers write. “In this sense, the unusual form would in fact serve to heighten sarcasm even further.”

Who was this message intended to reach? The researchers aren’t sure, as the bullet could have been “used in any of the several battles during the Hellenistic period in which Hippos was involved,” according to the study. “The first was before the city’s establishment, during the Ptolemaic rule, when a fortress stood atop the hill. It was conquered during the Battle of Paneion circa 199 B.C.E. by the Seleucids, who subsequently established the polis of Hippos in this location.”

The researchers think the bullet was fired from inside the city’s walls, perhaps defending Hippos against approaching armies. An analysis of the recovered bullet suggests that it hit something.

“We don’t know if it was a rock or a person, but there was definitely an impact,” Eisenberg tells the Times of Israel.

 

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Ryley Graham is a freelance journalist based in New York City. Her work has appeared in outlets such as National Geographic, Earth Island Journal and USA Today.