Early warfare focused on hand-to-hand combat, but in time, the types of weapons advanced to include items like slings, crossbows and swords and with them came the practice of sending messages with their use.
Inscriptions on weapons and ammunition alike take on three categories: personalization for the owner, personalization for an opponent, and personalization for someone else to find, firearms historian Ashley Hlebinsky told CNN, and those messages can be a starting point for investigators.
The ancient Greeks and Romans would either chisel or write phrases and symbols on projectiles like arrows or cast their own for slingshots, Hlebinsky said, adding the practice dates back as early as 400 BCE.
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