September 30, 2004 - Santa Barbara, CA - The University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) today announced that Professor Glenn E. Beltz will appear in a Discovery Channel documentary on "Superweapons of the Ancient World." In the episode, Beltz and four other American engineers reconstruct the Claw of Archimedes, an ancient "superweapon" developed by Greek mathematician Archimedes to defend the city of Syracuse against Roman assault. The episode will air on the Discovery Channel during the winter of 2005. Beltz is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies for the College of Engineering at UCSB.

The documentary episode examines the Claw of Archimedes from an engineering standpoint, following the engineering team through design, construction, and testing phases. Beltz was assisted in the preliminary design stages by two UCSB Mechanical Engineering undergraduates, Eric Hinkley and Justin Wodarck. They ran tests and simulations at UCSB evaluating the forces necessary to topple attacking ships.

Archimedes developed the Claw to defend the coastal city of Syracuse from Roman attack in 213 BC. The Claw of Archimedes was a boom-like weapon that swung out from behind the city wall, grabbed advancing Roman ships, and overturned them. Although Archimedes succeeded in defeating the Roman naval attack, the city fell a year later under a land-based siege.

The three-part series on ancient superweapons includes episodes on a battering ram and a fire-breathing siege-engine. The "Superweapons of the Ancient World" series was filmed in Morocco and produced by Darlow-Smithson Productions in the United Kingdom.

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