Editing Boules (section)

==Balls==
There is a wide variation in the size and materials of the balls used in boules-type games.

Originally, in ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, the balls were probably made of stone.

Gallic tribes, which were introduced to boules by the Romans, used wooden boules.  In 19th-century France, boules were typically made of a very hard wood, [[boxwood]] root.

In the mid-19th century,  techniques were developed for the mass production of iron nails.  Following this technological improvement, boxwood balls studded with nails (boules cloutées) were introduced in an effort to improve the durability of the balls.  This eventually led to the development of balls that were completely covered in nails, creating a ball that appeared almost to be made of metal.

By the 1920s, the growing popularity of boules in France created a demand that could not be satisfied using the available supplies of natural boxwood root, which were beginning to disappear.  Paul Courtieu and Vincent Miles had the idea of manufacturing a ball made entirely of metal. Avoiding steel-based alloys (which were too hard and rust-prone) they developed an alloy based on aluminum and bronze, and (in 1923) patented a metal ball made of two welded-together hemispheres.  A year later, in 1924, they filed a patent for a ball that was cast in a single piece -- ''La Boule intégrale''.   Louis Tarchier and Jean Blanc are generally credited with developing, around 1925, the process by which virtually all metal boules are manufactured today—steel blanks are pressed into hollow hemispheres which are then soldered together and machined to make a hollow steel boule.<ref>{{cite web |first=Jacques |last=Navrot |url= http://lyon.monplaisir.free.fr/Boule_Integrale.htm |url-status=dead |title=Le Jeu de Boules |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120110150806/http://lyon.monplaisir.free.fr/Boule_Integrale.htm |archive-date=10 January 2012}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url= https://petanque.wordpress.com/2015/03/26/boules-elte/ |title=Boules Elté |work=Petanque.Wordpress.com |date=26 March 2015}}</ref>{{unreliable source?|date=August 2023|reason=Appears to be some random person's blog.}}

Today, some boules sports (e.g. bocce) still use wooden (or epoxy composite) balls, while others (e.g. pétanque) use metal balls.  The wooden balls used in bocce tend to be bigger than the smaller metal balls used in pétanque.