Turkish Military Museums

[GGaskill]

Care to post dimensions (or a dimensioned drawing)?  That looks like the next generation after the handgonne.

[Cat Whisperer]

Bob -

THanks for the references!

I found the lions (in place of dolphins) most interesting.  They are distinctly Venecian!

[cannonmn]

Here's a stone carving of the "pistrice" sea monster that I think the gonne looks like.  Notice the canine head, undulating body, and vertical fan-shaped tail.  The carving is in a church in Positano, Italy, and dates from the 13th C., if I remember correctly what I read.  The gonne of course must be later.



Weird, huh?

[GGaskill]

There is some faint printing on it.  Is it considered original?  Any idea of what it says?

I doubt it says "BLACKPOWDER ONLY", even in Italian.   

[cannonmn]

An Italian email penpal of mine who goes by "Gianni" did this translation and photo-composition for the gonne's inscription.  He's a PhD and studies cannon markings as a part of his job.  He gave one of the presentations at the Venice "Guns and Ships" conference that Bob Smith attended recently (Bob gave a talk too if I'm not mistaken.)

If I win the lottery sometime, I want to attend one of these international cannon conferences.

Back to the inscription, there's been quite a bit of dialogue about it over the past couple of years.  Over a year ago I posted pictures of gonne and inscription on the Ebay Italy antiques discussion board and that discussion went on for many weeks.  They got some university linguist involved.  I remember she went by the ebay name (in Italian) of "Princess Large Tree" or something like that.  Anyway, she concluded that the text was a kind of weak attempt at a a suitable rhyme, since "scopietto" and "petto" rhyme. 

On some fancier weapons ca. 15th C. and later, you sometimes see such little rhymes put on by the maker.  One particularly fine German bronze cannon in the Tower of London collection has a young girl as the cascabel (I think.)  The rhyme cast into the gun in German translates roughly as "I am but an uncouth peasant.  Who tastes my eggs* won't find them pleasant."

*meaning projectiles

I'm convinced the gun itself is an old piece.  The scientists who the Tower of London engaged to analyze the metal would have (I think) picked up on any modern characteristics if there were any, such as trace elements that shouldn't be there, for example.  As far as the inscription is concerned, the people in Italy (many dozens) who participated in the extended discussion never mentioned that they doubted the inscription was contemporary to the gonne.  However I don't think Gianni is fully convinced that the inscription is as old as the gonne.

[GGaskill]

Could it be a presentation piece to someone for valor who had received a wound from a hackbut in the chest?

[cannonmn]

I guess anything is possible, although i'd kinda doubt it because the troops back then, unless they were nobles, lived simply, you know, small mud huts or or straw huts or whatnot, and would have no place to put this thing.  I'd think they'd rather have some gold nuggets or jewels.

If anyone's really interested in this thing, here's a crude video I made before I learned the correct setting for "save to your computer."  So it doesn't have very good video clarity all the time.  This is before we got a good translation too.  But it does show the item in a lot more detail, if you can put up with poor lighting, the narrator's irritating voice, etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpTWJ1FpDDQ

[Bob Smith]

It's a small world in cannon studies; not only did I see Gianni last week, but Guy Wilson and I spent a week down at Woolwich last month, working on the model collection.
Just a quick reply before we go away for the holiday.
Your small piece is quite unusual. A dragon at the muzzle of a gun appears on several guns across Europe. For example Stuerghewalt in Hertogenbosch in Holland, dated 1511; Master Jorg’s ‘basilisk’ in Basel (in bronze) and dated 1514; a small piece in the collection of the Royal Armouries, (again in bronze, inventory number XIX.69), dated 1570. There are more.
The fish tail is unique (I think) though an extension (tiller) at the rear of a barrel is common.
What I find curious though is the very pronounced dragons head and the crispness, sharpness, of its edges. In the examples noted above, and others, the head is more within the barrel of the gun and more rounded overall. So too the tail which is very sharp in detail. If it is genuine and from Western Europe or least has a good provenance I would date it to the 16th century. I do have some reservations though. It may be a later copy or it may possibly be oriental in origin. There was certainly a tradition of using dragons heads in the east which goes on for far longer than in the west. Without seeing it in the ‘flesh’ though it is very hard to judge. But it is a curious piece (and very intriguing). When something is a 'one-off' it is always difficult to judge; you need a second to come out of the woodwork.
Stuerghewalt is published in: J P Puype, 2007, ‘The basilisk Stuerghewalt of 1511 in Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands’. In R D Smith (ed) ICOMAM 50. papers on arms and military history 1957-2007. Leeds, Basiliscoe Press. Pages
The Armouries piece is in: H L Blackmore, 1976 The Armoures of the Tower of London. I Ordnance. London, HMSO. Page 133-4.

Merry Christmas, one and all

Bob Smith

[dan610324]

wouldnt it be possible to date it by the carbon 14 method ?
as even steel contain some carbon from the smelting process of the ore .

[cannonmn]

Thanks Bob, for taking the time to comment, enjoy your holidays.  I don't know how many other people on this board appreciate the fact that we have the honor of having input from a genuine, certified, working cannon expert here (Bob Smith,) but I certainly do.

carbon 14 method?

Don't know for sure Dan but I've only heard of that method being used for organic matter, where the carbon exists in a certain state while the thing is alive, then decays after it dies, and the method checks the level of decay (my layman's understanding is probably hosed up.)

Meanwhile, here's a better pic of the pistrice monster in the church in Positano, Italy.

One thing that's surprised me a bit is that in the few times I've posted the picture of the monster carved in stone along with pictures of the gonne, as in this discussion, there's been little or no comment regarding the resemblance between the two.  Is it all in my head in the form of wishful thinking or can anyone else see a relationship there?

[cannonmn]

[yt=425,350]BlAwHhTLY-M[/yt]

[Bob Smith]

Yes in theory it is possible but unfortunately not practical. You need some carbon but wrought iron has very little so the sample would be a significant part of the gun. This is compounded because the dating technique is based on statistics and there are problems the nearer you get to the modern time. Put simply you might get a date but it would be quoted as plus or minus something like 100 years - so if it came back as 1500 that would mean anywhere between 1400 and 1600 - not much better than visual means! So yes in theory but no in practice

Happy Holidays

[GGaskill]

While I don't think the process would work with a metallic subject, even a date of 1500±100 would establish the piece as an antique versus a recent reproduction or fake.

[cannonmn]

When the Tower had their contracted lab analyze the metal from the gonne, they did an analysis to find all the elements and their proportions.  If the item had been a recent reproduction, they would have found certain elements in it that you could not find in an antique.  One would be aluminum which was not refined until the late 19th C., but now contaminates everything made of ferrous metal which used any scrap metal as a source, since aluminum has been mixed in the scrap metal cycle since at least the early 20th C.  Their letter would have mentioned any such clues of un-authenticity, and it didn't.  Somewhere I have a photo of the letter report from the lab, if can scare it up I'll post it.