Incendiary device? Grenade? Or what?

[fernando]

Originally Posted by M ELEY

... BTW, Fernando, do you still have your excellent clay example you made the fuse for? She was a beaut as well...

Yes ... and i was later cherished with an early real fuse by an illustrious acquaintance; but it so delicate and fragile, that i decided to keep it in an acrylic box and let the fake stay in the grenade.
This Ingolstadt example measures 13,5 cms in diameter and weighs 2680 grs.

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[M ELEY]

Yes, that's the one! Hey, yours really is bigger than mine! That fuse is incredible! Hmm, I wonder of which acquaintance you speak?

I love the markings on the outside of yours. Are they some sort of arsenal marking? They really highlight the piece. For that matter, on Barry's examples (thanks for adding these, Vandoo!) we see rather elaborate decorations on those 10th-12 c. grenades. Seems odd to produce such artistic expression on an item meant to be quickly destroyed? I first thought they were just to add a better gripping surface, but now I'm not so sure.

[Andi]

A Grenade or Fire Pot found in the Elizabethan shipwreck off the Island of Alderney of the 1580s/1590s. And a drawing of a publication cieted as "Andrew 1964". The Alderney Museum, Alderney, Guernsey

http://www.alderneywreck.com/index.p...facts/grenades

[Andi]

Originally Posted by M ELEY

........... I love the markings on the outside of yours. Are they some sort of arsenal marking? They really highlight the piece. For that matter, on Barry's examples (thanks for adding these, Vandoo!) we see rather elaborate decorations on those 10th-12 c. grenades. Seems odd to produce such artistic expression on an item meant to be quickly destroyed? I first thought they were just to add a better gripping surface, but now I'm not so sure.

On his little article about the grenades at Ingolstadt Stadtmuseum on http://www.ingolstadt.de/stadtmuseum...m/r-36-004.htm the purpose of the markings are unknown to the author and director of the museum Kurt Scheuerer. The grenades were found under a roofed construction at the cities town wall which was supposed to be a workshop where the grenades were made. My theory is that the markings on the grenades represent manufacturers signs of the potters like stone cutter's marks on building stones of medieval cathedrals.

Fernando, congratulations to your nice precious... As we can not afford original piece we ordered some reconstructions of the Ingolstadt grenades from our potter which we will - hopefully - receive next month

[fernando]

Thank you Andi.
For general perusal, here are pictures of the place where the grenades were found, the recovery and a crosssection of one of them at the museum.


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[fernando]

Manual fire devices were a vital means of combat in periods like the 16th/17th centuries. Their use was massive and a resource much greater than cannons, i guess for both economic and technologic reasons. Episodes of combats involving such devices narrated by period chroniclers are abundant. Fire pots, panelas de polvora in portuguese (meaning gunpowder pans) were thrown or dropped onto the enemy, either in naval combats as also on land, like sieges and other, with extreme efficiency. Apparently the Portuguese (also) used the skill of German specialists they had in their ranks in the making of these devices.
To give an idea of how these things were a rather significant part of the armament, here is an inventory of the Mombaça fortification, mentioned by chronicler Antonio Bocarro (1594-1642):

16 cannons (5 iron and 11 bronze)
32 muskets
113 haquebuts
1000 cannon balls (713 iron and the balance of stone)
40 small boxes of lead bullets for the shoulder arms.
238 kegs of gunpowder
578 panelas de polvora (fire pots)
138 grenades
36 fire lances
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