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An strange cannon found underwater off the coast of Sweden in 2001 may be the oldest shipboard throttle ever discovered in Europe , a fresh subject area finds .
Pieces of textile found inside the object — imagine to be the stiff of a purse for gunpowder know as a cartouch — have beenradiocarbon - datedto the fourteenth C , make the cannon one of the former of its kind and mayhap the oldest shipboard carom in Europe on record .
An analysis of cloth found inside the cannon suggests it dates from the 14th century — and that the weapon was charged with gunpowder and ready to fire.
The analysis also let on that the weapon was charged and ready for use , have in mind it was n’t just being enrapture for usage on domain .
Rather than shooting metallic element cannonballs , the early carom was designed to fire ball of rock against attackers , enounce study lead authorStaffan von Arbin , a doctoral student in marine archaeology at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden .
" This type of former cannon most definitely send away endocarp shot , " von Arbin told Live Science in an e-mail . " The intention was not to slump an enemy vessel . These gas were ' anti - personnel ' weapons — they were just used to ' unclutter the deck of cards ' of an foeman vas . "
Cannons of this type were fitted to wooden gun carriages so they could be aimed and fired. This one is from a 16th-century shipwreck off the coast of Belgium.
The author of the study , published Aug. 3 in the journalThe Mariner ’s Mirror , do n’t know if the early shank was conform to to a merchant vessel or a warship , but they hope to lick the mystery by exploring the submersed location where it was discovered .
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Early cannon
The carom was found at a depth of about 60 understructure ( 20 meters ) and about 3 miles ( 5 kilometers ) SW of the island of Marstrand on Sweden ’s west coast .
The archaeologist evoke that the cannon came from a ship that had cave in at the location , maybe after strike the skerry — a low rock — of Kleningen , which is a few hundred foot to the Dixieland . But they also acknowledged that it could have been accidentally dropped or thrown overboard from a ship in distress .
The shank is almost 19 inch ( 47.5 centimeters ) long and roughly funnel - shaped , with a minute powder bedchamber at the back and a full barrel measuring more than 7 inches ( 18.5 cm ) across at the front . Other cannons of this case were fit with a wooden gun coach so they could be aimed .
Von Arbin said such funnel - mold cannons were the first type used in Europe after the technology was introduce there in the 13th century , probably via the Middle East . The precise reason for the distinctive material body is not known , but it may have had something to do with the way they were load .
Copper alloy
The researchers also examined the cannon ’s metal body with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry ( ICP - MS ) , a technique that ionise a bantam sample distribution of a substance with a high - temperature blood plasma and take apart the resulting gas .
They were expect the cannon to be made of gunmetal , which is a bronze made from copper and tin with significant amount of Zn and nickel to make it more durable . Instead , they found that it was made of a copper alloy with comparatively small amounts of tin and high-pitched amounts of tether , which would have made it relatively brickly .
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The researchers take down this alloy was undesirable for hired gun - making , and they surmise it was used because better alloy were not known at that prison term .
Von Arbin noted that the Baltic washeavily traffic by trading shipsin the fourteenth C and that merchandiser vessels were often arm against pirates and the ships of foe Carry Nation .
The location where the shank was constitute is very exposed , and any shipwreck there is plausibly broken up , he say . However , he hope that an analysis of the seafloor could find some cadaver of the cannon and that more dates and the origins of the ship could be revealed bydendrochronology , a technique that probe tree growing halo in wood to determine when and where it grew .
