2. GH2021 investigation of the earliest naval artillery

Identifier

GH2021_R2_P2

Title

Description

Gribshunden was among the first generation of ships designed specifically to carry artillery. The ship carried a mixed battery of large gunpowder weapons, represented archaeologically by the remains of several wooden gun carriages. Nine carriages were recovered from the site in previous interventions (Einarsson and Wallbom, 2002). A tenth carriage was recovered during the 2021campaign. The environmental conditions at the wreck site have reduced the iron elements of most of the guns. However, one of the metal detection targets we identified in November 2020 proved to be a very large wrought iron gun, inverted and apparently intact in its carriage, and with two breech chambers adjacent to it on either side. We documented this weapon, and left it in situ off the port quarter of the wreck for possible future recovery (See figure 1 & figure 4). We recovered one of the breech chambers (find A7), and at LU scanned it with X-Ray Computed Tomography and performed chemical analysis of the residue contained within the chamber. Results are pending, and will be published in scientific journals and presented at the 7thInternational Congress of Underwater Archaeology in Helsinki, June 2022.