Are these actually firebombs or...?
 

Hello Gentlemen,

Recently I was interested in obtaining what is often being called as "islamic terracot (ceramic) grenade (firebomb)". For better understanding I place a picture, but it's just one of several kinds, there are also round shapes, etc:

However, during my search I collected several opinions: that they were bottles for mercury, for any liquid substanse or so. As an evidence for this point of view we can take, that many of them are decorated. What is the reason to decorate a bomb? - anyway it will blow up.

So what do you think, are those actually bombs or not?

Thank you

Well, i cannot answer your question, but i do not think that it can be discounted as a bomb merely because it is decorated. It was common practice to decorate bombs in WWII AFAIK. :shrug:

This has been a ong time debate and still is. To my own opinion they are bombs; were found in various historic battle grounds from about 8th century AD to the 15th century - the late Mameluke period. Same basic pattern was first use as a greek fire container/bomb and the later pattern like this one was possible a grenade, filled with black powder, hence they have thick walls.
Examples from Israel: during the excavation of the crusader citadel of Beth She'an (mid 13th century), tens of thousands of shards were found in the surrounding moat.
A large amount of unused clay bombs was found underwater, within cargo of pure military intent - helmets, cannons, on a wreck of a ~1450 Mameluke ship.
Much recently, wild boars uncovered one from the mud while sniffing for food in the bush (local nature reserve rangers found it), under the huge Ayyubic fortress remains of Qal'at Namrud.
They can be white, black, brown, reddish and even green-glazed, not to mention the glass type, plain and decorated.

Can the decorations be considered not as decorations but as clear indicators of the type of explosion charge it carried??? I am sure there would have been differing charges for different applications. :shrug:

Gav

As Gav suggests and perhaps just to aid in grip. You wouldn't want a smooth sided grenade :eek:

Since there are smooth surface 'bombs' the question of the decorations is good enough. I believe, that in the later, explosive ones it is to asist fragmentation.
I managed to find a photo of the 'bomb' uncovered by boars mentioned above.

A good conclusion, thank you for your thoughts and the image/data.

Gavin