Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post

Matchlock · 18th March 2014, 11:24 AM

Hi Mark,

You called and here I am, right at your service

,

What you've got here may well be a small clay hand grenade of ca. 15th to 18th c. type. This does not necessarily mean that your little clay guy is of Western provenance; it may be Oriental and go back to ancient times when Greek Fire was employed.

As I tried to show, hand grenades often even consisted of greenish to yellowish glass in the 17th and 18th centuries. I attached photos of some, together with clay grenades, from the vast supplies of Forchtenstein Castle, Austria, and two period illustrations.

There is a very detailed recent Austrian study by Franz Felberbauer, "Die Handgranaten der Grenadiere der Fürsten Esterházy aus Gusseisen und Ton im Zeughaus der Burg Forchtenstein" (the cast-iron and clay hand grenades for the grenadiers of the Princes Esterházy, at the Armory of Forchtenstein Castle), in: Waffen und Kostümkunde, 2012, vol. 2, pp. 181-220, and 2014, vol. 1, pp. 1-52.
I scanned a few images from that essay and posted them here for you.

The two photos at the bottom of the clay grenades in the glass case, together with the two model cannon carriages, I took some 25 years ago in the Fortress Oberhaus, Passau, Lower Bavaria.

Please see also my thread on incendiary items, grenades, quoits etc.:
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7085

Best,
Michael

18th March 2014, 11:24 AM	#3
Matchlock (deceased) Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Bavaria, Germany - the center of 15th and 16th century gunmaking Posts: 4,310	Hi Mark, You called and here I am, right at your service , What you've got here may well be a small clay hand grenade of ca. 15th to 18th c. type. This does not necessarily mean that your little clay guy is of Western provenance; it may be Oriental and go back to ancient times when Greek Fire was employed. As I tried to show, hand grenades often even consisted of greenish to yellowish glass in the 17th and 18th centuries. I attached photos of some, together with clay grenades, from the vast supplies of Forchtenstein Castle, Austria, and two period illustrations. There is a very detailed recent Austrian study by Franz Felberbauer, "Die Handgranaten der Grenadiere der Fürsten Esterházy aus Gusseisen und Ton im Zeughaus der Burg Forchtenstein" (the cast-iron and clay hand grenades for the grenadiers of the Princes Esterházy, at the Armory of Forchtenstein Castle), in: Waffen und Kostümkunde, 2012, vol. 2, pp. 181-220, and 2014, vol. 1, pp. 1-52. I scanned a few images from that essay and posted them here for you. The two photos at the bottom of the clay grenades in the glass case, together with the two model cannon carriages, I took some 25 years ago in the Fortress Oberhaus, Passau, Lower Bavaria. Please see also my thread on incendiary items, grenades, quoits etc.: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7085 Best, Michael Attached Images Last edited by Matchlock; 18th March 2014 at 02:01 PM.