A 17th century bronze cannon made in the Netherlands and 11 cannon balls were discovered in a modern ship that was being dismantled in Izmir, Turkey. The cannon and balls have gone on display at the Izmir Culture and Arts Factory.
The modern ship had been transported to Izmir to be broken up for scrap. Workers found the cannon in the ship’s restaurant and notified cultural heritage authorities. Archaeologists from the Izmir Museum examined the cannon and determined that it was made in the Netherlands in the 17th century.
At that time, the Netherlands had a sophisticated, powerful navy and was at the forefront of European artillery production in cast bronze and later iron. Foundries in Rotterdam, Amsterdam, The Hague, Delft and Utrecht produced cannon for the Netherlands fleet and for export. The seals of their foundries on the barrel were valued as a mark of quality in their time, and today they identify the producers and year of production. The Izmir cannon bears the mark of the Ouderogge family foundry and dates it to 1634.
Once the origins were determined, Turkey’s cultural heritage ministry contacted their counterparts in the Netherlands to discuss whether the cannon and balls should be repatriated. The Netherlands decided they should remain in Turkey for conservation and exhibition.
Dutch Ambassador to Ankara, Joep Wijnands, also stated that he knew the artifacts were in safe hands, saying , “We have a 400-year relationship. This has become a beautiful example of solidarity between the two countries. It is wonderful that such an artifact has been recovered from the ship.”
Abandoned cannons on sandy beaches seem in Turkey not unheard of:
A few years ago, I had to sift through the 1950ies slides from my dead grandpa, mainly from Turkey, where he had spent a couple of years, then get rid of almost all of them, but I kept the vaguely interesting ones, with people, friends and family that I knew.
Roughly 250 slides, enough to fill one single box, I still have. On exactly two of them, we see beaches with abandoned cannons! Therefore, in case that anyone would know the spots, please let me know … I had posted that stuff ages ago, …and here it…
The headline made it appear that the cannon was going to be scrapped. However, the text did not indicate that this was the case, just that it was going to be retained in Turkiye. I would imagine that a good sized 17th century bronze cannon would be worth much more as an artifact that the scrap value of the metal.
It’s the way the headline is written. It’s confusing. The ship was scrapped, not the cannon (although I guess it would have been scrapped along with the ship if they hadn’t recognized it!)
…the links to my ‘two mysterious Anatolian beach cannons’ may -or may not- appear on here, but there is probably an explanation, why ancient cannons had ended up down there. The ‘modern’ ship mentioned was apparently not the first one to get scrapped.
While the modern ship’s restaurant used the cannon as decoration, previous traders to Anatolia and the Levant had in the Mediterranean been -up to the 1800s- under constant threat of Barbary corsairs, and roughly a million of Europeans were enslaved.
Similarities to current events at the Strait of Hormus are no coincidence.
I don’t see any links, but there’s a chance that if there enough identifying landmarks in your slides perhaps a deep AI search could list possible locations.