TL;DR New York Metropolitan Museum of Art webpage has a wrongly dated an Asian cannon, which if it was true would alter most of what we know of gunpowder weapon development. It’s actually a trivial affair, but we can always use some drama in our lives.

Some days ago a user (not connected to badhistory in question itself in anyway) posted an innocent question over on AskHistorians:

I've recently stumbled upon an article of these Southeast Asian cannons. It is mentioned that these cannons are breech-loaded. However, I cannot find any account on how they are operated, including how exactly the breech is sealed. I'm hoping someone here might know more. Thanks in advance!

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/Cet-bang_Majapahit.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/Meriam_museum_bali.jpg

I looked at the images, recognized the cannons as common (european in origin) breech loader design and specifically Asian versions of it, and I gave an answer to the question of the technicalities of breech loaders.

Some short time after that, I revisited the question to revel in the karma read the response comment, and this time I actually went and dug up the pictures in wikipedia to read about them. There to my amazement I saw that the first image - this one - is used in several different wikipedia historical articles claiming these were cetbang type, which is asian by origin (my raised eyebrow) and specifically from the 14th century (second raised eyebrow)

To my disbelief claim is actually strongly sourced to the … New York Metropolitan Museum of Art (at this point I am in my full wtf face).

Unfortunately, the source of the claim is really there. Here is the direct link and you can see it as it is:

Period:Majapahit period (1296–1520)

Date:ca. 14th century

Culture:Indonesia (Java)

Now, I know what you are thinking: this guy over the internet can’t know more than a museum. Well I definitely don’t but I do know this little thing, and for some reason they don’t and it is bothering me and that’s why we are all here today.

At this point we might as well finally start with the R5:

The reason why I don’t think there is even the slightest chance this cannon is 14th century, can be brought down to two main items:

• This cannon looks nothing like any cannon in the 14th century whether it was European, Chinese, Indian, or wherever

• This cannon looks exactly like 16th century European cannon brought to Asia by Portuguese .

I won’t give much time to explaining 1) but I suggest anyone who is interested to check works of Brackenbury, Tout, Needham and Khan, to read about examples of 14th century cannon around the globe and you will see nothing so developed like the cannon in question

I will, though, focus on the 2) part.

Basically, when I say “looks exactly like” I don’t mean that it’s just similar idea, or mechanism of breech loading, or even just the general shape. No I mean literally they look like straight up copies, or guns from the same series even.
The shape of the muzzle mouth, the position and shape of the trunnions for mounting, the connector for tiller in the back, the box shaped miche container for the breech chamber with a slot in the bottom and on the sides for the wedge (image clarifying terminology). Sizes are different, as the Asian cannon is much smaller, but the details matching is too perfect. Just compare the shape of this cannon with several of the cannons from the archaeological finds from 16th century Portuguese shipwrecks or surviving similar cannons from european museums.

The closeness of the shapes are too much for it to be coincidental, especially when spread between two continents and 150ish years.

Of course, one may say:well maybe the Europeans took the design from asians, how about that option? However, we have so much european examples of breech loading cannon you can really trace the development of the breech loading in Europe, from it’s beginnings in the 15th century, through futher stages of development with cannon mounted on wooden bed, to swivel mounted versions, to versions that started to get into shape we are looking at, to finally being completely this full “mature” form.

We also have additional corroboration of european origin of breech loaders in works of Needham where it is specifically stated the Chinese encountered, and eagerly adopted, the breech loading design after European arrival in the area, to the point they literally called the gun “Frankish gun”. If SE asians had such guns since 150 years before why did the chinese adopt them only after portuguese came?

The wealth of evidence that the breech loaders are from in Europe is so high that it is actually not even an issue among any historians that deal with the firearms, and is universally accepted so I really don’t know is there any point in providing further examples. At the same time this is the only cannon of such shape we have in SE Asia that is claimed to be pre 16th century and the reasons for it to be claimed remain unknown. I think the case is clear.

But let’s not just leave this at this point, though we might. Despite the cannon obviously not being pre-1500, there is still a question of when exactly was it made and by whom and why. While it’s general shape is portuguese, it does have Asian markings and absence of portuguese markings makes it unlikely to be portuguese, and overall it is much smaller than the portuguese ones of similar shape.

Curious case had arisen lately when a swivel gun thought to be Portuguese was found in the coast of Australia. This report (Dundee report - PDF link) concluded that, according to them (there still seems to be a debate on the final verdict) that gun is likely to be one of numerous SE Asian copies of Portuguese guns.

Report actually states four possibilities what cannons found could be:

1) Portuguese made cannon for Portuguese use

2) Portuguese made cannon for sale to Asian customers

3) Asian made cannon of Portuguese style for sale

4) Asian made cannon of Asian style for sale

A cynic might add a fifth one: a modern fake, but I actually don’t think this is the case here.

The Dundee cannon article I linked by some weird chance actually gives us a possible explanation. In the chapter 4.2 of the report we have mention of some cannons which can be found on an auction site. Here is the link to that page. There we have three cannons, two of which are roughly equal in size to the one in the Musuem (35½" and 34½ inches vs 37 inch for the museum piece). And while the three are heavily corroded, my subjective view is they are strikingly similar to the one in the Met museum. The auction site offers following explanation of their origin:

Three bronze Portuguese breech lock cannons c1589-1600 found on a Portuguese shipwreck off the island of Ternate Dutch East Indies.
These cannons were of small size and could have probably been used for barter for trade in the Dutch East Indies or were used as samples by a Portuguese salesman working for a gun company in Portugal.
The cannons look as if they have been in the ocean for some time but are still stable. They measure No 1: 25½" No 2: 35½" and No3: 34½"

This doesn't really mean much, as the auction site is actually a much worse source then the museum and doesn’t offer any of their references or methods for its description. And even if it did before we accept anything from them we should double, even triple, check it. But we can't.

However my personal opinion is that weighing the probabilities it is more likely that the cannon of Met museum shares origin with those cannons rather then being a pure asian 14th century cannon, if not directly then indirectly just by being a similar item by origin and purpose: a small example cannon, made for trade or show to the local population in the later 16th century.

Whatever the case is with the auction, I think it is clear from the abundance of evidence the cannon from the Met museum is post-1500.

I tried contacting the museum directly about this, but their contact page doesn’t really give proper address for such complains, and the ones I did send it too didn’t answer anything yet (or acknowledged my mail in any way other than an auto reply response)