Thousands Of Cannonballs Discovered In Southern India

AncientPages.com - One of the largest cache of ammunition has been unearthed in four pits, during the last eleven days of excavation works at the Fort St Angelo, informed the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).

Until now, as many as 35950 cannonballs have been found and it will begin a long process to “clean and chemically treat the cannonballs, which might take a few weeks, before which we would not be able to tell anything about the history,” according to  ASI archaeologist C. Kumaran.

St. Angelo Fort, Kannur, built by Portuguese in 1505. Credits: wikipedia

"It is a really huge harvest of cannonballs, and now the task is to preserve it after segregating and chemically treating the balls," archaeologist T Sreelakshmi of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) told The Times of India.

Fort at Kannur (St. Angelo Fort) in Southern India - Pen-and-ink drawing of the fort at Kannur by Thomas Cussans (1796-1870). credits: wikipedia

"We are not sure whether such a huge stock has ever been unearthed from anywhere in the world and we have to corroborate with evidences from history to find out why such a huge quantity was dumped in the pits, thus making sure it would not be reused."

Fort St Angelo, today, the historic monument, is located  in southern India on the coast of the Arabian Sea, and it was constructed by the Portuguese in 1505.

Later it changed hands by the occupying forces, and was controlled by the Dutch, the British and also the Arakkal dynasty of Kannur.

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source: The Times of India