Findings of Early Hand Firearms from Southern Siberia

Abstract

Purpose. This article is aimed at identifying early samples of hand firearms at different Siberian territories (Buriatia, the Upper Ob region). Such facts open new perspectives for studying and reconstructing the process of development and distribution of hand firearms in Northern Asia and helps identify regional peculiarities of this historic phenomenon. Results. One of the earliest firearms found on the territory of Southern Siberia is a bronze barrel of a Chinese hand firearms discovered in the valley of the Dzhida River in Buriatia, which refers to the Ming Epoch (the Yongle period). Judging by a serial number of the gun (50138), it was manufactured at the early period of mass production of hand firearms in China, i. e. in the first quarter of the 15^th century. Currently, it is one of the earliest foreign samples of oriental firearms known in Siberia. In the Upper Ob region (in the surroundings of the Biysk Fortress (Ostrog), there was another tube of an early hand firearms found. It is of Russian origin and dates the second half of the 16^th - beginning of the 17^th century. These samples of Siberian firearms are archaic, which demonstrates a trend of using archaic weapons up to the beginning of the 18^th century in the absence or lack of modern firearms. It is quite vividly demonstrated by the materials of the artillery treasure of the Umrevinsky Ostrog (1703). Conclusion. The buffer location of Southern Siberia between the growing territories of the Tsardom of Muscovy and Ming China starting from the 1500s A.D. determined the presence of foreign hand firearms of different origin. As evidenced by written sources, they were numerous on the territories where armed conflicts took place and defensive fortifications (Ostrogs) were subsequently constructed.