Late Gothic Crossbows and Accouterments

[Andi]

Archaeological Museum Hamburg is actually excavates some medieval housing sites along a street in Hamburg-Harburg which directs to the former main passage via the River Elbe to Hamurg. At one site they found at least 3 chrossbow nuts made from deers horn as well as a lot of crossbow bolts and musquete barrels dating to approx. 15th century. As they found also lots of other bone and horn objects they suppose that it was a bone carvers house, but the extraordinary high amount of other projectiles may also alow an other interpretation of the houses inhabitants profession.

Here is a photo which I made in August 2012 showing one of the corssbow nuts in comparison with such an object in a reconstructed corssbow. Unfortunately the museum has no information about this crossbow, neither its origin nor its dating. It was found in the museums inventory without any information. They believe it is an early modern reconstruction, maybe of the 19th century.