O ARCHEBUZĂ DIN SECOLUL AL XVII-LEA DESCOPERITĂ ÎN TÂRGUL ROMANULUI
A Seventeenth-Century Harquebus Discovered in Roman

Summary/Abstract: In 2012, on the occasion of the renovation of the library “George Radu Melidon” in Roman, which lies on a plot that once belonged to the medieval town of Roman, after a survey inside the yard (marked as S.I) we identified the side of a dwelling that proved to be a manufactory. One of the first objects discovered in the manufactory (which had been was destroyed by fire) was a bronze barrel badly damaged by corrosion, doubled by traces of burning and by pieces of carbonized wood. After restoration, the object proved to be an harquebus. The barrel, circular inside and hexagonal outside, presented an aperture for slow match and a perforation at the end for fixing it on a piece of wood for a longer weapon. Dimensions: barrel – length – 450mm; thickness – 10mm; mouth diameter – 30mm; calibre – 17mm; diameter of the support – 38mm) and the hook (length – 40mm; width – 20mm). Total weight –2.700 kg. We could not identify the mark of the manufactory but we supposed that the weapon could be locally manufactured (in Transylvania) or imported from the German states or from Bohemia. The weapon (a transitory model from heavy guns with a thick, long and heavy barrel, to those with a thin, short and small-weight barrel) can be chronologically assigned to the 17th, taking into account the other materials found in the manufactory such as coins and tools. The presence of the weapon in this location can be explained by its condition – the broken barrel that needed some repair. Until now the discovery of such a weapon type remains singular for the area of today’s Moldavia, but for the territory of medieval Moldavia we can also count a piece from Cetatea Albă discovered in 1929 and dated in the period of Stephen the Great (Stefan cel Mare).

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