However, some experts believe these fist sized vessels were actually used to carry perfume. The hand grenade is similar to those sued during the Crusades between the 11th to 13th Century and until the Mamluk period from the 13th Century to the 16th Century. Metal mortar and pestles, along with fragments of candlesticks dating to the 11th Century AD – known as the Fatimid period – were also among the collection. The oldest of the objects in the collection include a 3,500-year-old Bronze Age knife head and a toggle pin. His family handed them over to the Israel Antiquities Authority following his death. The grenade was recovered from the sea, along with a haul of other ancient artefacts, over several years by Marcel Mazliah, a worker at the Hadera power plant in northern Israel. 'Inside they would have put alcohol and lit a fuse poked in a hole in the top before throwing it towards the enemy ships.' 'It is made of a heavy clay and would have been used much like a Molotov cocktail. These grenades were flung at enemy ships in an attempt to burn the wooden vessels.ĭiego Barkan, an archaeologist with the Israel Antiquities Authority, told MailOnline: 'These hand grenades were being used in the Byzantine and early Islamic period right up until the Ottomans. The clay device, which would have been filled with a flammable liquid with a burning fuse poked through a hole in the top, is thought to be about 700 years old. However, by the Napoleonic wars the use of hand grenades had fallen out of use until they were revived in the trench warfare of the First World War. By the 14th Century they had started to use cast iron to hold the gunpowder.īy the 17th Century cast iron gunpowder based grenades, which used a fuse in the top, were being used in Europe and regiments of grenadiers were formed. The Chinese also began packing gunpowder into clay or glass containers to make grenades in around 1044AD. They were popular weapons in naval battles as the fire could easily spread on ships and cause devastation.įrom around the 12th century Muslims in Syria were also known to use clay and glass grenades. They were often piled into catapults to increase the range and devastation they caused. Clay vessels were filled with flammable liquid known as Greek fire and flung at the enemy. They are first thought to have been used by the Byzantine Empire from around the seventh century AD. Although they rose to prominence as weapons during the 20th century, grenades have a long history.
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