In 1985, in what was then the communist nation of "East" Germany, naval divers found a bronze cannon, with cast markings of the Danish king Christian III (1534-1559), at a shipwreck site offshore near the village of Mukran (the "Mukran" wreck) on the island of Rügen. The unique bronze cannon find was viewed as a sensation, as no other bronze cannon of its kind or quality is known to ordnance experts around the world. The bronze cannon find is unique because, among other things, virtually all other breech-loaders of the period were made of iron.

Although proof is not conclusive and there is are variations of expert opinion as well as of evidence due to oddities in the cannon's design and its present physical condition, there is a consensus among most ordnance experts that two cannon parts (the "tube" (i.e., barrel) section and the "powder chamber" section) found on the Mukran shipwreck site belong together, and that together these parts form a rare bronze breech-loading cannon of a very early period.

Cast markings on the bronze cannon barrel indicate that the barrel was manufactured for the Danish king Christian III in 1551. The barrel's cast decorations include the Danish royal family's coat of arms of three lions and nine hearts. Below the Danish royal arms is the Inscription "CHRISTIAN III VON GOTTES GENAD KONIG CH THO DENEMARCEN NORWEGEN UND DER GOTEN ANNO DOMINI 1551" (Christian III, by the grace of God, King of Denmark, Norway and the Goths, year of our Lord 1551)

Experts now believe this cannon was probably cast in the Freiburg area of Germany by the gunfounder Wolfgang Hilger (1511-1577).

The bronze breech-loader is of small caliber, with the internal diameter of the bore being 5 cm, and was presumably a "one-pounder" anti-personnel or anti-rigging weapon. The breech-loader was probably a swivel gun, although the barrel may have been mounted on a timber block mount. The cannon is currently located in the Maritime Museum of Rostock, Germany, where it was deposited in 1987 - it's a shame this extremely rare Danish naval artifact is not in Denmark's Orlogsmuseet.

The hull of the Mukran shipwreck was not investigated at the time the cannon parts were originally discovered, nor was the exact location of the wreck site recorded at that time. However, after the fall of the communist regime, the Mukran wrecksite was relocated in early 1994 and archeological investigations began.

The Mukran wreck is presumed to be from the period of the Nordic Seven-Year War (1563-1570), an extremely brutal and costly war fought between Denmark and Sweden over the weighty issue of the composition of each county's national coat of arms.

The basis of the assumption that the Mukran wreck is from the Nordic Seven-Year War is that an action was fought between the Danish-Lübeck and Swedish fleets near Mukran, at the very beginning of the 1565 naval campaign season - however, a chemical analysis of the wood also indicates this date. A massive Swedish fleet had departed from Stockholm and Dalarö in early May, 1565, and had trapped some Danish and Lübeck ships on the Rügen coast where the Mukran wrecksite was later found.

The Danish-Lübeck ships were under the command of Peder Hvitfeld. Being trapped in a bay and seeing no chance of escape, four of the Danish ships - including Hvitfeld's - were run aground and ultimately destroyed by the Danes to prevent their capture. The names of the Danish ships destroyed near Mukran vary according to the account consulted, as is typical of naval source material of the period.

H.C. Garde, in his landmark Den dansk-norske Sømagts Historie, gives the Danish ships' names as Arcken, Nachtergallen, Bjørn, and Hamborger Jegeren. For a variety of reasons, the wrecksite at Mukran is currently assumed to be that of the Hamborger Jegeren which, despite implications of its name, was a Danish ship. Because of its date, the Mukran wreck is notable in itself, as there are only a few other discovered wrecks in the Baltic from this period.

Investigations into the finds at the Mukran wrecksite are continuing, and some conclusions mentioned in this article are provisional.

This summary of Christian III's bronze breech-loader, and the Mukran wrecksite from the Nordic Seven-Year War of 1563-1570, was basically extracted from Maik-Jens Springmann's article entitled "The Mukran Wreck," although other sources were consulted. Readers are encouraged to read Maik-Jens Springmann's article for fuller details of Christian III's bronze breech-loading cannon, the Mukran shipwreck, and the relevant naval actions and the involved Danish warships of 1565, at http://www.abc.se/~m10354/publ/mukran.htm