Archaeologists find cannonballs of Dracula's army in Bulgaria

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Count Dracula is known today for not hesitating to use fangs and supernatural powers to bring his victims to the next world. But let's return from the character in the novel by Bram Stoker, who inspired countless works about vampires, to a real person. Apparently Vlad Tepes preferred to have several cannonballs on hand.

Archeologists in Bulgaria recently unearthed cannonballs in the Bulgarian city of Svishtov, which was once conquered by the Romanian prince Vlad III. Known as Vlad the Impaler, he likely served as the inspiration for Stoker's bloodthirsty antagonist.

During his reign, considered one of the most ruthless rulers in history, Vlad III often encountered the Ottoman Turks. The conflict escalated in 1461, when Vlad and his army launched an offensive against the Zishtov fortress in Svishtov. Today, archaeologists have discovered during the excavation of this place a whole collection of centuries-old cannonballs, which, possibly, belonged to Vlad and, most likely, were used in the assault on the Zishtov castle.

These cannonballs were fired from coulevrin, the medieval ancestor of muskets and light cannons, which used ammunition weighing up to 7 kilograms, relatively light compared to later models. Leading archaeologist Nikolai Ovcharov from the National Institute and Museum of Archeology in Sofia said what makes these artifacts especially fascinating. “In fact, we were very happy with these little cannonballs, because they were made for kulevrin,” Ovcharov explained in an interview with Fox News. "These were the very first cannons, which began to be used in the 15th century and were used until the 16th century, after which they were abandoned everywhere."

This battle took place as Vlad tried to recapture the region from the Turks who had previously captured it. The region was occupied during the time of the Roman Empire and was abandoned after the barbarian invasions. The Zishtov fortress was built much later, and Vlad III made it his home after he recaptured it from his enemies.

Despite the fact that Vlad used real cannons to capture the fortress, this does not mean at all that some of the victims of the battle were not impaled. A letter from Vlad Dracula to the king of Hungary has survived, in which he boasted that he took the fortress after a fierce battle and that about 410 Turks were killed during the siege. Some of them were probably impaled in Dracula's favorite style.

And in continuation of the topic, we will reveal the secret of the mirror of Dracula, which is hidden in the most mysterious mansion of St. Petersburg.