Archaeologists have made a fascinating discovery near the Great Wall of China, unearthing Stone Grenades dating back 400 years to the Ming dynasty. These grenades bear warnings to guards about potential threats from enemies, shedding light on this period of Chinese history. The find, comprising 59 stone grenades, was located in a building believed to have been used for storage, according to China’s Xinhua state media.
The stone grenades were discovered near the Badaling Great Wall, a section constructed during the Ming Dynasty, situated approximately 80 kilometers northwest of Beijing. While no images of the objects have been released, they are expected to resemble hand-held thunder-crash bombs made from pottery shells, a common type of weapon from that era in China.
These ancient stone grenades have a distinctive central opening for loading gunpowder, similar to those used by guards stationed along the Great Wall during the Ming Dynasty. Shang Heng, a researcher from the Beijing Institute of Archaeology, explained that when loaded with gunpowder, these grenades could be sealed, and thrown, and had the potential to both hit the enemy and explode. This discovery is the first known instance of such a cache of weapons being found along the Great Wall.
Gunpowder is believed to have originated in China during the 900s, and by the time of the Ming Dynasty, a variety of gunpowder weapons were already in use in East Asia. The Great Wall, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is a vast network of defensive fortifications spanning thousands of miles in modern-day northern China and southern Mongolia.
