The Cannon. A Tool for Delimiting Maritime Space

A brief overview of the restoration project on the cannon preserved in Derry~Londonderry

In the modern age of high-powered, nitrocellulose based artillery it is often difficult to describe or even to find information on early artillery performance. Writers in the 16th and 1 7th centuries wrote artillery treatises that laid out how artillerists should perform their duties and how the cannon ought to behave, but this is not to say that they are necessarily accurate records of what actually happened. What they write is often only qualitative in nature, for period artillerists could not have accurately measured the behaviour of a cannon shot, even if they had wanted to. The few texts we have that relate to the manufacture of the cannon are also often unsatisfactory in one way or another in terms of artillery performance: manufacturers either would not have been concerned with the performance of their products on the field or they could not have quantified it. Perhaps the most glaring omission of these early writers, through no fault of their own, is the lack of any velocity data for the projectiles. Instead, we have ranges, but again, these are more often than not idealized ranges. This paper and its forthcoming companion paper intend to examine the external ballistics of spherical cannon balls using period gunnery treatises that recorded what was supposed to happen with cannonball flight, as well as modern information on fluid mechanics to attempt an explanation for their actual, or at least supposed, performance. This article is divided into two parts, historical perceptions of cannon ball ballistics and data from period gunnery texts, to suggest how contemporaries understood cannonball behavior. From these two we can derive some initial understanding of how they believed their ordnance behaved. … In the end the goal is understand both how users apprehended the behaviour of their cannon, how cannonballs actually fly, and particularly reconcile the two without resorting to an argument that the gunners were 'illiterate' or 'guessing' or simply 'clueless'. Period gunnery books were for something and purported to record the technical (read: real) effects of their technologies; that they do not always record what we would today consider 'correct' data is in itself worth investigating.

The purpose of this essay is to engage your thinking in the process of Canonization. We are going to initially approach this subject with trying to ascertaining exactly what this word means, how the process of canon came about from both Testaments, what were the issues involved in the process of canonization, who were the major players and other objections, thus as we define the word canon, the issue involved, and translation. The word “canon” comes from the Greek kanōn which is derived form a Semitic root (Hebrew hgq qāneh, Assyrian qanȗ, [Sumerian-] Akkadiain qin, Ugaritic qn). It passed into Greek as kpthrion Kritēron kanna or kanē, into Latin as canna, and English as cane. It originally meant “reed” “measuring rod” or “measuring stick” (English “canon”) and came to mean something firm and straight. In Greek the word was used to indicate a stave, a weaver’s rod, a curtain rod, a bedpost, and a stick kept for drawing a straight line or as constant reference for measuring such as level, plumb lime, or ruler. It then took on metaphoric meanings such as model, standard, paradigm, boundary, chronological list, and tax or tariff schedule. In the NT “canon” means rule standard (Phil 3:16, in some mss. Gal 6:16), or limit (2Cor 10:15:13, 15-16) In early church literature it came to be used to refer to biblical law, and ideal person, an article of faith, doctrine, catalogue, table of contents, a list of persons ordained or sainted. In

International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, 1996

Crespo Solana, Ana; Castro, Filipe; & Nayling, Nigel, (eds.) Heritage and the Sea. Vol. 2: Maritime History and Archaeology of the Global Iberian World (15th-18th centuries). Springer Nature, Nueva York, pp. 297-338., 2022

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Society for Historical Archaeology, 2018

www.laetusinpraesens.org, 2024

Canon and cannon as tragically entangled in global strategy Review of indications of the pattern that connects Requisite variety of perspectives for comprehension Pattern connectivity through counterpoint in a multi-voice canon Indications of connectivity in a 36-voice canon Application of canon patterning to governance: Deo Gratias versus Hegemonia Application of canon patterning to law and gaming Subjective implication of symmetry, harmony and balance in the pattern that connects Integrative role of composer / conductor as paradoxical constraints on improvisation and diversity