MEDIEVAL SIEGE MISSILE

Egg shaped natural stone, about 2 ½” greatest dimension, projected over castle walls to damage wood infrastructure and well as kill or wound its occupants. Stones of uniform and near perfect shape were selected to assure the uniformity of a series of launches allowing for aiming corrections between shots. They were launched by a trebuchet. This example is from the Howard Knapp collection with its original collection number. It was recovered at Königstein Castle, Hesse, Germany, between Frankfurt and Wiesbaden. The castle ruins stand today with the earliest portions reduced to the ground floor in the 14th century and rebuilt and fragmented several times thereafter with several buildings in the town of Königstein constructed from the castle stone. Rarely encountered with such specific and historic information.