Weapons and Defensive Armour Dating to the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period from the Excavations in the Large Garden Square in the Moscow Kremlin

This publication reviews items of weaponry and defensive armour dating to the second half of the 13th-17th centuries from the excavations conducted in the Large Garden Square of the Moscow Kremlin in 2018-2021. It carefully describes details of cold weapons, throwing weapons and firearms, munition as well as fragments of defensive armour. Most finds date to the period of the Moscow State from the 16th through the 17th centuries. A large number of details and decoration elements of firearms are of special interest. A smaller group of items dates from the second half of the 13th-15th centuries. The presence of these finds in the occupation layer is explained by a large number of the military accommodated inside the Moscow Kremlin, fighting and sieges in the Middle Ages and the early Modern period as well as the operation of shops that produced and repaired weaponry, including the Armory.